How do I make my toggle switch make my guitar go from distorted to clean?

I recently got this question---thought some of us here might enjoy the read...

QUESTION: I just bought a new guitar today, and it's my first that has a rhythm/ treble toggle switch. i've seen my friend use the toggle switch to go back and forth between clean and distorted. how do i do this? My amp is a Line 6 Spider IV. They make a footswitch for it--but I can't afford it now.


ANSWER: I think I can help you. First let me give you a quick "Toggle Switch 101 Class". All your toggle switch does is turn pickups on and off. If you have a Stratocaster for example (with three pickups), when your toggle switch is all the way down, only your bridge pickup will be on. If your toggle switch is in one of the middle positions--you'll get a mixture of your bridge, middle and neck position pickups. And if you have it all the way up--only your neck position pickup will be on.

The purpose for having this switch is simple--different pickups or combos of pickups produce different tones. The bridge pickup is commonly called the "lead pickup”, especially in rock music, because it generates a distinct mid-range tone that cuts through the mix and is heard easily. Other players, like jazz and blues players love the warm tones generated by the other pickups.

I'm going to take a leap here and assume that what you’re going for is an effect I've heard Ace Frehley (of KISS) pull off many times. He flips his toggle switch back and forth rapidly and produces these really cool stuttered bursts of sound. This actually works with clean or distorted amp settings, but as a rock player I think it sounds best through an overdriven/distorted amp.

This technique works best if you are using a guitar that only has two (2) pickups-a lead (bridge) pickup and a neck pickup. Here’s what you do: Turn the volume on your neck position pickup all the way off. When you have things set up like this, you will notice that you get full sound when your toggle switch is all the way down in the “bridge” position, and zero sound when you flip it up. So, when you rapidly flip back and forth you create this cool effect.

Experiment with this and see what you discover.

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