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So, WTH is "Great Tone?"


charlie brown

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Do they have Guitar player rehab?! [unsure]](*,)[flapper]

 

Yes, actually. I have found a number of organizations always eager to help me... MF, AMS, Sweetwater, Reverb... and any number of local brick and mortar operations as well. I always feel better after visiting. [biggrin]

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I know...that's the problem! [tongue][scared][biggrin]

 

CB

 

 

I will say this... I get rid of stuff. If I have not played it in a while it may well be headed to Reverb - especially pedals. That helps offset the new purchases a bit.

 

I also have a couple of good friends with whom I swap gear (and sometimes swap back). We all benefit from the changeovers that way - it's like swap shop.

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I will say this... I get rid of stuff. If I have not played it in a while it may well be headed to Reverb - especially pedals. That helps offset the new purchases a bit.

 

I also have a couple of good friends with whom I swap gear (and sometimes swap back). We all benefit from the changeovers that way - it's like swap shop.

 

That's Great! I find it's better not to be left to my own devices, or cravings! [scared][biggrin]

 

 

CB

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searching for tone is a trap. i don't. in fact, when in the rehearsal studio, i rarely adjust the controls on the amp other than the vol. usually whatever the other guy before me used is often good enough, and the ones on my board pretty much stay where i've put them. there are some amps i like better than others but generally i can sound like me thru nearly anything. not that sounding like me is special or anything. there's just nothing unusual that i do with my sound. if i was a working performer, it might be a concern though.

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Decent guitar players using decent guitars into decent amps all get good tone. Everything else is bullsh1t that people lap up because it means they won't have to practice to sound good. You do. Lots.

This. 100% This.

 

...the guitar player...was using a Fender Twin Reverb (cranked), a cord, and his ES-335! It sounded "Awesome"...

No surprises there whatsoever.

 

msp_thumbup.gif

 

Pip.

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Ah, heck. It's been a while...

It Has Indeed!

 

So funny and so true. I really should bookmark that clip before I lose it forever. There was another very funny one in the same series where a pair of attorneys were discussing guitars and one was banging-on about having an original 'burst which he played through a Dumble AND I CAN NO LONGER FIND IT ! ! !.........

 

msp_cursing.gif

 

Anyone out there know how to track it down please post it here and I promise you'll have the option of being on my Xmas List for Eternity...

 

Pip.

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My two cent's worth:

 

Great tone is achieved when a guitar is played sublimely, and the sounds that are produced really turn heads.

 

Great tone is 90% in the hands of the player, and not in the gear.

Billy Gibbons could pick up a First Act guitar and plug it into a small practice amp, and after one or two tweaks of the knobs, would sound just like Billy Gibbons.

Same with Joe Walsh.

 

There is no one single 'great tone', or Holy Grail of tone, since it's so subjective.

What sounds really great and compelling to me might sound unremarkable to another guy.

 

That said, common characteristics of head-turning 'great tone' might include:

 

* Played brilliantly, phrased expertly, and beautifully in tune.

 

* Louder in the mix than one might think necessary.

 

* As rct implied earlier, many hours of practice led to it.

 

* Over half of the people in the audience actually stand up and take notice,

and,

 

* The guitar playing in question Instantly causes ladies' panties to hit the floor with a wet splat.

 

That's about all I got.

Good luck chasing that elusive tone.

 

Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

:mellow:

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"Great Tone?"

 

 

If in doubt, I just crank it up and RIP a huge open A chord.......if I get goosebumps, thats GREAT TONE! lol.

 

 

 

 

For me, there are no rules other than what your ears tell you is great. No magic recipe.

 

In my world, it's my JCM800 with the gain at about 1 o'clock with either my R8 or my DC Special P90 through it..........to really blow it over the top, a hint of TC Spark boost, or Tube screamer at key moments.

 

On the other side of the coin, It's also my 63 Reissue Tele through my Bedrock 1200.......all that tele honk and quack with just the slightest film of dirt.

 

 

 

 

NHTom

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Sorry, but I don’t subscribe to the ‘tone is in the fingers’ meme. The evidence for it is wholly anecdotal and inscrutable. You might just as easily describe it as ‘tone is in the ears’, and sound equally feasible.

Personally, my 46 years of playing experience doesn’t tally with it, and that's all I have to go by.

 

I discovered my tone two years ago (or 90% of it anyway).

 

But I gigged for 40 years with an inconsistent and mostly indifferent sound.

20 years with a 1970s Strat through a Selmer Treble & Bass. The other 20 years with a 90s Jackson Soloist through a Fender Stage 112 SE.

 

Then I constructed a tone patch using a signal processor that gave me the sound I had craved all along. Now I use one of 7 guitars (only take 1 to a gig). I still use the Fender amp, now used dry & slaved to the signal processor. That signal is then lined out to the PA.

Each guitar has its own version of that same tone patch (fine tuned EQ only). They sound similar, but not the same of course.

 

So I found a digital solution to an old problem. I now sound the way I want to sound live (the studio is a whole other matter).

It’s true that I never chased tone like a lot of other players. I concentrated on playing the notes and hoping for the best. But the weird thing is that I am hypersensitive to tone. If it didn’t sound right then I couldn’t play properly. Poor room acoustics often meant a disappointing gig. That doesn’t happen anymore.

 

Throughout the whole 46 years I've been using the same fingers.

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Sorry, but I don't subscribe to the 'tone is in the fingers' meme. The evidence for it is wholly anecdotal and inscrutable...

Throughout the whole 46 years I've been using the same fingers...

With respect, m-e, I disagree with both points raised here (well, almost!).

 

First-off; "Tone is in the Fingers.".

One of our well-known regulars here brought his newly acquired LP R-I to my place. First he played it through my amp. Then I played it through my amp. We sounded VERY different from one another.

Same guitar. Same amp. Same settings. Different fingers.

 

Second; "Same Fingers.".

I'm also using the same fingers as I was using when I started out in 1976 and, with my '60s Classic Player Strat and Music Man 2x12 Sixty Five amp, pretty much exactly the same kit as I was gigging with from around 1980. I have much better 'Tone' nowadays.

Same Fingers. Better Tone.

 

msp_smile.gif

 

Pip.

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Tone isn't remotely important. Songs are important. Once in a while I hear someone say " I might like that band if the guitar player had a better tone..". What I hear when someone says that is "I might like the Mona Lisa better if da Vinci had used a better shade of black.."

 

 

Tone is in your fingers. Which is to say the song is in your fingers. [thumbup]

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Well, I think the "Tone is in the fingers" thing, is more about technique, and "Tasteful" playing, than

just that blanket statement. We all tend to improve our technique, over time, which (usually) improves tone,

and by working on a more tasteful approach, improves it even more. But, that's just my feeling, on that

particular element of "Great Tone!"

 

CB

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With respect, m-e, I disagree with both points raised here (well, almost!).

 

First-off; "Tone is in the Fingers.".

One of our well-known regulars here brought his newly acquired LP R-I to my place. First he played it through my amp. Then I played it through my amp. We sounded VERY different from one another.

Same guitar. Same amp. Same settings. Different fingers.

 

Second; "Same Fingers.".

I'm also using the same fingers as I was using when I started out in 1976 and, with my '60s Classic Player Strat and Music Man 2x12 Sixty Five amp, pretty much exactly the same kit as I was gigging with from around 1980. I have much better 'Tone' nowadays.

Same Fingers. Better Tone.

 

msp_smile.gif

 

Pip.

 

Hi Pip,

 

Well I’m sure we can disagree and respect each other. You at least confirmed my point about anecdotal evidence by providing another anecdote to make yours. ;)

 

Just because you don’t sound the same doesn’t automatically mean that it’s the fingers.

 

Were you both picking at the same string position? (bridge = treble, neck = bass)

 

Were you fretting at the same strings on the same parts of the fretboard? You can play identical phrases on the unwound strings between frets 1 and 7, and on the wound strings between frets 7 and 14. They will sound different not only because of the string gauge, but also because tone is warmer at the higher frets.

 

Were you both using the same pick? No? was one celluloid and another delrin or nylon, horn? A smooth pick (eg: stone) will chirp. A rougher surface texture (eg: Chicken Picks) will add white noise.

 

how about pickup selection? How about guitar volume & tone settings?

 

Were either of you damping any strings? At what string position? Did you use palm heel, side of wrist?

 

When I get to the part about the attitude of pick to the string (3 axial rotations to consider) or the stroke & direction of pick, you can now argue that some of this stuff is indeed ‘the fingers’. After all it’s the fingers holding the pick etc. Of course that’s right. Nobody is wholly wrong, but ‘the fingers’ thing is over simplistic & misleading IMO.

 

It’s more accurate to say that player’s technique informs his ‘sound’. I would go further and repeat what Pete Walker once told me, that a player’s individual sound is mostly in his picking hand. Note the substitution of the word ‘sound’ for ‘tone’ in both instances.

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I think the lines between tone and style get blurred. I just watched the Gibson video that Rabs posted and Les Paul himself said he can play another person's gear and sound like himself in a few seconds. But is that really tone or is that style. Maybe it's both? Maybe "sound" is a better term? [confused]

 

For example a player's vibrato is often what makes him or her unique. Paul Kossoff on those bends or Bonnie Raitt with that wide, slow slide vibrato or BB King's quick wrist vibrato: all of these are immediately recognizable. But is that really tone?

 

Tone seems to me to be more of a sonic term - as in bass, treble, midrange, etc. Where style is note choice, touch, phrasing, vibrato, etc. are style.

 

Again, maybe we are all just trying to describe sound :unsure:

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I think Surfpup does have a good point that perhaps we ARE talking "sound" rather than "tone."

 

Some good points too about how one plays compared to another with the same rig also affecting "stuff" that IMHO could be quantified and documented as opposed to our opinion of this or that.

 

I do think also that "we" tend to think so much of what we think we hear that the impact of what we're doing, played electric or acoustic, to an audience is going to be heard differently.

 

For me, I've still a batch of guitars I've got to get to work on playing again now that it appears my left hand types decently and might be more inclined to ignore a degree of stroke-induced lack of fine motor control. But I'll likely go to my favorite shape, the 175.

 

Yes, I have other guitars, several amps, etc., but for different reasons. The full hollows are the same size. The AEs are strung differently for different gigs. The semi-hollows more for fun thinking of days of yore and the Guild S100c as a strange but nice-playing backup for the 175 types.

 

That Guild, roughly an early '70s version of an SG, strung with 8-38, can hit anything from smooth jazz to country rock, and has done so for money through a variety of tube and SS amps.

 

It's the only solidbody I've owned since I bought it circa the mid '70s, and the only one I've really cared to own.

 

That said, I'd tend to agree with the concept that mostly, whether it's a pure acoustic player buying new bone nut and bridge every six weeks, or a Tele player buying new stomp boxes monthly, that we should look more into ourselves and how we're playing, especially at gigs.

 

Also as part of that, consider first how relaxed and "fun" we're playing with, and then what the audience hears whether unamped from stage or miked or.... whatever.

 

I think worrying about our sound inhibits what we'd like to hear more than any other factor.

 

Just playing our stuff and having fun at our own comfort and skill level, seems to me to be most likely to have a happy audience, even if it's just ourselves recording a practice session.

 

m

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For example a player's vibrato is often what makes him or her unique. Paul Kossoff on those bends or Bonnie Raitt with that wide, slow slide vibrato or BB King's quick wrist vibrato: all of these are immediately recognizable. But is that really tone?

 

Yes. Great examples. Each player uses the stuff that responds to them telling the stuff what to do. If BB used my Tele into my amp(s) and whatever I'm using on the floor this week, his speech would be impeded, therefore his tone would suck. If I used BBs guitar into a Lab 5 my Alright Now would be somewhat less than stellar because that guitar and that amp are not going to do what I tell them to do, in fact, having used Lab 5s I can tell you my Alright Now would not in any way be Alright at any time. If Bonnie used Pauls Paul and stuff she probably would not get that really round, wobbly wiggle she gets out of her strat and whatever amps she uses, I have no idea.

 

So yeah, it's their "tone".

 

It isn't the confusion of "tone" and "sound", the two are the same. It's the idea that you can buy another guitar player or a genre or a time in music history's "tone". You can't! You can only buy your own!

 

Becoming happy with how you sound is really the hardest part. It took me from 11 years old to about 35 maybe, somewhere around there. So I'm at 20 years of satisfaction with my "tone" and more important, not giving a crap what anyone else thinks of it. I play like I play, I sound like I sound, and I get asked to sound like me, so I'm good.

 

rct

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Hmmmm :-k ...well, tone and a particular "sound" aren't exactly the same...IMHO. Good tone, one that pleases you,

and (ideally) those around you, is the basis for "your sound," but "one's sound" can be changed with guitar, amp,

or pedal changes or enhancements. Good tone, should be (again, IMHO) the basis, from just a guitar, lead=cord, and amp, alone.

Getting one's "sound." Or, "Sounds," whatever that/they might be, evolves from there. But, again, that's just my

feeling, and/or approach.

 

Some interesting points, and opinions...keep them coming! [thumbup][biggrin]

 

 

CB

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