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OT: Quora discussion about guitar tone....
As a novice I found some of this interesting. Would be equally as interested in what the guitar heroes here think the pick of this advice is, what resonates (sic) etc...
Comments
I'm a guitar zero, but I'll tell you what I know.
The person playing makes all the difference when it comes to tone. You can hand an identically tuned guitar to two different guitarists and they will produce different tones. Playing style, angle, pick attack, palm muting, etc. are all factors.
That said, here are 50 "secret" tips for getting better electric guitar tone. They're in the dreaded slide show format, but maybe there are some nuggets worth clicking through for...
http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/get-better-electric-guitar-tone-50-secret-tips-528489
Just play, if it sounds good to you it is good. If it doesn't then make sure you have new strings and are in tune, tweak all the knobs you can see see and review points 2 to 50 below regularly:
to 50. Listen to all the guitar players that didn't have a pile of expensive gear and still sounded good and think on. It's generally not about the gear. Gear as in musical equipment, if we are using the other, lesser known, interpretation it may be about "the gear" for some people.
I like me some in-depth tone discussions (love The Pedal Show YouTube channel for instance, wearing the t-shirt right now ... might start a "My Musical YouTube Favourites" thread later in fact) but I'd rather not get bogged down in what makes "good tone", runs completely counter to just getting into the flow and playing.
I dunno, this subject is just too subjective. Good tone is like good literature, it's a matter of taste.
It seems to me, for example, that a lot of people in these discussions are talking about high-gain tones for metal, whereas my ideal guitar tone is a Les Paul playing clean through a Fender Twin - there's no similarity in the sound, how can we compare notes?
I love the guitar tone on the Velvet Underground's third album, but I think a lot of guitar players would scoff at that reference. I don't think Lou Reed had that much of his tone "in his fingers" as he strummed chords on Pale Blue Eyes, just a nice clean guitar sound.
In my mind tone and technique are separate things. Tone is what you get from the guitar and amp (or just the guitar if playing acoustic), and technique is what you bring to the table. Playing style does affect your sound, but I think the correlation has been overdone to the point of cliché in guitar playing circles. YMMV of course, all opinions are just my own
I have little to add being a novice, just thought there might be something in it for folks to mull over or disagree with. For the record, I agree about considering tone to be more the machinery/set up, than, say, in the way it is used when discussing horn players...
Careful ... getting guitarists talking tone is at least as dangerous as getting synthheads talking Midi CCs ... As a guitarist who never had a particularly great ear for "awesome tone, man" and who thinks the "AAAARRGGHHH!!" preset I downloaded via Bias Amp for JamUp Pro is the bees knees, I'm of course going to be one of those who think people get too obsessed with "awesome tone, man."
For the shredders, it all mostly begins and ends with learning how Randy Rhoads got that awesome in your face tone (hint: it was more to do with recording mastery than dials or tubes). For everyone else, unless you're playing in a tribute band, just grab a sound that works for you - that would be my advice.
Hey, kids, do you like the Rock -n- Roll? I'm really liking these guys guitar tones... and all their other tones, too.
This is The Magpie Salute -- which is comprised of a few member from The Black Crowes and a a number of other musicians. I'm excited to learn about this project, so please indulge me here, because I just have to share this cover. Skip ahead to 1:30 to bypass the tribute to their (and The Black Crowes) awesome keyboardist Eddie Harsch.
Also, there is a nice write-up here on Rolling Stone from a few days ago with an original track SoundCloud link.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/black-crowes-rich-robinson-on-new-band-the-magpie-salute-w477749
I'm going to officially state that guitar as an instrument peaked before the 60s and it has been simply a process of refinement ever since.
And I still think that Eddie Cochran would have been really into sequencers and synths had he lived long enough to see them used in the way that resembled the way he already designed his music. It is almost as if he had to tolerate manually using a guitar instead of a sequencer because that was all there was.
Interesting guitar story, though:
Eddie Cochran (pictured here):
Made a big impression on a young Marc Feld, when Eddie, after playing the Hackney Empire allowed Marc, an audience member, to carry Eddie's guitar out to his car with him.
Marc Feld (pictured here):
Or as he would later change his name to, Marc Bolan (pictured here):
At the scene where Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Eddie's fiancée, Sharon Sheeley had a traffic accident (from which Eddie would later die) the guitar was impounded at the local police station by a young policeman David Harman, who over time used it to teach himself guitar. He later adopted the stage name Dave Dee (pictured here):
'Tone' on the input side of a mix is a mixture of strings, tension, instrument response (including pickups) controlled by the player. The player needs some sense for all those aspects to make his/her individual play - and that's what separates it from samples or those who just strum and pick on 'presets'. As mentioned before that's what makes the stunning difference when 'good players' use a cheapo instrument.
'Sound' is what comes out of the final mix and isn't necessarily related to tone... depending on the engineer
I wouldnt say that it makes all the difference, but it certainly has a big effect. Also different amps settings react to different playing differently. Like if the amp/pedals are set to near brakeup, someone playing very lightly might not even get a very pronounced overdrive, while someone who plays harder can get a clear overdrive. But when you set the overdrive past a certain point, the lighter vs harder touch makes less of a difference. Also different amps react to this differently, with some the players touch has more impact. Digital amp sims rarely respond very well to this sort of differences and the differences are more pronounced with good tube amps(which also vary in this).
But then again if you compare two guitars, for example telecaster with single coil and some 30" baritone with active humbuckers. Well that makes a lot more difference than two different people playing the same telecaster. Also if you turn down the gain on an amp, that also will make a bigger difference. As does the tone sections setting on the amp etc etc.
Personally id say that the player playing the guitar is like 25% or less of the overall tone, but ofc if you compare someone like steve vai to me(who isnt a very good guitar player), the difference can be huge. But then if you compare two people who have similar playing style, are equally good etc, you might not even notice any difference.
It's just an expression -- not to be taken literally. I think richardyot is right about the subject being too subjective, but I tend to believe what the professionals say. For example, this quote from Randy Staub:
What about when it came to capturing guitar tones? What is your approach with that?
"You've got to have a really, really good player first and foremost and really good equipment. There's no real big secret, except that you have to just find a good sounding cabinet and head and have a great sounding player. If you have really good equipment it will naturally sound good. Then you can take it to the next level with the mic placement, the room it is in and not over eq-ing it. If the source is really good, it will sound good in the end. For example, with Metallica's stuff, like James' guitar sound, it is a huge sound, as there is lots of bottom end, so it is a very particular sound. But if Kirk Hammett was to pick up James' guitar and play - which has done on occasion - it will sound nothing like it does when James plays it. Which is odd, but the way a person plays dictates a lot of how it is going to sound."
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/interviews/randy_staub_on_black_album_the_idea_was_to_get_a_huge_drum_sound.html
Yea i agree what is said on that. But there are two ways of looking at it, both should be considered if you want to compare the difference of player vs gear, and that quote only considers one and thus only looks at the effect of fingers, not gear. The impact the players playing on the tone should be measured both by making same peoples play completely different guitars, cabs etc. but also like what the interview focuses on, two players playing the same gear. Now when you look at telecaster on hooked to bias fx vs some baritone with humbuckers hooked to slo-100 with 4x12 cab, they will sound completely different. Therefore gear has more impact on the tone than the player. Then look at two people playing the same gear and compare it to the difference that the gear itself makes. You get the different sounds of different gear and different sound of different fingers, the average of the differences is how much gear vs fingers effects the sound. But if you only look at the fingers, then ofc you only compare two people playing the same guitar.
I think we are just looking at this from bit different perspectives, but im sure we fundamentally agree on this whole thing.
Ps. i didnt take it literally
But saying that X makes all the difference, in my books means that its like 85%+ of everything that influences it.