For Guitar Players: How important is good tone to you?

[Sonicseven]

I am at work and occassionally i get to listen to some music. Today i brought in Bill Nelson's "Dreamland to Starboard" cd and I have to say that the tone he is getting on this album is beautiful. On the cd pamphlet he said he was using a Gretsch guitar (not sure which model the cd is upstairs at the moment) and mostly a Line 6 pod as well as a few other gadgets. Throughout the cd the sounds range from super clean to distortion wwith nice even sustain but each song has the same tone running throughout, very identifiable as both Bill and the Gretsch.

My question is how important to all you guitar players out there is it to have great tone that is present in each of the compositions you create?

I have spent years developing my tone, which I can now say is present 75% of the time, the other 25% is still a struggle.

[Har]

Well, unless it's a stand-alone solo guitar piece, for me it depends on a song-by-song basis: rarely do I ever use one single "great sounding trademark guitar tone" on each and every tune I do...sometimes a particular song might actually call for a really crappy guitar tone. Seriously.

Not to mention, it also depends on how you want the guitar to fit into the mix of a song with other instruments: it's generally considered a mistake to solo your guitar track (or any instrument track, for that matter) and work on "perfecting" its tone away from the context of all the other instruments in the song....because once you drop the guitar track back into the full mix again, you might find all that time and effort was for nothing because the guitar now sticks out like a sore thumb in ways you didn't really want. You'd be amazed how sometimes what you thought was a killer sounding guitar tone in a full song actually sounds like crap when its soloed in the mix, because, for example, its EQ has been drastically altered to fit into the mix as a whole....alone, it might sound like you're hearing it played in a tin can; while together with all the other instruments in the full mix, it sounds perfect.

[Funkybot]

I agree with everything Har said, but would like to add that good tone comes mostly from the player. No matter whether I'm playing my Guitar Port through an AC-30 sim or playing the Fender ("Evil") Twin in my room I still sound like me (be that good or bad). I'm not familiar with Bill Nelson but I can bet you that if I handed him a Strat and sat him in my room with my Twin he'd prolly still have a great "Bill Nelson" tone with little to no fuss, same if he was playing a Marshall. I remember hearing a story about Stevie Ray Vaughn where for some reason his amps blew out and couldn't be repaired, so he borrowed some solid state piece of shit amp from someone he was playing with, and guess what, he still sounded like Stevie Ray Vaughn. Still had good tone.

This leads me to my next and final point, most times my idea of what good tone is, is nowhere near what other people think it is. Take Van Halen for example, hate that sound, Satriani, yuck, etc. Give me Keith Richards on Exile over that any day of the week.

[Har]

I agree with everything Har said, but would like to add that good tone comes mostly from the player.

Very, very true: it still all comes down to how the fingers hit the strings, and each player has his/her own special way of achieving that.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Tone is important, good or not!

And yeah, a lot of it comes down to the player.. I still sound like me on my Ibanez ArtCore as I did on my Japanese Strat, the *tone* might be a bit different but people can still identify my playing (as was said by someone else, for better or worse hee hee)!

[Mr Arkadin]

Bill Nelson is a bloody amazing guitarist. It's cos of him that i travelled 120 miles to London to buy my first E-Bow at the age of 14 (you could only get them in one shop at in the UK at the time). i still never managed to sound anywhere near as good as Bill.

Check out his Be Bop Deluxe stuff too, Axe Victim (first Be Bop album) has some unbelievable guitar stuff. Remember its Glam Rock era stuff though, with the usual Nelson quirky take on it. He's a guitarists' guitar player and should feature in any top ten of underrated guitar players (along with Mick Ronson and Mark Bolan).

[Sleek Month]

Tone is a very important knob. I wish more amps had it.

-S.

[Soniccat]

Yes, I agree it all comes from the players hands and to some extent their whole body (sometimes I can feel the vibrations that resonate through the body of the guitar into me and that often reflects how I attack the strings). I also believe every guitar imparts its own personality into the mix as well influencing your personal tone. An amp can add color but as said here a player like Nelson or Vaugn will still sound the same no matter what amp is used. I think my playing improved tremendously once I found my sound and I have stopped searching for it now.
I agree with Har that sometimes a crappy sound can suit the song much better than a well crafted tone but it always still sounds like me.

[tee boy]

I find that the tone of my guitar totally influences how i play. For example, when i play through a Pod or something like, i tend to play harder in a subconcious attempt to add bite to the sound. On the other hand, when playing my Marshall, i'll play alot lighter and more sensitive since it blows me away! I think this is something that many non-players dont understand about electric guitars. I often get the impression they think its all about the tone of the instrument / amp, and totally dismiss the idea that the player generates much of the sound. And then, the characteristic tone created by the player is influenced greatly by the playing tone.

This is what really confuses me about these producers who talk about DI'ing a solo or part, then trying it out through a bunch of amps later. Surely a part played clean through a DI will only sound right through a clean sounding amp. It certainly wouldnt sound right using an overdriven amp, since the playing will not be controlled enough to compensate for the distortion.

Anyways, regardless of how others get there sounds, i like to play with the tone I want to have on tape. Sometimes this can be inconvenient cuz it means playin big amps, at big volumes, in little houses! Never the less, Im never disappointed hearing a Marshall teamed up with a Les Paul, or a Strat with a Twin. These sets not only sound great on record but they are also amazing to play, which in turn inspires me to perform to my best.

[kaden]

Being Bill Nelson is gonna be an ENORMOUS factor in getting a good guitar sound... I was listening to 'Modern Music' a couple of days ago. Brilliant.

I remember an reading an interview with Jeff Beck years ago ...

Interviewer: "So, Jeff how do you get your guitar sound?"

JB: "Jumbo frets and being British"

Also brilliant.


K

[Sleek Month]

Nah. It's the player.

I use a lot of different amps for everything from ball crushing Metel to super clean country, from the big, humbucking Sleekcaster to Telecasters to no amp at all, and it all sounds like me.

"Good" tone is subjective, but even when playing through alien gear, you will find your angle on it, and, hence, your tone.

There's an old story about Ted Nugent trying out Eddie Van Halen's rig in the '70's...of course, it sounded like Ted because Eddie carries his tone in his hands, as does Ted.

-S.

[Blazer]

Just wanted to say that ir really bores me if I always use the same tone when playing electric..

..but Ive been playin a nylon acoustic (classical) guitar and it never bores me:P

I started out playing rock and metal on that nylon guitar so my subconscious mind knows exactly how to bring up many different sounds just with my hands on a plain simple acoustic so now its really easy for me to have my own sound when playing any guitar..but Iam still getting bored if I use the same patch on my Digitech all the time

[tobyond]

I love to pick up the oldest trashiest guitars, it makes me appreciate a good one when I play it, and it shows me that everything has it's own "tone" even if it isn't whats generally recognized as a good "tone".