Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => Time Out => Topic started by: JDC on February 11, 2008, 02:26:28 AM
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from too much bored and random thinking, and being a technical person who analyses everything I thought I'd share a few thoughts on tone
now I'm not a tone wizard with magic ears, I just know when comparing 2 tones which one I prefer
I see tone as 2 different things, basic tone and tone shaping
basic tone being improved by good gear, string, pickups, technique, etc
tone shaping being the thing that changes the EQ or say an effect like delay or etc
so a good basic tone would come from decent quality gear, while the tone shape would come from getting the type of sound you want
obviously this is just an opinion and not actual fact but that's the way I see it and thought I'd share it and see what others think
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And the attack etc of the player has nothing to do with it? :S
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It's all in the fingers if you ask me. Prince has played a really cheap tele-alike for years and still sounds stunning with it (part of ths might have something to do with his amp set up though)
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Tone is a quirky concept. What one person hears as their 'perfect' tone - others will hear as just alright.
I'm not someone who normally gets really analytical about tone - or at least I wasn't until I put BKP's (Emerald) into my LP Classic. Now I take more interest in it - without (I hope) being too anal about it
I play in a wedding type band and to be honest the stock 496R/500T pickups that I used to have were ok for a variety of sounds, without any particular sound being outstanding.
Since I put Emeralds into my guitar I've been so much more aware of tone, due basically to the quality of the pups and how they match up to my guitar.
I'm pretty close to getting the tone that I want from my guitar and I would agree it's a variety of factors that contribute to a good tone. In saying that I would put ability right at the top of that list of factors. I'm not talking about notes per second here - just a certain level of ability to be able to utilise other factors.
The quality of guitar, amp, pickups, strings, effect units etc all come into play when it comes to achieving the tone in your head that you're after. It's like a jigsaw for me. Once I put all the factors together, I should be happy with the tone I can generate.
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Something I've noticed very recently, after a good 10 years of proper tone searching, is that your amp is everything. I'm finding that if I get that right, everything else is just flavouring.
Never underestimate the HUGE input your amp has on your tone.
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There is no such thing as "perfect tone" - there only exists "your perfect tone".
And yeah, amp more than anything else.
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Something I've noticed very recently, after a good 10 years of proper tone searching, is that your amp is everything. I'm finding that if I get that right, everything else is just flavouring.
Never underestimate the HUGE input your amp has on your tone.
+1
caveat being, of course, that if you want a strat sound, you're probably out of luck if you have a les paul, etc.
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Something I've noticed very recently, after a good 10 years of proper tone searching, is that your amp is everything. I'm finding that if I get that right, everything else is just flavouring.
Never underestimate the HUGE input your amp has on your tone.
+1000
Go for the best sounding amp and the best playing guitar.
A good amp can make a piece of cr@p sound good.
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Yeah, I would echo that.
But of course as we all know, even the best amp in the world won't make a bad player sound good.
So fingers + amp = main ingredients in my opinion.
And then as noodle says, the playability of the guitar is the most important factor in terms of your actual axe in my opinion.
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oh, fingers are a given as the most important thing. i mean in terms of things you can buy. :lol:
EDIT: and obviously, once you have that awesome amp, an awesome-sounding (and playing) guitar can make the difference between sounding good and sounding great. :)
everything's important in its own way. if you buy a dumble and then try to run a squier affinity through it, you're probably a bit daft.
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^Agreed. :lol: :)
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i like my guitars to sound good too! :o
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i like my guitars to sound good too! :o
Me too... well I just want something about it to sound good
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Obviously the guitar's sound is important, but if it plays as well as a photocopier then you can't take advantage of that sound, y'know? :)
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yeah... all these "which would you rather have, playability or tone?" threads that always seem to come up (much like the "would you rather run a £50 guitar through a £3000 amp or vice-versa?" thread) are kinda daft... they're using extremes to prove a point of principle, but to be honest if i had a £3000 amp and £50 guitar, i'd be buying a nicer guitar sharpish, or even trading in the amp to get a more even split.
playability versus tone? search until you find one with both. they do exist. :lol:
EDIT: ^ play many photocopiers, sam? how does that work? "hmm, the out of paper beep is an E flat, and i think the no toner left beep is a G a quarter tone sharp..."
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I've always thought that the amp is a musical instrument in itself. It's highlights or doesn't if it's cheap and shite, the guitars natural acoustic tones and also the sound of the pickups. It's all part of the whole package as there are so many contributing factors.
Effects either enhance to your ears or ruin a good tone and are subjective to the individual.
All this in the fingers stuff is only relevant if your a good player!
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I have to agree about a lot of tone comming from the individual. The amp, the guitar, the pickups etc, will give the desired sound but the way its played will bring out the tone, the difference between picking a note with an upward or downward stroke, velocity, vibrato, alternate picking or legato style runs, use of pinch harmonics etc will all greatly shape your tone. a great player can sound great with rubbish equipment, but a bad player can spend all the money in the world just to sound as good as they really are.
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i remember a youtube video of Mattias Ekhlund doing an instore clinic. all he had to play through was a little Gorilla practice amp ( about which he created much mirth! ) but he still sounded fantastic! i also recall a magazine article where the writer said he had handed Steve Vai his own strat and he still sounded just like Vai. the writer was most disappointed to find that after Vai left the guitar went back to sounding the way it had always done! :lol:
and in the Zakk Wylde thread there's another video of him doing "emotive solo number 16b(second revision)", that sounds pretty good, and that's the Epiphone Les Paul he's playing, but of course it's through Jan Cyrka's Cornford rig.
i myself sound incredible through absolutely anything :wink: my guitar playing's not so hot though :roll:
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At the risk of stating the obvious, there are a lot of factors that make up a players tone. A quality amp whose power is matched to your typical playing volume/style. ie: a 100W JCM800 stack sounds great, but not at bedroom levels! Your choice of guitar(s) has to match your playing style in terms of set up/pickups/body woods, etc.
I find that the best tones come from using less pre-amp gain than I always initially think, and having the action on my guitars a little higher than I would really like. Got to be able to dig in, and let your strings ring cleanly. And make sure that your cables and jackplugs are all high quality and in good connection. Your signal will only be as strong as your weakest link. Don't let a cheap patch lead ruin ££££'s of gear and years of playing!!! ha ha.
Just my humble views - feel free to disagree. After all, it is a forum.