Playing Style vs Tone, Warning: Very Windy

[jumpnblues]

jumpnblues



Joined: 16 Mar 2003
Posts: 506

Playing Style vs Tone, Warning: Very Windy
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 3:06 pm


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I think that sometimes with the ol' "fingers" vs "signal chain" exchanges, people can confuse playing style (i.e. your phrasing, how you manipulate the strings with the pick/fingers, how you lay your picking hand on the guitar, your vibrato or lack of it, etc., etc.,) with tone. No doubt about it, tone certainly has a "fingers" or human component because of how you attack the strings and other things I mentioned above. But to say that is the only thing contributing to a players tone and that equipment doesn't matter lacks credibility to me. I've found that musicians (my self included) can get very dogmatic about things..."I'll never use pedals, it's straight into the amp for me", or "my (insert any brand) pedal is the only pedal worth using". As I've said I've been just as dogmatic as the next guy about certain things. I used to be a HARD CORE "straight into the amp, no pedals guy" until one day when I forced myself to plug a Klon into a Dr.Z MAZ 18 Jr. that I thought there was NO WAY to improve the tone on. It had the finest, richest, tone of any amp I'd played through in my 44 years of playing. However, when I plugged the Klon into that amp, dialed in just a slight amount of boost (not overdrive) the little Dr.Z sounded like it just tripled in size with no change to the gorgeous tone. My reaction was an honest "Whoa!!" It sounded like my Dr.Z only much bigger. Since then (about 5-6 years ago) I've tried several different boost pedals/amp combinations in order to find the perfect formula. So much for the "no pedals for me" guy.
Some people feel you can't improve on stock pu's and will not consider anything without the Fender, Gibson, etc. label attached. Others are quick to immediately replace anything stock on a guitar that can be replaced.
The point of this whole diatribe is...as musicians we can be pretty closed minded about certain things. There are those who will not believe anything other than tone is only affected by the fingers. At the other extreme there are those that feel you can change any players overall tone with a simple change of equipment (i.e. pedal, amp, guitar, pu's, etc.).
These discussions can be both entertaining and at the same time somewhat threatening if they go against your firmly ingrained beliefs. So much so that we can become very closed minded about things, you know, "don't be confusing me with any facts" I have my belief system neatly in place and I feel nice, warm, and secure as long as I can believe what I want to believe...even if changes WILL improve my tone. Someone on one of the other TDPRI boards ("Pickups" maybe?) suggested a recording be done to compare the tone of the various pu's discussed dailey on the TDPRI. I think that's the only way to dispell/varify many of the opinions, not only about equipment, but how much fingers vs signal chain affect tone. However, in order to "find truth" we'll have to approach such comparisons with an open mind. Sounds fun and scary at the same time. But I guess it is close to Halloween. Apologies for the rambling. Hope it was worth something to someone. As always...JMHO, YMMV.
_________________
jumpnblues

[Tom S]

Easy way to find "the truth:" Unplug your guitar.

"Style" is the sound coming off your guitar. "Tone" is the sound coming out of your amp.

Is it that simple?

[eryque]

I agree almost totally.

I think... It was kind of long for what I thought the message was, and it's late, so I skimmed a lot.

But I'm on your side. I hate when someone asks how to get a certain tone and the bulk of the answers areabout tone being in the fingers.

That's just one part of the equation. Probably the biggest part. But everything else can and does make a difference, even if they are subtle differences.

Being a prospective English teacher, I've found a way to put this into a mathematical ratio.

Tone is:
50% - Fingers
20% - Influences
15% - Where they grew up
22.8% - how much they (dis)liked where they grew up
37.4% - how much and how well they dream
1.2% - guage, brand, and type of strings, picks, slides, etc.
5.27% - pedals used
10.23% - amps used
7.42% - guitars used
19.3% - the amount of alcohol consumed by the audience
21.6% - the degree to which the hottie that's been giving them the eye is either inspiring or distracting.

[Tom S]

Hmmmm...that's 210.22%. I'm just glad you're not a prospective MATH teacher. :D

[AJ Love]

Pickups have a huge effect on tone. And then I'm learning that certain pickups sound better with EL84 equipped amps wheras others sound better with 6V6 equipped amps

[jumpnblues]

Tom S.,

Yep there are 3 kinds of people in this world...those who can count and those who can't. "Bah-dop, boom!!

And for eryque...man, that WAS long wasn't it?

[eryque]

Man, I can't believe that I forgot to add the pickups in there! Add another 4.2% for pickups :-)

[CountryShawn]

I read somewhere once about Chet Atkins in the studio...

He was in the room playing away on a guitar, and one of the session engineers commented "boy, that guitar sure sounds fantastic".

Chet, who overheard this comment then placed the guitar in the case and then quipped "How does it sound now"?

Powerful statement.

Great playing is good. Good tone is good.
The problem is when the quest for tone overcomes the quest for playing.

Cheers,

Shawn

[Stirton]

At the risk of flogging a dead horse (hey, that's what a board like this is for, at least sometimes) here are my observations--as a novice, I can claim some kind of 'outsider objectivity'.

There are many players out there who have 'great tone'. What makes their tone great differs between these different players (not to mention differences among the aesthetics of listeners).

At one extreme, there are those whose greatness in tone lies mainly in the way they put their fingers to wood and metal--picking technique, vibrato technique, bending string attack, all the rest.

At the other extreme, there are those whose tone lies mainly their use of guitar, amps, effects etc. in creative ways. David Gilmour springs to mind here, although he is probably no slouch when it comes to fingers on wood and metal.

The 'fingers' versus 'signal chain' discussion is somewhat mis-stated: there is in reality more than one route to great tone. The better question to ask would be, "What do I need to do to get the kind of tone that I want?"

There is nothing new in this discussion. At the turn of the last century, Fritz Kreisler would play cheap factory made violins to demonstrate that you could get great tone without the finest Stradivarius, Amati etc. To prove that he was playing a cheap instrument, at the end of a performance he would smash the guitar to pieces, thus anticpating the Pete Townshend thing by the best part of a century.

[Kingpin]

It can be quite annoying when threads about tone get sidetracked with the tired "tone is in the fingers" arguement. No! Technique is in the fingers (brain/fingers actually). Tone is just the inherent physical/mechanical qualities found in the instrument or amp, something that can passed from one player to the next. The fact that two players can sound so different - while using the same equipment - is a testimony that player technique is always more important than the equipment.

Another topic the whole tone debate largely ignores is that there is no ultimate tone. Sure, every musician should strive for a good basic tone, but since every song has a different mood or feel, the aim for the musician should be to have a versatile setup that can tap into a variety of useful tones. Now, before we all run out to buy a Variax and a modeling amp, I'd just like to point out that a Telecaster into a tube amp is the best tone you can find.

my 2 cents...

[Telenator]

I've been playing for about 30 years now and gig a lot. I have held some hard and fast beliefs in my time and have watched them fall time and time again. There are certain merits to any argument. Things only get weird when people state things to one another as absolutes.

That said, I take a somewhat traditional approach to getting my sounds. I have a mild dislike for the vast majority of Solid State amps. One of the best local players in this area gets a killer tone from his Line 6 amp and EMG p'ups that amazes all the traditional players. I would never use either for my set-up, but there is no denying it when you hear a great sound. It just doesn't work for me.

I have also learned that the vast majority of listeners don't give a rat's a55 about my tone. The only ones that do are other musicians, and they always tell eachother how they would do it better. (there have been jokes on this very topic)

The most important thing I've learned from all of this nonesense is that if I dig my tone, I play better. I no longer let myself me swayed by the comments of other players concerning the little subtle nuances in a sound that no one in the audience is going hear anyway. It's amazing how an off handed comment can kill the joy.

[Paul in Colorado]

I stuck my figers in my ears and didn't hear a thing. So much for the "tone is in the fingers" arguement. :P

[shakedancer]

Telenator, I agree!!! I also play my best when the tone is right. When it's not right I cannot get inspired. I would say tone is a combo of the right pickup and amp. I don't know why people try to make rocket science out of it. 8)
Jumpnblues, as a guy who also does not like pedals i'm intrigued by your experience with the Klon. Might have to check one out.

[eryque]

Two more quick things to add:

1: I know what sound I want to get out of my rig, and if I'm not getting it I want to find ways to tweak it it. So all the discussion about strings & pickups & amps & etc. are useful then. And like everyone else, I play better when I'm hearing what it is that I want to hear.

2: Two summers ago when I was at Inertian's for the summer jam, I plugged into his SF Vibrolux Reverb and got the exact same mediocre tone I'd been getting out of my BF Pro Reverb. It surprised the hell out of me. His amp sounded much better to me when he played through it.

[David Barnett]

I think that both sides of this argument have merit. I know players whose tone is rather fragile and who need just the right combination of gear, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, phase of the moon, what side of the bed they got up on that morning, to find their tone and be comfortable. And I know other players who can take just about any gear and find their sound.

At the venue where I do live sound, we used to have a weekly Tuesday Night Blues Jam. The band leader was a former member of the Ike & Tina Turner Review, and he would show up to the jam with either a '60s ES335 or a '90s Squier Strat, and with either a BF Super Reverb-Amp or a Peavey Session 120. Any combination of those two guitars and two amps sounded exactly the same.

[OutlawSteph]

I like what Kingpin said. I have a lot of respects for guitarists who can get the most out of different tones and know exactly what to do with each. Plug a Tele in a tweed amp and do some pickin' and then plug a Les Paul into a Marshall and rock out... if you can accomplish more than one style and sound authentic in different genres, that makes it interesting. That's why I love 70s rock so much because I often find different tones and different genres on the same album.

[Kingtone]

Here's a quote from another post that discribes how I feel about this tone topic:

Joel Terry wrote:
I once saw Stevie Ray play out of a 20-watt transistor amp. Do you think that in any way kept him from sounding like him?

a42 wrote:
Yes, but I'll bet he sounded like SRV playing through a 20 watt transistor amp.

The tone explaination doesn't get much simpler.....

[Wild Rice Chris]

Originally Posted by Telenator

I have also learned that the vast majority of listeners don't give a rat's a55 about my tone. The only ones that do are other musicians, and they always tell eachother how they would do it better. (there have been jokes on this very topic)

How many TDPRIers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?




203




1 to screw it in, and 202 to sit around and post about how Redd Volkaert could screw it in better.







I've decided that the tone/fingers/whatever debate is centered primarily around a lack of standard vocabulary.

To me, the tone is in the player. The sound is in the equipment. Everything else is in your imagination. 8)

[Daddy Elmis]

I'm in the camp of most of the "tone" of a player is in the player. The gear can enhance or detract from that tone to some degree, but, as was mentioned, SRV sounds like SRV through whatever, EVH sounds like EVH through whatever. Because guitar "tone" depends on the mechanical interface of fingers/pick, strings, pickups, wood, body contact with the wood, etc., I think the player is the key to tone.

WickedGTR, in describing his magnificent tone on "Wicked Game," said he could walk into GC, grab a strat of any kind and a Twin and do the signature runs of that song and it would sound like him on that song.

I view gear like paintbrushes -- Pollock would not paint like Picasso using his brushes and vice versa.

[telewacked]

I love reading this stuff...it keeps me thinking!

One thing I'll note is, for certain bits of music, equipment is more important than fingers. You'll never get a good grindy overdrive sound out of some gear. You'll never get a crystalline clean sound out of others - no matter how it's played or who is playing it. Yes, EVH and SRV may sound like themselves through any gear, but the enourmous "tone" of either a wall of Marshalls/5150's or a combination of cranked tube amps won't be there if they're playing through a cheeze amp. It's both..

[Daddy Elmis]

Let me add that the "tone is in the player" comment is not meant to apply at the extremes. Yes, EVH's Eruption would not sound the same if he was playing an L5 through a Lab Series amp (or on a sitar).

However, within a comparable range, he sounds like EVH whether he's playing vintage Marshall plexi's, new Marshalls, a Peavey, a Crate, a Vicky, etc, with a Fender, Hamer, Peavey, etc.

Quality gear clearly improves the overall tonal experience from a talented player. No question about that. But gear is not going to make player A sound like player B -- there have been too many interviews to count where Star A played Star B's concert rig but didn't sound anything like Star B.

So, to me, the answer to the question "How can I sound like _______," is "you can't." But you can buy the gear ________ uses so that your tone takes on some aspect of _______'s tone -- but you're always going to sound like you (for better or worse, hopefully better).

Like all products, the manufacturers want us to believe that if we buy the star's guitar, amp, surfboard, sport coat, energy drink, etc., we'll have the star's tone, life, talent, girfriend, etc.

Even Mick sang, "But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me."