Who does not really care about their sound ?

[Alex W]

Up to a point I care about my sound when I'm playing. I mean, I twiddle the knobs to get the best sound I can, but I don't obsessively work on it. For starters, I'm not good enough on guitar for it to make much of a difference.

As a listener, I am mainly into the performance and if the levels of this or that were a little off it wouldn't really detract that much if at all from the experience. One of the few musical pieces where the actual sound of the guitar -- as distinct from the guitarist's playing and his feeling and emotion and so on -- really stands out to me is the solo in "Nowhere Man." And yet even that, Harrison could have recorded it differently and still come up with something that was beautiful. Heck, you could play it on a baritone guitar an octave or two lower and it would still be melodically great. So, short of the guitar just flat out sounding bad, I don't much care about the "sound." It's hard to imagine going to see a great band or guitarist and coming away from the concert thinking, "Yeah, Brian Setzer was really blistering on the guitar but too bad he was playing through a twin reverb instead of his vintage Bassman."

 

[DekeDog]

I have two different setups that I use equally at home. The first is through a Mesa Express 5:50.

The second is through a Fender ToneMaster Deluxe Reverb:

In either rig, I play mostly clean with only a minimum of effects.