What is the difference between great guitar tone and a pretty ordinary tone?
What is the difference between great guitar tone and a pretty ordinary tone? Well I don’t have the exact answer, but I’ve noticed one thing. My hands know more than my brain on that matter. See… if I plug a great sounding guitar straight into a good amp (using a decent cable) I just play and lose track of time. Much later I find myself wondering if I spend 2 or 10 minutes in the zone where beautiful landscapes, pictures of naked women and flying cows filled my brain. Well I might have spent an hour, but I really didn’t notice. And my hands wouldn’t let go of the damn thing (the guitar… giggle head).
If one of the things in that signal chain (guitar – cable – amp) sucks, things are different. I might try to convince myself, that I still sound OK. But that’s just my silly brain fooling itself.
My fingers know the truth
My fingers know the truth. They start using more time tweaking tone controls on the guitar and the amp, than they do just playing guitar. They might even start reaching out for all kinds of stompboxes. And the funny thing is: It won´t change a thing. If you plug a guitar directly into your amp, and your tone sucks – chances are… either your guitar, the pickups, your guitar cable or your amp is a regular piece of shit.
If your tone sucks, it won’t improve because you put an Ibanez TS-808 overdrive or a Boss Super Chorus in the chain. That will just give you a shitty tone with overdrive and chorus. It’s the old reliable SISO concept: Shit in – shit out. I’m not saying that you don’t need overdrive and chorus. I do. Hell… I need a bunch of effects. But the starting point should be good basic tone.
I am aware that good guitar tone is not just one sound. You can make killer sounds with a Strat, a Tele, a Les Paul and hundreds of other wonderful guitars and just as many amps. Just different colours of delight.
When you plug a good sounding guitar into a killer amp using a good cable – it doesn’t really matter how you´ve tweaked the guitar’s or the amp’s tone controls. It will sound good anywhere. If you turn down the treble – you´ll still have a have a fat and gorgeous treble-roll-of sound. There is a variety of great sounds.
Point is, you don’t need expensive measuring equipment to find out whether your tone sucks. You don’t even have to trouble your brain with that question.
Your fingers know :0)
