Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

I've had the opposite experience entirely. I traded away my telecaster recently because I didn't like how it sounded in recordings compared to my Les Paul. The difference was really huge and this was under medium to high gain settings. My Eclipse (semi hollow, bolt-on maple neck, stock pickups) sounds almost identical to my Les Paul.

I didn't record live though. I'd guess the quality of the recording is to blame.

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It's becoming a long thred but I've covered this above. I have played on several albums and have always heard the different guitars (or amps) loud and clear. It was this live album (my first) that made me realize that the differences disapeared even between a LP and a Tele. So in a studio type recording situation, sure. But on a live album (that's not been overdubbed or studio edited) there's no way to even tell the guitars appart. Strange, but obviously true.

 

[BluesIsBlood12]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

I vote there's something going on with the recording/mixing. I will definitely agree that a guitar sounds different alone vs in a mix, but those two should be a clear difference in the recording. I dabbled with recording at home, and I frequently would track the same identical guitar part with multiple guitars to see which one I liked best, and I could clearly hear the difference between say a PRS with p90s vs a PRS with humbuckers vs a Les Paul. They're all distinct. Now, this was generally a pretty simple mix of 4-6 instruments, so a complicated mix might make it harder to tell.

Side note, I always hated the BB Pros that came in my LP, but they actually sounded pretty good in the recordings, after some EQ work.

 

[devastone]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

I listened to the youtube track, but just through my laptop speakers and if I had to guess I would say it's a LP, but can't really tell for sure. It's a nice tone that works for the song though, and great sounding band/singer. I thoroughly enjoyed the song no matter what guitar you played!

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Asked our record company and they said the album get's published through most streaming services – including youtube. So it's all ready there apparently :18: I had no idea… Thought it was Spotify only.

Well, well so here's the same song, same recording again. Solo starts 2.20.

What do you not like about your tone in the video? It seems to work well for the song (nice song BTW).

 

[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

I vote there's something going on with the recording/mixing. I will definitely agree that a guitar sounds different alone vs in a mix, but those two should be a clear difference in the recording. I dabbled with recording at home, and I frequently would track the same identical guitar part with multiple guitars to see which one I liked best, and I could clearly hear the difference between say a PRS with p90s vs a PRS with humbuckers vs a Les Paul. They're all distinct. Now, this was generally a pretty simple mix of 4-6 instruments, so a complicated mix might make it harder to tell.

Side note, I always hated the BB Pros that came in my LP, but they actually sounded pretty good in the recordings, after some EQ work.

As stated above: I have made several studio recordings where I have had no problem at all telling different guitars apart (including my two teles). But in a live situation and the recording of a live album – it's a totally different ball park. There's so much going on at the same time there's no way to tell even a LP and a Tele apart. If we kill the room and isolate the guitar track and just listen to the direct sound – then the difference is audible. But when we turn on the rest of the band and (especially) the room back on – the difference goes out the window.

 

[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

What do you not like about your tone in the video? It seems to work well for the song (nice song BTW).

Thank you! I don't like the way it's so stiff. I play with very little overdrive yet the overdrive kind of rides on top of the tone, it does not blend in with the rest of the sound. It's like a hard clean sound with a little fuzzy hat on top of it. I'm over over emphasising, but maybe you get what I'm talking about. I want it more "together". More natural overdrive.

 

[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

I listened to the youtube track, but just through my laptop speakers and if I had to guess I would say it's a LP, but can't really tell for sure. It's a nice tone that works for the song though, and great sounding band/singer. I thoroughly enjoyed the song no matter what guitar you played!

Yeah! Thanks! I like the song too, of course! I love playing it, it's got a great sweet spot for a guitar solo and there's no loop back. I play until I'm done and then the others hook the song up back again. I love that! So fun to play with that yet secret guitar

I found an audience video from just this solo (part of it anyway) maybe I'll post it here later, like a reveal of what guitar it actually was.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Thank you! I don't like the way it's so stiff. I play with very little overdrive yet the overdrive kind of rides on top of the tone, it does not blend in with the rest of the sound. It's like a hard clean sound with a little fuzzy hat on top of it. I'm over over emphasising, but maybe you get what I'm talking about. I want it more "together". More natural overdrive.

Do you still get the problem if you reduce presence on amp and roll back the tone control a notch on the guitar?

 

[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Do you still get the problem if you reduce presence on amp and roll back the tone control a notch on the guitar?

The guitar tone is rolled back to just over zero. And the amp has no presence knob. I use a Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue on the clean channel. Only volume and tone. Not even a master volume. And the amp tone has treb at nine o'clock.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Typically when people talk about natural overdrive I think of warm and dark OD. The sound you're getting with those settings should be pretty dark already though . . . how are you micing the amp? Are you putting the mic center speaker? Moving it out to the edge of the cone will warm things up quite a bit.

 

[devastone]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

The guitar tone is rolled back to just over zero. And the amp has no presence knob. I use a Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue on the clean channel. Only volume and tone. Not even a master volume. And the amp tone has treb at nine o'clock.

Then all bets are off on any guitar guesses, but I will change mine to a tele, a LP with the tone rolled off would "probably" be muddier. The most significant characteristics (IMHO at least) between a LP and a tele/strat is mostly contained in the highs and upper mids, with the tone rolled down, all of that information is being routed to ground. The tone still worked great for the song, and the song sounds great, but the tonal differences between those guitars is pretty much nullified by turning the tone off.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

The guitar tone is rolled back to just over zero. And the amp has no presence knob. I use a Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue on the clean channel. Only volume and tone. Not even a master volume. And the amp tone has treb at nine o'clock.

Well that’s why. You are choking off all the upper harmonics. That’s the place where guitars sound different.

That’s going to sound like mud.


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[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Well that’s why. You are choking off all the upper harmonics. That’s the place where guitars sound different.
That’s going to sound like mud.
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Well at least you might think so… but no. Just listen to the clip above. That's not a muddy guitar tone at all.

 

[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Then all bets are off on any guitar guesses, but I will change mine to a tele, a LP with the tone rolled off would "probably" be muddier. The most significant characteristics (IMHO at least) between a LP and a tele/strat is mostly contained in the highs and upper mids, with the tone rolled down, all of that information is being routed to ground. The tone still worked great for the song, and the song sounds great, but the tonal differences between those guitars is pretty much nullified by turning the tone off.

No you got it wrong. The lowering of tone does not change the ability to tell the guitars apart. If you play the mix with just the guitar, you can clearly tell, but when you bring the band and the "room" back on (audience too), the differences in sound between the Tele and LP disapears. So it has nothing to to with the tone control on the guitar. And I never said the tone was off, its just really low. Just after it clears up after that gigant mudpile at zero. I play a Boss SD1 and that's a pretty trebly overdrive. So I have plenty of that.

 

[robo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Typically when people talk about natural overdrive I think of warm and dark OD. The sound you're getting with those settings should be pretty dark already though . . . how are you micing the amp? Are you putting the mic center speaker? Moving it out to the edge of the cone will warm things up quite a bit.

It has become a long thread, I know. But I said erlier up here that mic placement was off center by 10 cm (4") or so.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

It has become a long thread, I know. But I said erlier up here that mic placement was off center by 10 cm (4") or so.

I have no idea how you're getting that tone with those settings and that mic recording placement. It should be dark and woolly as ****. Something weird must be going on with post processing.

 

[devastone]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

I'm with Steve, that mic placement and rolling the tone "most" of the way off, I would expect it to sound muddier than it does. And rolling off all the high end is why you can't tell the guitars apart in the mix. Fortunately it is a very sparse mix/instrumentation when you solo, otherwise it probably wouldn't cut through at all.

But again, great song, and your tone/solo fits great, so not criticizing the end result at all, just trying to answer your original question.

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

From my perspective you really should be having this conversation with the engineer.

Masking has already been mentioned and depending on the number of instruments and the complexity of the mix a tremendous amount of the guitar tone has to be discarded. Get your engineer to solo your tracks and it's very likely you will find that he has added compression and reduced treble and the bass to get the guitar to sit in the mix.

This is very common, even as rough tracks are being captured. I have a couple of guitar EQ templates ready to go when the musicians show up.

Masking has to be considered or else you end up with a lot of mush. The upper end of the guitar fights the cymbols. The lower end of the guitar fights with bass and keyboards.

So more complex mixes often require more cuts and much of what we think of is tone as a guitarist gets thrown away. This is also true of live mixes in large venues where the front of house engineer has to essentially do the same thing.

As others have mentioned it's the nuances in the way that you play that ultimately come through in rock pop country recording environments.

Funny personal example, I revisited a piece recorded in the early 90s and I was convinced from the tone and sustain meant that I had played it on my PRS ce24. however my bassist pointed out that I didn't own the PRS at that time

Went back to the rough tracks soloed the track out with no effects immediately realized I was listening to my swamp Ash Zion Stratocaster that has Joe barden pickups.

It's about as big a difference as as possible. Long scale snap versus shorter scale warmth... Strat sized pickups vs. Humbuckers. Swamp Ash vs mahogany/maple. Maple fingerboard verses rosewood... These were my opposite end of the spectrum guitars from the mid 90s through the mid-2000s.

the reason it sounded so much like the PRS is that it had extreme compression lots of high-end was rolled off and it used the doubled slightly detuned Van Halen effect.






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[NecroPolo]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

(...)
And my question was really – if you can't tell in a live situation between a Les Paul and a Tele – why bother with pickup output tinkering and wiring options, pot-switches and uf-cap-choices. That level of refinery is impossible to hear in a live situation anyway.

Okay, I misinterpreted the core of the question. Mindig ez van ha külföldiül olvasok

Sure thing, these nuances don't count onstage at all. For the feel of you as a player, they do, but for the audience - no way. As far as I can observe, only musicians perceive the music as musicians, having ear for the details. Normal audience (the backbone of fans) will listen it as a whole. Important things are for them go as:
- song is familiar 20%
- lyrics / vocal melody line is familiar 20%
- is the singer out of tune? 20%
- groove 20%
- you look impressive and confident with the guitar 10%
- what you actually play: 9.9%
- your gear choice /tone for the evening: 0.1%

Back in the years when I used double half-stacks I believed that the rig looks impressive behind the back, it looked mighty. Of course, besides that I LOVED that rig. Guitarist guys came to me after the gigs to ask about the gear I use. Now'days I go DI into the PA through a $100 preamp pedal that gives me one functional tone (I'm a simple guy) Folks now come to compliment the songs and guitar guys think I'm lying when I show them that the sound comes from the board and that's it.

I could use a Squier Bullet I guess, no one would spot the change (no pun, actually I love their cheap Mustangs)

 

[ToneFiddler]

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

Re: Guitar tone nerd faced with fact – what's in it really?

i normally can hear it on rythm parts better. lead work is very often too much the touch of the player.
Tone rolled way back: no change at all...

the distortion sounds like a stomp box no tube clipping for sure. almost all i hear is the character of this distortion pedal.

but on a different track (e.g. 13: lonely gal) i would bet it’s a tele.
No a very bright one though so SD JD sounds plausible but would have believed a lot of other hot or soft sounding models as well.

and yeah: nice cover by the way (Glory box)

and yes the tone chase is just for us: jeremy said it perfectly