Re: Karmer Pacer - Satchel from Steel Panther
In what way do the two of you sound so different?
If tone is "all" in the fingers, then why are there different guitars and amps? Why do people use pedals?
Play a '50s-style hollowbody guitar through a clean, vintage-style Fender amp. Then play a superstrat with a JB or a Duncan Distortion or similar through an overdrive pedal into a cranked, high-gain amp. Tell me that the tone is the same.
the tone is absolutely not the same, but what you're doing here is 'reducto ad absurdum': taking an argument and ridiculizing that argument. To take my example: my buddy and I took each other's gear and played the same riffs. We like the same tones, we like the same genres. (we took an aristides 060 with an alpha/omega set through a kemper, just for your information). We took the same amp settings, a Soldano SLO. His sound was great: nice sizzle, nice attack, fat bottom end and power. When I picked it up, it was skreechy, thin, fizzy, trebly. Then, we took an amp setting I love, a REVV Generator 120 channel 4 Red. My tone was ballsy with edge, a bit gritty and with a fluid lead tone. His tone was flat, lacked power and balls, no attack and was overly mid heavy.
why? Because I hold a guitar differently, I hit the strings differently, I attack the strings differently from him. We even used the same pick!
We use different pickups, different timbers, amps etc to dial in the tone we hear in our minds. I can't make the tone of a bluesbreaker with my fingers if I play through a rectifier... But that is of course ridiculous. But the 'tone in fingers' part simply means that you as a player define the overall character of the tone, the 'mojo', the vibe. I don't know how, but my ears and anecdotal evidence has proven that much. When the differences are that noticable when all is the same, even to the pick, pickups, guitar, amp and strings, I can only conclude that it is down to the guitar.