Tone is your brain, fingers, and musicality.

[LesStrat]

Re: Tone is your brain, fingers, and musicality.

I was playing last week, and I was not very happy with my tone. It was adequate, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I didn't have time to make many adjustments, so I just went with it.

I was complimented afterwards on it.:smack::doh::banghead:

 

[That90'sGuy]

Re: Tone is your brain, fingers, and musicality.

I think a lot of it is just our frame of mind. A good player will sound great through anything. I've learned to just stick with one or two guitars that are really comfortable that I "connect" with and sell off the rest.

I'm in 2 bands right now and one of the best things I've done is try different things with each one. In my main band I was using Gibsons and PRS' through my Bogner Shiva. Great thick tone, but in this other band it's more towards funk, pop and some lighter rock stuff so I've been playing with Fenders through my beatup old Crate V32 Palomino.

I hate to say it, but my AV62 Strat through my Crate gives me equally satisfying tones as my Bogner rig, it's just different. I used to be snobbish about so much gear, but after playing tons of stuff I've realized I sound the same no matter what I play through. When I have "on" days and sound good, no gear can really get in my way. When I'm having off days and nothing seems to flow right, the most expensive gear can't change that and I think I chased so much different gear to compensate for lack of playing ability.

 

[Dr.Mavashi]

Re: Tone is your brain, fingers, and musicality.

I sucked insanely bad on friday, I mean I sounded so horrible I forgot when was the last time I sounded that bad .... none of my settings were working they they usually do ..... then when I was cleaning up i've remembered that last sunday i forgot my adapters at home and had to jam with friends through batteries, on friday I forgot to remove them, who knows may be it was the batteries ... )

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Tone is your brain, fingers, and musicality.

I hate to say it, but my AV62 Strat through my Crate gives me equally satisfying tones as my Bogner rig, it's just different. I used to be snobbish about so much gear, but after playing tons of stuff I've realized I sound the same no matter what I play through. When I have "on" days and sound good, no gear can really get in my way. When I'm having off days and nothing seems to flow right, the most expensive gear can't change that and I think I chased so much different gear to compensate for lack of playing ability.

You and I have both split hairs on tone with some cool toys over the years, and I think we've hit that 'full circle' point, where we don't really care as long is it sounds decent. It really boils down to finding a cool sound and going with it, regardless of it's cost. Of course, it's got to sound good though.

I guess I've just become less picky, because I approach it with music in mind.
I think we go through gear improvement phases, then music phases, then we're on our own again and think about guitars, then get into a band and forget about anything but writing again. I've seen thousands of guitarists on forums, and I think that's a consistent pattern.

 

[Mr. B]

Re: Tone is your brain, fingers, and musicality.

A good player will sound great through anything.

Oh! Wow. I agree. So why don't ALL of you mail me all your expensive gear, and I will send you a squier starter pack with an affinity strat and a squier practice amp in return. I will even pay for shipping. Then you won't have to be worried that some of your tone MIGHT come from quality equipment. It will then ALL come from your fingers and frame of mind.

PM me for the shipping address!!!

 

[Skarekrough]

Re: Tone is your brain, fingers, and musicality.

Yeah you shouldn't even need gear in the first place... your fingers should produce all the drive and throw you need

in fact why doesn't the world do away with amps altogether?! Why don't we just mic up electric guitars acoustically?

I am a genious

No...mostly you're just spoiled.

When I was starting out we didn't have nearly as many low-end gear options that were as good. Most of the axes coming out of anywhere overseas were garbage. There was this irrational fear of a tube shortage and it seemed like every company was slowly pairing down their amp offerings with tubes every year.

Now for $500 you could pick up a pawn shop axe, put in replacement pickups, buy a used tube amp and play that rig in a range of different styles for years. You could gig with it reliably as well.

I make no bones about it, before my generation the option for gear made overseas really didn't exist and all amps were tube and were typically expensive.

Every generation gets more choices and a better bang for the buck. I've watched Japanese offerings go from being laughed at to coveted. I saw Fender MIM's go from god-awful to knee-jerk first picks for players looking for axes that will grow with them for a long while. And I've seen tube amps not only come back but be affordable and sound great!

Until you've been in a situation where you had to make do...and I'm not talking sitting in your room and plunking away....I'm talking about gigging and recording and writing and evolving as a musician....on truly terrible gear you'll never really appreciate how good things really are.