Have you found "Your Tone" ??

boycey · 25-02-2009 09:29PM #1

Just wondering out loud as usual- bear with me!!
Like myself most of ye are self confessed gear whores. Nowt wrong with that. But after all the purchases/trades/upgrades are you happy you've found your sound, or indeed can you emulate someone else's tone close enough to keep you happy?

With me its become a simplicity is best approach. After years of gear its boiled down to a good single channel amp and a guitar capable of getting a nicely overdriven sound but still capable of cleaning up nicely when the volumes rolled back. And thats about it. Not too big into effects though I've bought and sold plenty over the years, just happy with a classic rock level of drive, plenty of mids and a slightly gritty clean .
So I suppose Im asking what/who's sound are you aiming for and are you close enough to it to be satisfied?
(and sorry for my usual long winded posts:o)

spoonbadger · 25-02-2009 09:58PM

Well i have my clean and slight breakup tone down, but i'm still looking for a proper overdrive!!. And +1 on the simplicity, if you cant get 90% of your tone with just your amp and axe, then you're not going to make up the rest with effects!

.

For clean tones i was always going for my own sound, thick and beefy but still plenty of sparkle. And for overdrive, my goal was "mermaid" by hendrix and gilmour's "comfortably numb" solo tone. Am playing a strat through an oldschool marshall fwiw.

-=al=- · 25-02-2009 10:07PM

ill never bee 100% happy, but yeah im happy enough

Darkstrike · 25-02-2009 10:49PM

I have more than one tone!

punchdrunk · 25-02-2009 11:00PM

i've kinda settled on a '52 tele bridge pickup through an orange halfstack as being mine,sounds lovely!

spoonbadger · 25-02-2009 11:02PM

punchdrunk wrote: »

i've kinda settled on a '52 tele bridge pickup through an orange halfstack as being mine,sounds lovely!

Hehe, alt. rock and indie?

.

KevLeppard · 25-02-2009 11:09PM

Got a wicked "classic rock" tone. Gibson Les Paul plugged into a Marshall JCM 2000 DSL Half Stack.

Because of the tone I get from this set up, I dont use much by way of effects, bar a Dunlop wah wah and the occasional BOSS Chorus on some clean sounds. A Graphic EQ for a volume boost, with the EQ settings at neutral.

punchdrunk · 25-02-2009 11:16PM

spoonbadger wrote: »

Hehe, alt. rock and indie? .

oh yeah! :pac:

Seziertisch · 26-02-2009 12:05AM

If you want to step things up a notch or two, try out Vovox or Evidence Audio cables. They are a very significant step up from Planet Waves or the likes.

You can hear it in the room, but the difference becomes even more apparent when you mic it up. I have done comparisons with a 57 on the cone swapping out different cables and the differences were very obvious between different cables, and particularly between "high-end" and "budget" cables. I was a sceptic until I heard for myself.

They are a much better investment than a new pedal for example. If you look around online you will find plenty of guys saying it couldn't make that much of a difference, read a bit more and you will see that none of these guys have ever actually played through the cables they are dismissing.

darrenw5094 · 26-02-2009 12:44AM

KevLeppard wrote: »

Got a wicked "classic rock" tone. Gibson Les Paul plugged into a Marshall JCM 2000 DSL Half Stack.

Because of the tone I get from this set up, I dont use much by way of effects, bar a Dunlop wah wah and the occasional BOSS Chorus on some clean sounds. A Graphic EQ for a volume boost, with the EQ settings at neutral.

Can't beat the Slash GNR tone for straight up rock.......and maybe Angus.

Red Sleeping Beauty · 26-02-2009 06:36AM

Nope.
There's guitar tones I like but I wouldn't really be able to play with them if that makes sense (I'm kinda rubbish at playing telecasters but I love the sound they make). Some guys can be a chameleon and play everything , all different styles and sounds. I can't though. Tone serach continues

Fingers Mcginty · 26-02-2009 08:16AM

boycey wrote: »

After years of gear its boiled down to a good single channel amp and a guitar capable of getting a nicely overdriven sound but still capable of cleaning up nicely when the volumes rolled back.

Me too

Doctor J · 26-02-2009 08:27AM

Got a load of different tones I'm happy with.

For Metal stuff, there's just something about the Empire which has a presence to it I really like, only the Eggle comes close. That into the Ampeg is just such a sweet, sweet sound.

For less distorted stuff, the Duke into the Fulltone, into the Tremolo, into the Holy Grail, into the Bassman puts me into a happy place. I want to get a G Player into that setup too, that'd be real nice, I reckon.

On bass, I've built up a selection of nice basses which don't need any colouring, just make them loud and let their own sound come through. They all sound different and suit different styles of playing and different styles of music.

In the same way that I could never be happy playing just one kind of music, it's always nice to have a selection of sounds to draw on, I'm always open to more. I could never have just one sound and say "That's it, that's my sound."

felim · 26-02-2009 09:22AM

I've always been a fan of a LP type guitar into a cranked Marshall. That's what I use. I can get other tones but that one just suits my playing style the best.

Zangetsu · 26-02-2009 09:25AM

Found my bass tone a month ago, been searching for a long time, turns out it was inside an X3 Live

For elec guitar there was only 1 setup they made my head explode which was an American Tele through a fender deluxe on the bridge pickup with the tone rolled most of the way back, wasn't much in the eq just a smidgen of reverb. Twas beautiful (until someone killed the tele

).

Acoustic guitar, takamine with 13's makes my ears wet.

freshcream · 26-02-2009 12:16PM

I,m happy with my clean tone, clean blues, dirty blues and cleanish rock tones, they all come from a goldtop with p90s and a small fender tweed amp, but I haven't found any harder tones that i am happy with yet.

Voodu Child · 26-02-2009 01:05PM

I like a thick saturated lead sound, with a little bit of sag, lots of sustain and a lot of harmonic content and touch responsiveness. The Boogie MKIV pretty much does that straight-up, no pedals...though it does take a bit of tweaking on account of all the different options and settings.

I wouldn't call it 'my' sound, but it's a sound I like and i've got it, so I guess that answers the thread :pac:

A7X · 26-02-2009 01:12PM

Serious no.

Lack o money = lack o tone

Quattroste · 26-02-2009 01:37PM

NO. I have 3 amps which equates to 6 seperate channels and best tone I have, comes from a pocket pod into my headphones

Fcukin annoying to be honest.

They say your tone comes from your fingers. Well, my fingers are tone deaf :pac:

punchdrunk · 26-02-2009 02:01PM

Quattroste wrote: »

NO. I have 3 amps which equates to 6 seperate channels and best tone I have, comes from a pocket pod into my headphones Fcukin annoying to be honest.

They say your tone comes from your fingers. Well, my fingers are tone deaf :pac:

i thought you'd an orange rocker? :eek:

Patricide · 26-02-2009 02:35PM

Im not there yet...but im getting there. +1 for simplicity, I used to have a rake of pedals but i was better off just not having them there in the first place.

Guitar - Lead - Overdrive - AMP. Tis the way it should be done. Maybe a bit of compression on the cleans. Once you got your sound out of that setup, everything else is just icing on the cake.

Doctor J · 26-02-2009 03:05PM

punchdrunk wrote: »

i thought you'd an orange rocker? :eek:

That always makes me think of Uncle Andy and Big Mervyn :pac:

punchdrunk · 26-02-2009 03:10PM

Patricide wrote: »

Im not there yet...but im getting there. +1 for simplicity, I used to have a rake of pedals but i was better off just not having them there in the first place.

Guitar - Lead - Overdrive - AMP. Tis the way it should be done. Maybe a bit of compression on the cleans. Once you got your sound out of that setup, everything else is just icing on the cake.

I suppose it depends what your trying to get out of it,if your trying to get a good sound from a cheap guitar and amp,thinking pedal will fix any areas the other two are lacking in your wrong...forget about it!

but at the time a good guitar and amp will only get you so far in certain genre's
if you want to sound like sonic youth/RATM/radiohead/U2 etc ,your gonna need FX

Paolo_M · 26-02-2009 03:22PM

I have in a way, only it involves mutiple amps and guitars.
My ultimate clean to mild overdrive tone is from my '65 Vox AC50, ultimate crunch tone from my '71 JMP50 and ultimate high gain tone is from my hot rodded '81 JCM800.
Haven't found an amp that can convincingly deliver all three so about a year ago I decided to figure out how they all worked and build one myself. It sounds great so far on paper, I've yet to actually build it though...we'll see :pac:

-=al=- · 26-02-2009 04:36PM

actually i pretty much have my tone now, i was just editing it to perfection there today, got some new gear, its perfect for me anyways

viva la vida

Quattroste · 26-02-2009 08:31PM

punchdrunk wrote: »

i thought you'd an orange rocker? :eek:

No. I'm not really serious, lets just say my tone tends to morph quite a bit. I have a Mesa LSS, Marshal 6100 and a Matamp First Lady. Waste of three amps really

rgjmce · 26-02-2009 09:04PM

haven't be able to get 'my tone' yet cause i have a crap 15 watt amp but as soon as i get a new amp then i will certainly be going tone searching, i do have idea of what tone i want though

500x · 26-02-2009 09:42PM

Interesting thread this. 'Tone', I bet us guitar players think more about it than we do a lot of things... Not everything, but ya know.

I agree with the original post, simplicity. It's been a long road for me, I wish I'd known this stuff when I was 14.

My biggest set-up was a 12U rack, with two 4x12 cabs.... A massive midi foot switch, and not a whole lot of a clue!

I now use either an ENGL Screamer or Fireball head through a V30 loaded cab. I'm about to order a 1x12 V30 ENGL cab for further portability.

The Fireball is usually associated with heavy metal players, but I love it for the classic rock stuff I do.

Out of my little family of guitars, the best for me is a PRS Custom24 from 95 with a SD Pearly Gates and Custom set of pickups. It's actually a 'aul Reed Smith'... My 'P' fell off!!! It's fairly beaten up now.

I've jused ordered a Visual Sound H2O pedal to replace my Boss CE5 and DD3, which sit in the loop of the ENGL.

A Crybaby and the ENGL 2 button footswitch are all that I have on the floor; the FX in the loop sit on top of the amp... I just leave em on but at a very subtle level. Recently I'm noticing myself even leaving the FX out... I'm either growing out of them, or I couldn't be bothered buying batteries!

The EQ settings I use on both amps are similar - Mids at 10, Treb at 9, Presence at 0 or 1, bass at somewhere depending on the head.

Can you guess? I like a fairly 'wooly' overdrive sound with plenty of saturation. Tony McAlpine's tone on Evolution, Malmsteen's (woo!) tone on Fire And Ice, or Satriani's live tone on the last three songs of Time Machine. To me, they are beautiful.

I think a hint of chorus thickens things up nicely, and delay covers up my sloppy playing!!

When a band I was in previously had the luxury of bringing along our own sound engineer, we had some pretty intense discussions about my sound (he is a guitarist too).

Engineer: "Your amp sounds like it has a blanket over it, it sounds like ****!"
Me: "Ah it's great."
Engineer: "Yeah right, it's awful."

Acoustic? My Lowden O35C Custom is a stunner. I love it, but you gotta play it with your fingers; it hates picks.

For strumming, a good old Martin HD28.

Strings are Elixir Nanoweb, gauge 13.

For the Nylon string stuff, an Avalon S32C.

If only I could find some gigs.... Maybe I could let others hear my wooly lovely sound. :-)

Best wishes,

Tony

Red Sleeping Beauty · 26-02-2009 09:46PM

A7X wrote: »

Serious no.

Lack o money = lack o tone

Is tone cheap ? Is it expensive ? Can you put a value on it ?

I've heard the saying that tone is in the fingers, what do ye think?

A7X · 26-02-2009 11:23PM

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

Is tone cheap ? Is it expensive ? Can you put a value on it ?

I've heard the saying that tone is in the fingers, what do ye think?

Tone is always crap when its played through my gear.

Red Sleeping Beauty · 26-02-2009 11:34PM

What about when someone else plays through your gear ?

Have you found "Your Tone" ??

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