“Tone is in the fingers” my ass. (RANT)

  • Thread starter Thread starter heavision
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I forget what professional guitarist it was but there was a player who had the opportunity to play thru EVH's live rig and said he didn't sound anything like him. I think it is so varied.
 
romanianreaper said:
I forget what professional guitarist it was but there was a player who had the opportunity to play thru EVH's live rig and said he didn't sound anything like him. I think it is so varied.
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Maybe he was a country guitarist, tried some chicken pickin’ what logically lead him sounding nowhere near EVH lol

People seem to mistify idols a lot it seems.
 
CrystalSky said:
Maybe he was a country guitarist, tried some chicken pickin’ what logically lead him sounding nowhere near EVH lol

People seem to mistify idols a lot it seems.
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If I remember correctly that interview was Nuno Bettencourt and it was the tour during the Carnal Knowledge days. Eddie asked if Nuno wanted to try his rig and of course he said yes. Nuno said he sounded exactly like himself.

Accurate? Sure it’s probably exactly what Nuno remembers. However I think we would have to give all of this context.

What is tone? What type of music or gain structure are we working with? Sure lots of people hear bad players make good gear sound shitty, but even if the “tone” is good, it certainly won’t mask bad playing that you don’t wanna hear. It’s like a permit driver behind the wheel of a Lambo. No matter what, the car IS the car, but what happens when that kid is behind the wheel is another story.
 
I never really get these discussions tbh. Everything affects tone. The idea that it's all about the gear is what drives people down the rabbit hole of GAS trying to find some elusive ideal of tone buy spending $ rather than spending sweat. (Note: I've gone after plenty of good gear myself, so no slight on anyone else!) This is what most people are referring to when they talk about tone being in the fingers: it's where everything starts and you can't buy a better foundation. You have to work at it.

At the same time, obviously the clean channel of an amp will sound different than a high gain amp, but in either case it can only amplify what you put into it. Really, all the gear and effects is the final layer that goes on that takes it that last 10% (pick percentage of choice). It's worth it if you want great tone, but you still need that foundation.
 
What's the over/under for how many guitar forums this will be posted on, and how many so far?
 
MistaGuitah said:
Sorry but as much of a gear whore as I am, I cannot contest the fact that touch, technique, phrasing, etc. Have a heck of a lit to do with tone. I've heard lousy players make the best amps sound bad, and have heard good players make cheap gear sound good. I hate having an incredible amp that can't express itself because of bad technique. Even between guys that just strum chords and play thythm, there's a massive difference in tone between good players and lousy ones.

I recently came across this dude, and he pretty much exemplifies today's top players. His technique is impeccable, but not only does he play very fast and slow with a high degree of articulation and clarity, he has great phrasing and feel. The fact no one can deny is players on that level will sound good on a solid state Peavey or a $5,000 amp (not as good but musical and appealing nonetheless).

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Regarding that first sentence. I totally agree.

“Touch, technique, phrasing etc”—do you usually refer to those things as tone? Just curious.
 
heavision said:
Regarding that first sentence. I totally agree.

“Touch, technique, phrasing etc”—do you usually refer to those things as tone? Just curious.
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Yes. It's all part of tone, or part of generating tone. Personal vibrato, pick sensitivity and attack, etc.

Here's a simple example. I'm an old Marshall 2203 player. I can plug into it with the gain maxed and leave my gain up on my guitar, and yet go from nearly clean to massive crunch just by varying how hard I strike the strings, and how heavy/light I fret. Of course in reality, I also roll guitar volume up/down to get a bigger change, but that all comes from me at the guitar directly controlling the final sound out front.

Yes, I do use pedals and I swap pickups out and all kinds of fiddly things, but that's all last 10% of my overall tone.
 
My friend made a bet that i squelched on a long time ago that actually got me into electric guitars and high gain, as I just played acoustic and sang. IF he won, I had to play a tool song on acoustic/sing it on youtube. It was then that I realized how metal I could make an acoustic sound. It was helpful when I started playing a les paul into a borrowed Line 6.
That terrible 30 watt combo inspired me to get my first tube amp (evh 5153), and here I am now. A fucking rockstar..
 
ClintN667 said:
I will say tone is at least 75% in the fingers. My teacher will give me something to play and I may nail it I'm my mind but he will tell me to slow it down and make sure every note sounds good. If I played either of my amps through either of my cabs the average listener won't be able to tell the difference.

Change the player on the same run with the same equipment and while we both might play it technically correct it will sound different more so than changing amp/guitar. To me its player then type of pickup ie single coil vs humbucker then cab/speaker then the amp.

Having said that, everything matters in your signal chain.
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I think a lot of what you're talking about here is quality of playing rather than tone. I think if we listen to you and your teacher play through the same gear and we're listening with the focus on just tone and try to not focus on the playing itself, we can hear that the tone still is what it is with the little differences that come from the playing part. If you guys both play a simple power chord or long held notes, the tonal differences will be subtle if all gear is kept equal

Kinda like if I or another guy wore the same exactly clothing we can make it look totally different, but if we're actually focusing on the clothes rather than how fits the person, we can see the quality of the clothing more for what it is. I think it's all about where we put our focus when observing these things. I think it again goes back to what I was saying of most guying not differentiating between tone, playing, and musical content. Often some of those categories will be good, some will be bad, some ok, but most guys just hear a singular package without picking what is good and bad about it. Kinda like how some players play great, but the musical content and tone sucks, but the overall package works well, so guys will just says things like "sounds killer dude". We need imo to dig deeper than that. Rant over lol
 
Century Road Guitar said:
If I remember correctly that interview was Nuno Bettencourt and it was the tour during the Carnal Knowledge days. Eddie asked if Nuno wanted to try his rig and of course he said yes. Nuno said he sounded exactly like himself.

Accurate? Sure it’s probably exactly what Nuno remembers. However I think we would have to give all of this context.

What is tone? What type of music or gain structure are we working with? Sure lots of people hear bad players make good gear sound shitty, but even if the “tone” is good, it certainly won’t mask bad playing that you don’t wanna hear. It’s like a permit driver behind the wheel of a Lambo. No matter what, the car IS the car, but what happens when that kid is behind the wheel is another story.
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I am actually surprised. I guess Nuno has enough skill to sound however he wants and was just a little bit exagerrating (creative people are sometimes predisposed to that) or maybe paying respect to the man.

In my opinion it is composer/songwriter skill that sets apart guitar heroes more so than guitar playing skills. For example, there was Anton Oparin, who covered Scarified and other PG’s songs when he was 12-13 years old. Technically he nailed ‘em. But do you see him playing big gigs like PG? Hardly so.

So technically, most of the legends can be reproduced technically, but not their creativity.
 
for me it really is very simple .. tone is what you hear from every single bit of gear you have between what isn't attached to the player biologically and the sound waves coming out of speakers .. every single thing has an effect on what you hear be it pick material, strings, body wood, neck wood, the way things are wired within an amp, speakers, speaker cab wood etc etc ... but a players SOUND (and STYLE) is 100% from BOTH their hands

so TONE = GEAR
a players sound (style..what makes them sound like them) = FINGERS/HANDS
 
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