romanianreaper
Well-known member
See, that is a good point. Zakk Wylde does that pinch harmonic and in my opinion, nobody else can nail it like he does.
“Tone is in the fingers” my ass. (RANT)
- Thread starter heavision
- Start date
311splawndude
Well-known member
Well see to me, those harmonics are tones that can only be produced in a certain way and only really work with an amplified guitar. I mean, they are there acoustically right, they just don't jump off the fretboard.
And notice in my "tone flow" description there are far more non-human elements than human ones
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Mr. Willy
Well-known member
I think I need see both sides to this argument. I mean, a cranked Roland Jazz Chorus ain’t gonna sound like a cranked Super Lead.
On the other end, if you use your fingers rather than a pick, that can affect the tone by making warmer or brighter, depending on if you use your fingernails or the fleshy part to pluck the strings.
I’d say tone is at least somewhat in your fingers. Every small variable in the chain contributes to the overall tone.
On the other end, if you use your fingers rather than a pick, that can affect the tone by making warmer or brighter, depending on if you use your fingernails or the fleshy part to pluck the strings.
I’d say tone is at least somewhat in your fingers. Every small variable in the chain contributes to the overall tone.
braintheory
Well-known member
I think this again goes back to poor/imprecise wording on other guy’s parts. I would say it’s more if one wants to play like EVH as closely as they can or if their goal is more to capture his tone as much as they can. Sound vs execution in what they do with that sound
I guess though if I hypothetically could nail Sinatra’s voice 100%, but still sing the way I sing (not the way he does it) perhaps most guys would fail to recognize the tone part that I got 100% down in the hypothetical scenario. Especially hypothetical since I’m a terrible singer lol
I just again think it would be more helpful if guys put more effort into distinguishing between quality in tone and playing and this stupid expression is counterproductive to making that happen because of the overly broey/dudular guitar guys that think they’re being clever/wise with brevity when in reality many of them aren’t even great players themselves. Thankfully I’ve never heard guys like Guthrie, Randy, Marty, Ostro, SRV, Magic Sam or any great player I can think of using this saying probably because they know better lol
braintheory
Well-known member
The part they can’t nail is his execution (aka technique/style), especially his distinctive vibrato in them. The tone itself part of it imo I really don’t think is anything unbelievable or even perhaps as good as some others
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+100
When someone says tone is in the hands they're not talking about everyone's tone or hands.
Check out the isolated guitar from the Who's Won't Get Fooled Again.
The tone is nothing special, but listen to Townsend's dynamics, vibrato, and attack,
and how sometimes he pushes the beat and other times he hangs behind it.
I've heard a million guys play this and no-one does it quite right.
He's got a funky swing that's all his own.
Super basic example but it works for a guy the Yngwie the same way.
Everyone can play the licks but not exactly the same - with all of his little nuances and tics.
rstites
Well-known member
This is where I'm at. Everything matters to tone. Trying to limit it down to just gear, or just fingers, or just magical leprechaun's or whatever is pointless. A more productive discussion is how much certain things matter. To me, a lot of gear discussion forums tend to focus on gear to the point they forget about how critical the player is to the final sound, and hence the phrase "tone in the fingers". Obviously, nobody means the rest doesn't matter....just that amplifiers/pedals aren't everything, and won't take you to sounding like EVH by just dropping $.
Yes, a pinch harmonic has a tone. So does pick attack. So does how a note is fretted. They all influence the final sound of the instrument.
braintheory
Well-known member
I would re-phrase it to everything matters to the overall package and tone is just one of many other things making that package. On here we mostly focus on the gear/tone part, but a lotta guys with not the best tone have a great overall package still because of the playing or music quality itself making up for it (Paul Gilbert and Randy Rhoads being some examples. Wouldn’t want their tone lol)
Some of my favorite classical guitarists also had bad tone (it’s almost universally agreed on with them lol), but they’re still very moving/inspiring for me to listen to because of their feeling/passion in the playing (I just try to not get distracted by the tone the same why I try to not get distracted by the metal vocalists I don’t like lol). Some classical guitarists weren’t blessed with the best nails (myself included)
braintheory
Well-known member
Well that’s also part of the package lol
But I’m actually just trying make our descriptions more accurate. They tend to be very sloppy, overly broad often times and as a result not as helpful, sometimes misleading like this expression the thread is based on lol. It really should be extinct already lol
Zachman
Well-known member
If that were correct, you wouldn't need a guitar
There it is. Nicely put.
ccn
Well-known member
This may have been posted before but I bet a lot of players have been through this .
TONE OBSESSION: THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS
January 26, 2016Guitar Features, Guitars, Tone Tips & TricksFree thinking, guitar tone, ocd, rantsDavid SzabadosKnowing about the details of most anything can be a curse. Really. The devil truly CAN be in the details. I’ve been on the guitar tone journey for a long time and it all started when I was a young player in my early teens. I wanted to capture and emulate the exciting tones I heard from my favorite guitarists. That’s normal.
Over the years I’ve learned that the gear is only part of the equation. There is a lot of truth when people say, “Tone is in the fingers”, but we’ll get to that discussion in detail another time. It took me a long time to live by the thought and remind myself of this fact.
Fast forward to our internet age and of course there are many resources and opinions online. The internet is a GREAT place to learn about any topic. Forums and videos are fantastic resources for anyone interested in reading, viewing, and just learning about any particular topic they want. Opinions are wide and varied. But on the other hand, this can be distracting and obsessive if taken too far while doing one’s own research. I know this all too well and I even ranted about it in a previous post.
Passion in general can lead to a certain level of unhealthy obsessing. And the more passionate we are about some things, the more we want to dig into a topic and learn all we can. We want to know what’s truly best. Or maybe we are simply curious about why and how things work.
Ask me anything about first-generation Chevrolet Camaros and there is a good chance I can recite back some facts from my many years of studying books, owning the cars, and working on them since my teen years. If only there was a TV version of Jeopardy! that focused on gen 1 Camaros…One could dream. It would have been so much more lucrative had I been more passionate about something like creating software code…but I digress.
An example of my costly obsession: I always wanted a Gibson Les Paul Custom a.k.a. “Black Beauty”. I had my first one before the days of the internet. But as I began to educate myself after the internet emerged, my research online helped teach me about the differences between the models over the years. It was then I discovered various opinions about what supposedly made a “bad” Les Paul Custom versus a “good” one.
There’s general disdain for a number of features…where if you’d have read the commentary, you’d be surprised that the guitars could have even lasted and still functioned as instruments over the past decades! People’s opinions can be so strong… Many of the descriptions I read seemed to indicate that the instruments themselves were only built to be semi-functional for a few years before they’d ultimately fall apart.
Throughout numerous years, Gibson Les Pauls were created with multi-laminate or “pancake bodies”, short neck tenons, used weight relief holes, neck volutes, and multi-piece necks… All were written about as if they are the worst sins imaginable on a Les Paul Guitar. What do these features do and why were they done? In short, some were for cost savings and some were for more efficient use of resources. Some were done in order to improve the design. But it turned out that if a feature deviated from its original design, the end result was always considered bad – whether it was in tone, sustain, or overall quality.
And yet, I’ve played some guitars that had all of these features (spanning the ‘70s-‘90s) and felt they sounded GREAT to me. Was it just me, or was something wrong with those internet assertions?
It was the internet world of opinions which helped ruined my love of certain instruments. Or at least it cast doubt. I found a great 1990 model Les Paul Custom during the pre-internet days and it was in great condition and played and sounded perfect to me. I loved the feel of it so I bought it…But after time (enter the Internet era) I began to worry that this model with its short neck tenon (the amount of neck attachment which is glued and extended into the body) may have made the instrument inferior compared to a proper earlier vintage model.
And I also thought that the neck joint itself may be weaker and eventually fail as I had read. Never mind that I knew inside my head and heart that this wasn’t a logical thought since all Gibson Les Pauls from the early ‘70s and onward were built with short neck tenon joints – save for certain costly Gibson Custom Shop models. Having knowledge of these facts however, and again, “ruined” my love for my own 1990 model guitar.
Obsessing further, I also wondered about the use of weight relief. Was it also impacting the overall sustain of the instrument? Was I missing something that only a proper vintage or modern custom shop model could only give me?
I couldn’t get passed the details of my now inferior instrument.
So I sold the guitar.
I ended up spending over twice the amount of money on a Custom Shop version of a Gibson Les Paul Custom…But no, not just “the regular” Custom Shop Les Paul Custom model which still used a short tenon neck and was weight relieved. That wasn’t good enough…I found that the ’68 Les Paul Custom model (not normally advertised on the Gibson site), finally had the long neck tenon that I required. But now the neck profile was too fat. And I learned….GASP…. that the particular model was also weight-relieved with swiss-cheese holes inside the body cavity! Oh, the horror! I couldn’t play THAT! And guess what on top of it all? The Les Paul Custom ’68 model now ALSO used synthetic inlays (plastic) and was not genuine mother-of-pearl as found on my 1990.
So I ended up ordering a Custom Shop model based on my desired specs. It was expensive, but not as expensive as a real vintage one. I specified a 1968 model with a slim taper 1960 neck profile, one-piece body with wood sorted for lighter weight, no weight relief holes, and genuine mother of pearl block and diamond headstock inlays.
Now and FINALLY, I was SAFE from owning a “bad” Les Paul Custom!! And it took only a little over a year to receive it. I marveled at my guitar when it arrived. And it honestly is a very nice instrument.
In 2010, Gibson issued its 50th Anniversary Les Paul Custom with virtually all the same specifications I special-ordered on my 2009 – including the use of a one-piece, non-weight relieved body (but with sorted lightweight wood). I would like to think that
The 2010 Gibson 50th Anniversary Les Paul Custom Black Beauty had every feature I wanted and was limited to just 200 built.
my special order may have influenced Gibson’s decision to issue the 50th anniversary Les Paul Custom the year later, but that’s of course me just being silly.
In hindsight, and with it being just a few years later…I realized I purchased this guitar based on internet research and by obsessing over the details and opinions of others…well, WHO CARES? The bottom line – as a playable instrument, was my new “good” Les Paul Custom now better than my “bad” 1990 model? Honestly, as a playable instrument, they were and are both great. One simply is much more expensive.
One of my favorite players from the 1980’s, Randy Rhoads, played a ‘70s Les Paul Custom. It was built using a multi-laminate “pancake” body, multi-piece neck, and a short tenon neck joint. Seemed to work really well for him. And you know what? He spent time practicing and not obsessing over every detail of his gear. And the Gibson Custom Shop even reissued that inferior instrument!
But guess what? No surprise, Randy was a much better player than I ever was or ever will be.
Same holds true for many other players who focus on playing rather than dealing with the minutia of gear they own and focusing on how it’s constructed or what sounds best.
I’m not saying now to NOT be into your gear and not read and study about things that interest you. Passion is good – in moderation. And knowledge certainly is useful. But it’s important to strike a healthy balance.
And I know that when I play better more often (i.e., practicing), my tone naturally gets better. Playing with the confidence that comes by simply practicing your instrument delivers better tone. Period. This goes back to the tone is in the fingers statement I made earlier…. Try it yourself sometime if you feel that you’re thinking you may be becoming a bit obsessive as well. And in the end, you may end up saving some money by spending time wood shedding on your instrument instead of trying to research and pursue your next piece of gear.
Straight up. Anyone can get killer gear/tone. What one does with it is what it’s all about.