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

  • Thread starter Thread starter heavision
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I loved this thread on the TGP...fact is, if you had a guitar/amp/cab/fx setup to sound a certain way, everyone who plays it would sound like that setup. Of course, if you're sluffing notes, chords, etc...you'll sound like A$$ no matter what. You have to be a player first, then select the gear that gets you the tone you want. End of rant.
 
madrigal77 said:
Tone is in the fingers in the ass.
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I'm back to say that 10 guitar players could play the exact same rig and the exact same notes of a solo and their feel, timing, execution, and performances would all be different and they would sound like them. You would know which was Nuno, which was Zakk, which was CC Deville ( lol, the guy who had the shrill vibrato).

Tone is " Fingers" which means the person over the chain of FX. Case closed at this point.
 
Kapo_Polenton said:
I'm back to say that 10 guitar players could play the exact same rig and the exact same notes of a solo and their feel, timing, execution, and performances would all be different and they would sound like them. You would know which was Nuno, which was Zakk, which was CC Deville ( lol, the guy who had the shrill vibrato).

Tone is " Fingers" which means the person over the chain of FX. Case closed at this point.
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I’d say we’d recognize their style, chops, techniques etc. I personally wouldn’t call that their “tone.” Shrill vibrato is a technique, not a tone, to me.

To me “tone” is the unique sonic character of one’s rig, and how they’ve set it up and dialed it in. At least that’s how it’s always been in my experience as a guitar nerd.
 
I've had my 1973 goldtop since the mid-1980's and have tweaked it to my playing style. Other people playing that same guitar through my amp and cab WILL make it sound different. It is just the nature of the beast.
 
heavision said:
Does this phrase bother anyone else?

I broached this topic on another online forum and was surprised at the response.

* * * *

I gotta get this off my chest. Lemme get on the soap box for a minute.

When we’re discussing shit like GBs vs V30s, Strats vs Les Pauls, or whatever and someone says “it’s not the gear, tone is in the fingers” I find that annoying. As if the tonal differences between two types of speakers are an illusion.

They may elaborate on how the way one holds the pick, vibrato, right and left hand dynamics etc massively affect tone. And I agree completely. But I’d call that technique, touch, a player’s style, I would not call that “tone.”

To me tone is something inherent to the rig, its potential. Great players harboring great technique, touch, talent can coax a great tone out of a given rig but the potential tone must be there, in the rig, first. So when someone says “yeah sure gear is part of it but tone is in the fingers, because they have the greatest impact overall.” I’d say I agree that fingers can have the greatest impact on tone. And it is precisely because they are two different things that fingers can have such a huge impact.

When someone says they’re a tone-chaser I never assume they mean that they are chasing something in their fingers.

And so on and so forth.

Wutchall think?
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Based. People saying this phrase and using Sovtek pre’s with unbroken in speakers and low bias is cringe.
 
seems like a dumb thing to get in a tizzy about

90% of tone is absolutely in the hands of the player

we here chase that final 10% which is more about rig, miking, etc
 
heavision said:
I’d say we’d recognize their style, chops, techniques etc. I personally wouldn’t call that their “tone.” Shrill vibrato is a technique, not a tone, to me.

To me “tone” is the unique sonic character of one’s rig, and how they’ve set it up and dialed it in. At least that’s how it’s always been in my experience as a guitar nerd.
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How can vibrato and touch not affect the tone? Do all violin players sound the same?? Same instrument, similar rig ( a shitty piezo) yet they got their own thing going.
 
I'm going to end the debate right here and now if I didn't already earlier in this thread.

"Signal chain" is EVERYTHING from beginning to end. Your ear, and then your brain, are at the end of the chain. That is how the signal gets to your head. That is how you hear the tone. Your brain makes interpretations based on what it hears. That is why it is subjective. That is why music is subjective and therefore, also an art.

For instruments, it starts with your fingers. If your fingers don't do something right (think of a bad palm mute or a missed harmonic within electric guitar) then everything else in the signal chain for that note/action will sound bad. If you have a guitar that is set up poorly or a tube amp with a bad tube, then everything else in the signal chain will sound bad.

So TONE it is the sum of the parts.

So if you are playing your guitar and one of the parts is broken, your brain then tells you to fix it. It could be your fingers (how you played a note for example or timbre), or could be something else between the pick your are using, the strings, pickups on out through the speakers and into the air and into your ear.
 
I’ll say it one last time, you guys really gotta be able to separate tone and playing. It’s very possible to have amazing tone, but very sloppy, poor playing or be a great player with terrible tone. I’ve heard both scenarios many times. Most guys unfortunately can only hear an overall singular package

If you can at least play just one basic powerchord through a Rev C Rectifier then congratulations you just got a killer tone right there (as good as anyone else could do) even if you can’t play anything else. If you can play better than Guthrie Govan or Max Ostro, but are playing a bad sounding rig then I’m sorry you’re not gonna get a good tone, you’ll be a great player with a bad sound. End of story
 
braintheory said:
I’ll say it one last time, you guys really gotta be able to separate tone and playing. It’s very possible to have amazing tone, but very sloppy, poor playing or be a great player with terrible tone. I’ve heard both scenarios many times. Most guys unfortunately can only hear an overall singular package

If you can at least play just one basic powerchord through a Rev C Rectifier then congratulations you just got a killer tone right there (as good as anyone else could do) even if you can’t play anything else. If you can play better than Guthrie Govan or Max Ostro, but are playing a bad sounding rig then I’m sorry you’re not gonna get a good tone, you’ll be a great player with a bad sound. End of story
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but when you say, I want to have YJM's tone, you also need to have his nuances. Same with any of the greats. So it is the sum of all parts and that's why the FINGERS on any gear sound like the guy playing through Chain XYZ. But rando playing chain XYZ may not be able to play like Insert_legend here. So it really is a silly debate overall.
 
Kapo_Polenton said:
but when you say, I want to have YJM's tone, you also need to have his nuances. Same with any of the greats. So it is the sum of all parts and that's why the FINGERS on any gear sound like the guy playing through Chain XYZ. But rando playing chain XYZ may not be able to play like Insert_legend here. So it really is a silly debate overall.
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It is a silly and not very productive debate I agree, but his nuances, which I do very much admire aren’t the tone itself, they just highlight and bring out certain aspects of the core tone that’s from the setup. There were times where his tone was amazing, other times where I felt it wasn’t great, but in both cases his nuances and overall playing were about as good to me, so once again I distinguish between quality of playing and quality of tone rather than overgeneralize as a single package. With Yngwie this is especially important since he often had great tone and nuanced playing/feel/vibrato, while the musical content/ideas itself I feel isn’t that good, so there’s a lot to break apart with him

With any player there are always good and bad things about them (we’re all human) and so I think it’s better to be aware of what’s great and not great rather than just say “that’s killer bro” or that “sucks man” lol
 
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