General Music Chat

why do some people chase tone their whole lives and others don`t,be it for better or worse.

Interesting.

When I started playing guitar in 2005 I had a Stratocaster & some Boss distortion pedals feeding straight into the PA.

I thought by all the noise I was making that I was really cutting a fat rat.

After posting some home recordings in search for advice ... I got it.

That's when I " got it " .

Now granted guitar tone is much like a woman, beauty being in the eye of the beholder ( and fickle a couple weeks a month LOL ).

We ( generally ) seek out the sound that best expresses the emotion of the piece as we hear it in our heads or try to emulate the sound of another ( as in doing covers ).

I will always be listening to those ( guitar ) voices in my head.
It's part of the reason I do what I do.

If you've never had that sound in your head you would never understand.

If you chase tone most of your life, you don't know what you want.

If you know what you want, you can get there lots of different ways.

Tone is a question that should be addressed. Since I switched from Bass to Lead Guitar I've tackling that question.

My problem is an abundance of riches. I use a Fender Mustang V modeling head with a marshall cabinet. Darn thing is simply loaded with great sounds - or preloaded I should say. Has one hundred presets out of which at least twenty are very nice.

I'm slowing testing them all and then recording to see if sounds as good on tape (chip) as it does to my ear.

one difficulty I had with Bass was the best sounds in my little studio were often not appropriate in the bigger rooms with a band glommed on.

It's great really. There is a perfect sound out there but I no longer thinki it is perfect for every occasion. Different tunes need different sounds. compare the Brandos (Gettysburg) with their crisp clean tone to Megadeth's Tornado of Souls with its virtuoso guitar work - and heavily distored. Both work.

Talbot

A good question indeed. Some people find it right away (like me). Others seem to experiment endlessly, never satisfied. I think the best thing is to find a tone you like reasonably well and stick with it. Your tone will magically get better the more you play. I think switching tones continuously leads one to becoming endlessly dissatisfied. Perhaps ask others if your tone works. If it does trust their judgement and go with it...

why do some people chase tone their whole lives and others don`t,be it for better or worse.

Here you go again. WWWAAAAASSSSUUUUUPPPP?

Eh, it's a matter of opinion for the most part. Tone is something to 'keep at.' I can't remember vividly how I became accustomed to tone, because I was way younger. Now I realize for years I played aimlessly. By that, I mean I simply read what was in front of me and judged it's stature based on the faces of my instructors. I wasn't thinking about sound or effect, just approval. When I no longer cared for that (around 13 of course), I found myself unable to practice without nearly ripping my hair out. That's when I began to focus on other things. I tried hard to match pieces to composers' and/or professionals' recordings, thinking about sound progression and such. But that is just copying. I guess I was taught radically because I'm just now interested in sorting out what music theory I've gained so I can seek my own happiness with music. Ultimately, the possibilities are deliciously endless, as far as tone is concerned, when one spends time on something so malleable.
But tone evaluation should be carefully analyzed if you're trying to have others join in on the love of your own music. Also, mind set is a cool factor in creating completely new tones (&such), which I was trying to describe earlier. As long as you remember some idea of each tone you try, then there will be more real and concrete evolution.

Or I interpreted the topic terribly and none of this is relevant :p

some times it seems that when you have a good tone you should stop chasing and make that your signature sound.then if you want to experiment start off with a completely different rig and leave your go to sound alone.

I think if you are a true musician you never really quit chasing tone. But you have to know what you want to hear and be able to get pretty close all the time to be active.

In my case I can define it as a JCM 800 fed with a Les Paul, and I can ussually with a distortion pedal get it on anything I play thru. My problem has always been a good balance between rythym and lead tones, but hell Im still working on it! LOL

I'm guilty of being a tone chaser. My guitar sounds great through my amp, but I guess what I'm looking for is that WOW factor. I've heard it before from other guitarists so mine should be out there somewhere. But at this point I'm not anticipating the moment I find it. Who knows if I ever will. I have no complaints though, cause what I play through does a really good job.

It's not tone I'm seeking. You might call it that and wouldn't be wrong. My amp has butt loads of tones that can be retreived via 3 way footswtch, however, my RP 70 which is a relatively cheap modeler has 100 presets retreivable through 2 switches and additional modes that can duplicate tube amps or digital and so on. I like to "travel" through the 100 presets and find actions on my guitar to make that sound my own in each channel. Peter Framton was not the first to use the voicebox but he made it his own. You may think of Joe Walsh for instance with Rocky Mountain Way, but if some one came up to you and asked you to quickly answer who was famous for the voicebox, I think your first answer would have to be Peter Framton.

I think Jeff beck got robbed of the talkbox idea by Frampton and Walsh, but what the hell do I know?

Frampton got the idea from Peter Drake.
Here's a recording from 64 using a voice box.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uea85zklZpM

Here's a 1944 clip of "Stringy the talking steel guitar"
Wild!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPd9cxqKCVg