Sometimes it's the guitar and not the player

[VENGEANCE]

From the beginning when I started playing guitar, I've been hearing people say something like, "At the end of the day, real tone lies in your fingers." But I doubt so in this particular situation. I recently tried a Peavey Vandenberg guitar (Adrian Vandenberg - former Whitesnake guitarist) at some shop at peninsula and I have to say, THIS GUITAR SCREAMS, the bridge pickup specifically. I tried doing some research on it and apparently it's just some stock high output alnico pickup. Vandenberg of course is an amazing player but I believe this particular signature guitar of his defined how he sounded like. So I just wanna ask you guys out there whether you feel the same, that whether some of the famous players out there get their tone mainly from the guitar and gives them their definitive sound?

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

the right tool give the player the right context to excel and the right player give the guitar the right treatment to give us music.

balance

 

[redname]

i kind of agree tht a gd guitar makes a diff.

i had the pleasure to try a 60's telecaster (ard there lah), the sound was so sweet, just playing a simple blues scale made me sound like some blues master

 

[subversion]

a good amp makes even a greater difference.

but it's all chemistry, everything playing the part & making good music.

 

[chungmun77]

a good amp makes even a greater difference.

but it's all chemistry, everything playing the part & making good music.

I agree with the amplifier part. I've tested guitars in shops using their top-end amps, having a jolly good time. Then, after buying the guitar and plugging it into my humble setup, its almost like I took the wrong guitar home! But its all good, tone is where the heart is.

 

[skipper53]

Oh for sure. Totally agree with the thread title. I suck as a guitarist. But when you plug a CU24 through the yellow side of a KoT into a warmed up AC15, it's hard to sound... bad?


Lol. Okay on a serious note I say yea, if you're gonna do something, invest in the good tools to do it right.

About the whole talk of tone is in the fingers there's a lot of truth to that too. It's like let's say you put joe perry on kerry king's rig, to a very large extent... joe perry will still sound like joe perry. And that I trust is the case and point.

 

[guitarsan]

a good amp makes even a greater difference.

yeppity yep.

 

[EugeneSmasher]

I also don't understand why people always say that tone is in your fingers. How can your fingers affect your tone? No matter what, a Strat will always have a different tone compared with a Les Paul. A Mesa Boogie Dual rect will always sound different from a Marshall JCM. A good amp will give you good tone no matter what type of fingers you have.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this statement, can someone elaborate if so?...

 

[GoliathZero]

EugeneSmasher: I'm voting that its the way you hold your notes... I do notice slight differences in sound depend on how I fret the string...

Back to the thread, the fingers is only one part of the system. There is only so much your fingers can do if your amp is a 10 watt cheapo amp and your guitar strings are nearly dead.

 

[ShredCow]

"Tone" is often over-simplified to mean "character"/"vibe"/"feel"/"personality" without any consideration for the sound component.

Tone is both sound and feel.

And what makes stuff sound good? So many things factor in - guitars, strings, picks, wood, fingernails, amp, etc - but they factor in varying amounts.

So reading how some famous solo was made with dead, rusty strings = EPIC WIN... really downplays the magnificence amp that provided most of that incredible solo's sound.

 

[hub4thailand]

Erhh so far the people that I met, mostly is the fingers then guitar, some even blame the guitar when the fingers fails. Can't blame anything when a Gibson Or a fender is plug into Koch powertone and a Rivera 4x12

 

[subversion]

for non-Gobson fans, they'll still blame the Gibson, he he...

 

[relinquish69]

A good guitar is a good guitar at the end of the day. whether it's a custom shop signature model or a regular production model, if it clicks with you, it clicks.

Fingers do play a part but some guitars just have that extra oompf that you are looking for even though you know the specs very well but never expected it to sound this good. that is why you buy them in the first place right? well, at least that's how I choose my guitars.

 

[junkiemanxl]

Just my order of how i see it.

#1 Fingers
#2 Amp
#3 Guitar

 

[dezng]

There's a misconception about "tone is in the fingers". It's a relative "yes" and "no".

If 2 guitarist were to play from the same guitar and same rig. Both holding on to the same note, both with almost the same pick attack and let it sustain without any vibrato. They will sound very similar.

But when they start to play with their "fingers", adding vibrato, accentuate pick attack relative to their styles. The same note will sound slightly different.

BUT if they start to play a series of similar notes (say a short solo), they will sound completely different. Their phrasing will be different, their attack, and way they bend, the way they pick, light upstroke, heavy downstroke, more percussive, less percussive, moderate vibrato, wild vibrato etc. The same piece of solo will already sound different. It can sound more aggressive or mellow depending on who's playing it.

And when you talk about playing the same guitar, same rig by 2 different players with different style, it can even be more apparent. A country player with chicken picking chops on a Mesa Boogie Triple Recto will sound completely different compared to a sweep picking neo classical metal guitarist even if they use the same rig, same settings, same guitar.

So to a certain extend. When you're playing music and not just holding a single note all day. Tone is indeed in the fingers.

 

[ridethetiger]

I am 45 years old, when I play a Craftsman guitar, it screams more than when my niece, 24 years old tried to play a fenders custom guitar. It's the player, never the guitar.

 

[zesn]

Good sound ≠ good tone.

Tone is in the fingers as always.

It's how you play, how good you can sound playing one note, simple or complex lines, chords. Basically, articulation and phrasing.


Good sound will motivate you to have good tone. Likewise, hearing yourself with a bad sound will demotivate you to play well isn't it?

Think about it this way, I love my playing on my tele unplugged, but when plugged into a not-so-good amp, the bad sound just make you so sian of playing any further.

Geddit?

 

[lester_music]

Simple...

if the player is of standard , its never the guitar......

if the player is of not of standard, then it may be the guitar....


" there is something interesting about tone, One time i was with Sco,(John Scofield), and i broke a string on a strat..the only backup i had was an acoustic-electric, so i picked that up & it pretty much sounded the same..so guess it's true alot of tone comes from within..." Avi Bortnick...

 

[zesn]

Really...? An acoustic-electric pretty much sounding the same as a strat?

That's more like same tone, different sounds.