Can Good Tone Really Be This Simple?

[keppy]

its interesting that one can hear the country of manufacture, i've always thought. its a certain bump in certain frequencies that not only indicates the country where a guitar was built, but if one listens closely, using real nice monitors, one can actually hear both the zip code and the area code of where the guitar's neck was built, and the frets laid.

 

:lol:

[zachary vex]

 

its interesting that one can hear the country of manufacture, i've always thought. its a certain bump in certain frequencies that not only indicates the country where a guitar was built, but if one listens closely, using real nice monitors, one can actually hear both the zip code and the area code of where the guitar's neck was built, and the frets laid.

 

 

I know a guy whose ears are so tweeked that he can hear GPS coordinates of a guitar over the phone.

[Kestral]

 

Kes, nice to see you back, been awhile. your premise (great git, great amp, great OD) should be the priority for the "normal" rock/pop/etc player, but at the same time, what constitutes "great" -- especially as that may well change at any moment -- is where everything becomes a much greyer area, imho.

 

Likewise, L6S. imo great tone is like a great building, it starts off with a strong foundation. In tone, the "foundation" imo is a great guitar, great amp and great overdrive. From there you can build anything upon it.

 

Too many times I see people buy awesome boutique pedals that cost more than their Crate or Peavey amp and they're playing on a horrible Squier guitar and wonder why their tone sucks, only to blame their boutique pedals and buy even more expensive pedals and still wonder. If they started off with a good tonal foundation to begin with, then it'd all be pretty much good.

[L6Sguy]

Likewise, L6S. imo great tone is like a great building, it starts off with a strong foundation. In tone, the "foundation" imo is a great guitar, great amp and great overdrive. From there you can build anything upon it. Too many times I see people buy awesome boutique pedals that cost more than their Crate or Peavey amp and they're playing on a horrible Squier guitar and wonder why their tone sucks, only to blame their boutique pedals and buy even more expensive pedals and still wonder. If they started off with a good tonal foundation to begin with, then it'd all be pretty much good.

 

 

if everybody did this though, there may be no more need for HCFX

 

 

 

i agree with you though, certain things need to be in order before one moves on to more gear.

 

 

 

 

 

it should be mentioned/emphasized that both Peavey & Crate have some great amps in their lines (including both past & present), but every amp just needs to be judged on its own goods delivered (specifically for the tasks at hand), not its marquee.

[Kestral]

There's a certain Law of Optimization that works in all things, not just in gear.

 

For example, with cars, somewhere along the line everyone gravitated towards 4 wheels (instead of 3 or even more), a gas engine (as opposed to steam, coal or other technologies at the time), etc...

 

And I noticed this with veteran guitar players who have a ton of experience and great tone, they've all gravitated from whatever their rig was into what now ends up being: Great guitar -> Great overdrive -> Great amp (and then some stuff in between).

 

For example, The Edge of U2 (yes I know, all of you hate him, just pretend you like him for one minute) started off with a pretty good guitar, moved to some ok guitars (70's Strats), had a Boss SD-1 and various EQ pedals and his great Vox amp.

 

He ended up going to great vintage guitars, the one Tubescreamer replaced the Boss SD-1 and the EQ pedal, and he kept his great Vox amp and added some vintage 5E3 Fender Deluxe tweed amps.

 

It amazes me how even people of various styles of music end up with a similar rig. ie. the guitarists for Pearl Jam, Trey Anastasio, SRV, etc...

 

It's interesting how over time people end up gravitating towards a similar rig.