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It is rarely about the 85% getting in the ballpark tone with one's fingers and basic gear, but mostly about the last 15% of tone chasing!
Without psycho acoustic and post purchase rationalization (to take DB expression) a lot of money could be saved.
A 10-15$ string set can change one's tone more dramatically than a 50$ PIO NOS capacitor
It seems to me, the return on investment is inversely proportionate to the amount of money spent with nowadays gear quality!
On the other hand, for some the chase is the fun so it is worth the spending!
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12-20-2018 07:22 AM
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Flat out... George is a legend. We have been blessed with him. My whole life. Thank God, he is still with us. And I hope George is still with us for the rest of my life.
PS, one day I’m gonna sit down and play a bunch of Tele’s. And I am gonna leave with the one that sounds and feels right to me. Promise.
Originally Posted by Gitfiddler
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I have read somewhere that MHS has Alnico 2 neck and 3 in the bridge. So Peter has it close! Originally Posted by El Fundo
I had a ES-Les Paul for some months this year and I neither didn't like the MHS pickups. Just a bit muffled too low output humbuckers. Or then it was the guitar that wasn't for my fingers and ears!
Great thread! I have learned a lot of new (to me) guitarists! Listening to El Hombre now, just perfect... everything! Sound and fingers!
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I think the point a lot of folks miss concerns the idea of focusing on a certain "good tone" instead of just focusing on "sounding good."
The latter can certainly be achieved with the hands.
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Ironically, after ordering the pickup from Pete, I received in the mail a pack of TI Bebop 13s (I had Bepop 12s on it before). I put the strings on, adjusted the pickup height closer to the strings, and all of a sudden I’m getting exactly the sound I wanted that I wasn’t getting before! Pete had already shipped the pickup which should be here in a couple of days, but I really don’t need it now. I hope he’ll be open to me sending it back and me getting a refund. So! Both gear and hands matter. Originally Posted by Herbie
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Let there be no discussion on the internet that can't be reduced to strawmanning lol.
The musician has a particular sound in mind... All the elements - instrument, amplifier, technique and so on, go together to make the complete picture, and the quest is to find that sound as a player.... Any gear that gets you closer is worth the money.... Any technique or practice that gets you closer is worth the effort... These things don't get done by halves...
Creating a good sound - tone - as I understand it with one's technique should be a primary starting point for any guitarist.
Maybe I'm just old fashioned, because people here are trying to neatly redefine tone to refer to something you have to achieve with aid of MOAR GEAR but that's clearly bollocks, and they know it
For instance all the posters going 'oh I can't get a good jazz tone, what guitar/amp/pedal should I get' - I guarantee you can sort your basic sound out with no purchases at all in a few weeks if you set your EQ flat and concentrate on the sound and experiment with where and how you pick etc.... anyone with a good sound has done this before they get to the gear side of the equation.
I mean, that's obvious right?
Look, if you are a straightahead type player and you can't get a decent - maybe not ideal, but decent - live sound out of one of the entry level laminate archtops on the market and something like a Fender Hotrod, you really need to do more practice. Those guitars are perfectly good. That's why you see pros touring Godin Kingpins and so on.
But neither does that mean that a great guitar - the right one - won't provide those subtle and not so subtle elements that will make you play and sound better - if only to you. There are loads of stories about players getting new gear and raving about it while their band mates think they sound exactly the same lol... Not always of course, but it goes to show.
But until you go through that process you won't have a clue what the right guitar for you is anyway... For instance, I'm pretty sure I'm not an L5 player. I find those guitars a bit wooly for my style.
OTOH, far be it for me to spoil everyone's fun. Nice guitars are nice!
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I thought it sounded like George Benson playing a strat that looks like a tele :-) Originally Posted by sgosnell
John
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Tone is in the fingers (and the wrists, elbows, shoulders etc etc)... But the "proof" to me is to hear someone play unplugged, even if it's a solid body. Very few players can make an unplugged Les Paul "talk", if ya know what I mean... If you can sound compelling that way, then you almost can't mess up the sound with the wrong amp...
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Interesting that Oscar Peterson, after playing with Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis and Joe Pass, three of the all time great archtop players, spent the last many of years of his life playing with guitarists using solid bodies: first Ed Bickert on a Tele, then Lorne Lofsky on an Ibanez Roadstar and finally Ulf with his Aria. And both Lofsky's Roadstar and Ulf's Aria were pawn shop specials. I don't think there was $200 total tied up between those two guitars combined. The cynic in me wants to believe it was because of the threats posed by touring with a guitar but my ears tell me that Lofsky got some of my all time favorite tones out of that Ibanez rat rod.
As for Ulf's tone in the video ... I like it. It's warm and fat and it fits very well with Metheny's acoustic.
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I wish i enjoyed playing my guitars through an amp as much as I do playing them unplugged. I guess I need to practice playing (or just running) the amp, but I don't. I practice playing the guitar, and that's daunting enough. Originally Posted by princeplanet
hmmm.... Maybe the right amp will translate the sound and feel of my unplugged 575, but I'm guessing it's an "operator error" with my current and all previous amps. (...feeling the GAS coming on.)
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I think the trick with getting used to it with a guitar like a 575 is start with a volume so low that you still hear the acoustic tone with the amp quietly making it sound a bit bigger and warmer. For that purpose, the right amp is mostly just something small. Originally Posted by ScottM
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Jim, I think the cynic in you is right. A lot of pros leave their fine guitars for the studio and the home while getting cheap guitars for the hazards of travel. And like you, I think Ulf's tone is quite good in the video. Originally Posted by Jim Soloway
Query: Do we know that the electronics in Ulf's guitar have not been upgraded in some way? And how about the fretwork? Top notch electronics and fretwork can make a cheap Asian made guitar sound and play pretty damn good.
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I’ve always liked the story I heard about Jascha Heifetz:
Immediatey following a performance af a violin concerto, as he begins to walk off the stage, he hears someone shout, “Maestro Heifetz!” He turns and walks towards this very enthused audience member, asking, “May I help you?” The person replies, saying, “Your violin sounds FANTASTIC!!!” Heifetz then lifts the instrument up to his ear and, with a puzzled expression on his face says, “Funny, I don’t hear a thing.”Last edited by El Fundo; 12-20-2018 at 03:05 PM.
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Some reactions to the thread:
1. Maybe another way of saying the same thing is that your tone is in your mind, to a great extent. You fiddle with the controls and adjust your technique until the guitar sounds right to you.
To my ear, the issue of humbucker vs single coil may be the biggest single factor in hardware, but it's not the only one. My impression is that scale length is also important. Flats vs rounds on the wound strings. Then solid vs. long scale archtop (I don't hear as much difference between a 175 and a solidbody). Clearly, some amps sound warmer than others.
2. After many decades playing I noticed that my style of playing required more of my equipment. So, I now I usually play with a processed sound for soloing and clean for comping. I cannot get my solo sound without processing and I can't play my style properly without it . The pedalboard is now more important, by far, than the guitar, since the processing overwhelms the identity of the guitar.
Years ago, I read a GP interview with a blues guitarist who said that the instrument he played "sounds like a guitar should sound". At first, that struck me as silly. What should a guitar sound like? But, upon reflection I realized that he had a sound in his mind and that this guitar gave it to him. I think all players should have a very clear idea about the way their guitars *should* sound.
3. I gigged for several years, recently, with the cheapest Yamaha Strat copy. The thin neck was easy on arthritic hands. The clean tone sat well in the mix with horn bands. The processed solo tone took care of weaknesses in the sound of the guitar. I got compliments about the sound. That guitar sold new for $179 with an amp, gigbag, strap, cable and book. Mine had replacement tuners and a Lil 59. My genuine Fender sounded a little better in the middle register but the Yamaha sounded better up high. Perfectly good guitar -- and it doesn't surprise me that a great player like Lorne could sound great with a cheap guitar.
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That is one point of view, and one that is worthy of respect, but I don't think it constitutes some kind of absolute final bar. I have heard people who could really play on an acoustic who were terrible playing an electric. I personally played acoustic for 35 years before switching over almost 100% to amplified, even for casual fun playing at home. I don't think sounding great on an acoustic is a requirement of excellence when someone can play extremely well on an electric. They are really almost two different instruments. I don't try to duplicate acoustic tone on my electrics. I don't play my L5ces because the carved top sounds more "acoustic." Everything for me is about how the guitar responds electrically and drives the amp. Originally Posted by princeplanet
I can play acoustically, and have done so for decades. But I really think slapping the demand that the "real test" is somehow unplugged simply is too narrow an artistic horizon. Some people just know how to interact with the complex connections between the instrument, strings, pickups, amp settings, room acoustics, etc. to get a pleasing performance. Others know how to work the wood and steel. It's all good. No need to exalt one over the other as if it's the acid test.
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Why does the electric guitar exist? In other words, what are it’s origins and the original intent, or motivation, for designing it? How did it evolve into what it is today, with the myriad sounds it produces? What was the original purpose of designing the solid body guitar? How did distortion develop into a sound to be desired?
Would love to see how these questions are answered.
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I don't see why the answers are relevant. You could say "Why was the guitar invented" and say then it was only a means to some previous instrument, which therefore is the standard for judging the guitar. Things evolve. Something spins off of something else, acquires a life of its own, and becomes a different thing, with its own life to live. Electric guitars are more than just Acoustic Guitar 2.0. Originally Posted by El Fundo
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I disagree. Electric guitars are essentially acoustic instruments made to be heard by the aid of electro-magnetic pickups and an amplifier (or two!).
The questions are rhetorical and are questions I found necessary to ask some of the hundreds of students I’ve taught over the past forty years when they wanted to sound like their electric guitar-playing heroes TODAY and could not make either an acoustic or an electric sound good. Those students were somehow persuaded that it’s all about the gear, and had nothing to to with hands, or technique. Whenever I would interview a prospective student, I inevitably was always asked the question, “Should I bring an electric or acoustic?” I would simply tell them it doesn’t matter, since it will take awhile to get a good sound out of either one. The stylistic differences will come later when they’re ready.Last edited by El Fundo; 12-20-2018 at 04:48 PM.
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The history of electric guitar is an evolutionary process that has taken place over about 80 years. It involves a lot of different intentions and objectives (including strong roots in the amplification of steel guitars rather than what were then known as "Spanish guitars"). Much of that evolution involved solving, or at least lessening the feedback problem and every effort to solve that problem took the instrument further from its acoustic roots. Originally Posted by El Fundo
Distortion developed as a desirable sound almost immediately after the magnetic pickup was coupled with small tube amplifiers. The recordings of Charley Christian with Benny Goodman which have been so influential over the decades were revolutionary in part because of the "edge_of-breakup" tone that gave him enough sonic presence to compete with horns as a soloing instrument in a loud swing band. As solid body guitars emerged it became even more prominent as guitarists realized that they could get very loud without the fear of uncontrollable feedback while controlled distortion provided a much broader sonic signal.
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Thank you, Jim Soloway. You get an “A”!
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So, lest I be misunderstood, both electric and acoustic guitars require a vibrating string and a resonating body, or chamber to produce a sound. Both also require one hand to “fret” the notes, the other hand to strike the string to make it vibrate and cause the body or chamber to respond by resonating. Now, think of a totally electronic instrument, like the synthesizer. Does it resemble a piano in any way other than the keys? No strings, no resonating chamber, no mics or pickups needed to amplify it. Without amplification you push on a key and there’s nothing. Not so with electric guitars.
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That's actually not true. On an electric guitar with sufficient levels of gain an distortion, hammer-ons can produce more than enough signal for a truly monumental sound. It does not require a fretting hand and a picking hand. That is a prominent technique in both rock and modern jazz fusion and is the foundation for a lot of prominent players and it's very much like pushing a key. Originally Posted by El Fundo
Then you have players like me who do fret and pick but play with a sufficiently light attack that very little acoustic sound is actually produced. My assumption is that I'm using the guitar to provide a controlled signal to an amplifier and my technique is entirely tailored to that purpose.
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I thought about including that, left hand hammering. I’m aware of Stanley Jordan and even saw him live in the 80s. I’m also a HUGE Michael Hedges fan and have even written some pieces employing lots of left hand hammering. I also employ left hand slurring while soloing. So, whether using the left or right hand, the string has to be struck in some way in order to set it into motion.
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OTOH, you can whack the keys on an unamplified synthesizer with a sledge hammer and it’s just a dead, mute, lifeless, inanimate object, no different from a rock.
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That might be a correct historical description but it does not define the present reality. It also does not serve a prescriptive function about what is best, right, most desirable, or standard-setting. Electric guitars WERE "essentially acoustic instruments made to be heard by the aid of electro-magnetic pickups and an amplifier" but that has not been their primary application or function for maybe 50 years at least. For that, you want a flat-top or classical guitar with a piezo or microphone. Originally Posted by El Fundo
There is a major epistemological problem in transitioning from a historical description to an artistic prescription. One does not in any way presume the other. It is in truth, merely one's opinion, and that is all. It's a fine opinion, a valid one, but in no way one that binds anyone else except those who admire the opinion-holder and want to emulate them. Which also is a fine thing, but again, not binding on anyone else.
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