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I love making side-by-side clips comparing gear, but recently have been impressed that some amps seem to make my guitars sound more alike, and others seem to bring out the differences. For example, I can play the L5ces, the VOS1959 ES175, and the P90/Humbucker Epiphone through my Fender Princeton Reverb Re-Issue, and they will really sound very close. Strangely, though, my Polytone MInibrute II seems to bring out the differences among these guitars.
Is this a common observation? Do you know of amps that tend to make guitars sound more alike (more like that amp, I suppose?) while other amps bring out the differences among various instruments?
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08-28-2020 03:51 PM
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I think Polytone's are fuller frequency spectrum amps than tube amps. Their EQ's can also be set completely flat. So they might be able to not get in the way as much tonally and bring out the differences between guitars more. Especially between solid carved and laminate guitars. I also find that tube amps round out the attack a bit more than SS amps, but others may disagree.
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I don’t think I’ve ever heard a guitar that had a crap sound through every amplifier. The other way around happens quite often. But I suspect that a transparent quality amp will make a good guitar sound great and a crap guitar well... crap. Curious what the fender will make out of a Squier
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I dunno. For me, playing the exact same equipment sounds different from day to day. I think I’m really sensitive to ear fatigue.
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A Princeton certainly has a specific color. It's going to impose that scooped EQ to everything. I always think of Polytones as being much flatter with a fuller midrange so you're going to hear a more honest representation of the guitar but you'll loose that nice Fender airiness.
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Now that I'm playing amp sims all the time now, I'm realizing that not everything works with everything. some guitars greatly prefer certain amps, and vice versa. Guess it's a matter of knowing your guitar and understanding where your amp is happiest, and hoping you can reconcile the two.
And yes, sometimes an amp has such a strong sonic character (or so much gain) what you play matters less and less.
Personally, I like combining distinct flavors, rather than having either one do all the work. I'm not in the " just make the guitar louder" camp; that's boring to me. But I do appreciate an amp that lets a guitar have it's own voice while still bringing something to the table.
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My guitars are so different from each other that I can't say I've exerienced this phenomenon, or at least not to the extent that they're hard to distinguish. But in theory I can see how a very colored amp, or very colored settings (e.g., Fender amp with the treble way up, or treble pickups through distortion) might impose a stamp that blurs the difference between more similar guitars. There's also the mic, the room, and the rest of the recording signal to consider, all of which may add their own stamp and further blur the distinction, and you may be hearing that as much as the amp.
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
With my own gear, I can get them to sound more alike, but it takes a lot of knob twiddling and eq. Just plugging into the same amp doesn't do the trick.
John
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I have become obsessed with amps more than guitars. I currently own around 10-ish, everything from tubey things to squeaky clean frfr. Gotta get rid of some before I die
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Great topic, Lawson! As I'm rediscovering my '66 Gibson ES125, I am becoming more convinced that with few exceptions, the amp makes the sound. When I play with completely neutral settings on the amp, it does not represent the sound of the guitar as I hear it acoustically without amplification. For me, in theory, it should. It requires laborious tweaking and after almost a year, I'm finally getting the sound I hear in my head through the amplifier--none of which makes any logical sense to me but is as close to its natural sound as possible. And, in comparison, there are some players who have posted videos with Teles and Strats that sound every bit as good ,to my ears, as most of the archtops I've heard. I think a blindfold test would be interesting since we are not talking about an acoustic sound but an electric sound and, for me, it is a horse of a different color. Waiting to play live again . . . Marinero
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I've done a ton of side-by-side and blind-comparison clips, and I am finding that the amp is (predictably!) a huge factor. Normally I find the effect of the amp is to lower the distinctiveness of the more unique sounding guitar. Rarely does the amp seem (to me, at the moment) to make the bland guitar more distinctive. I think it's because some amps, quite naturally, impose a tonal template on whatever signal comes through. That is, of course, exactly why we might like a particular amp. Originally Posted by Marinero
I've also learned from doing so many side-by-sides to distrust my amateur recordings, which don't capture the full sound. Also, strangely enough, for the player, the sound isn't the only thing that matters. Some guitars by their feel, set-up, responsiveness, etc. inspire us and gratify us, while others just sit in our laps and pass the signal to the amp.
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I think you are mistaken. Originally Posted by Marinero
Between an acoustic guitar and an amp is in this case a pickup (wich is not a microphone). So listening to a guitar acoustically doesn't tell you much about the sound of the guitar.
A strat with a humbucker or a single coil sounds different right? But acoustic it sounds exactly the same.
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The guitar is a really big bit of it; attack and decay characteristics and so on... My 175 sounds much like it does acoustically; brightish with a fast decay. It doesn’t sound the SAME of course, but the character of the instrument comes across.
I used to be skeptical about this, but it’s really been my experience.
OTOH solid body guitars behave more uniformly; but you still get differences.
Pickups are about the frequency spectrum at a given point in a guitars waveform; but the sound of a guitar is also much a temporal phenomenon.
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Theres definitely a Fender sound that those amps impose on all guitars. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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Note: I re-read this after writing it and have no idea what the hell my ultimate point is other than, in caveman speak, "Sound complicated."
The signal chain of an electric has so many variables that it's kind of overwhelming to come up with a cohesive understanding of what components are the most important to shaping the sound that actually vibrates our ear drums. Just riffing here, so bear with me.
Start with the player and the intricacies of an individual's own technique: pick or fingers, pick material, pick thickness, nails or flesh, pick grip, picking strength, etc.
Then the guitar itself: wood choice, scale length, neck thickness, laminate or solid top, top thickness, carved or flat, solid/semi/hollow, bracing construction, center blocks, chambers, pickup design, pickup height, pickup location, string gauge, string material, action, bridge type, natural resonant frequencies, etc.
Finally, all of these variables compress down into an electrical signal sent to the amp: tube or solid state power section, tube or solid state pre-amp, tube or solid state rectifier, any digital or modeled components anywhere in there, a bevy of capacitors/resistors/circuits, power transformer, output transformer, tone stack, tone controls, cabinet size, cabinet wood, resonance of cabinet, open or closed back, speaker size, speaker magnet size, speaker ohms, speaker resonance, speaker sensitivity, proximity of cabinet to walls/floor/ceiling/listener, listener's ears and their proximity to walls/floor/ceiling/amp....hell, even the angle of the listener's ear to the speaker, room size, room materials, acoustical treatments, room resonance.
All of those variables interact to make the sound that finally hits our ears, and I think that nearly every single one of those components is critical to the end sound. I can eliminate some boomy bass frequencies by putting my amp on a chair, and yet, if I sit in a taller chair, other bass frequencies get louder. I can change my pick and the sound changes pretty significantly. Tweed or blackface circuit? MILES of difference between them, right? Don't even get me going on speakers.
And then—AND THEN....you leave your practice room, go listen to someone else's live set, close your eyes, and more often than not realize you can't tell (and don't care) what they're playing through!Last edited by wzpgsr; 08-29-2020 at 02:06 PM.
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I’ve got tube amps with Fender-typical scooped tone controls and open-back cabinets as well as solid state amps with Polytone-typical tone controls and closed back cabinets. I’ve never felt that one amp made my guitars sound more alike than another. But I’ll offer a hypothesis for your experience. The guitars you listed are all archtops with roughly similar pickups. If the tonal differences between those instruments is primarily in the mid-range harmonic content, the scooped frequency response of the Fender-type tone stack may tend to reduce the audibility of those differences, emphasizing the bass and treble frequencies where perhaps those instruments (when amplified) sound more alike. The presumably flatter response of the Polytone EQ and speaker may make those differences more audible. This is just a wild guess, with low confidence.
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At this point in my guitar playing (53 years since I started), no matter the guitar or amp I choose, it sounds pretty damn close (with there being a certain difference between acoustic and electric to be sure). Tone is truly in the fingers. Getting any more guitars or amps is merely an exercise in treating myself to a new toy these days. And adding to a beautiful art collection.
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"Start with the player and the intricacies of an individual's own technique: pick or fingers, pick material, pick thickness, nails or flesh, pick grip, picking strength, etc." wzpgsr
Hi, W,
This is, of course, essential. I play exclusively "fingerstyle" since I also am a trained Classical guitarist and the difference in sound, initially, in relation to using a pick is huge. Generally, fingerstyle gives a player a more rounded tone while those who use a pick have a crisper, more defined tone. However, these lines can be easily blurred with the electric guitarist by tweaking controls on the amplifier. And, I have heard this many times when I referred ,earlier, to those who play solid body guitars and get a very rounded and, at times, lush sound. However, the real difference for me is in technique. A Classically trained player has spent, literally, his entire life playing and refining his sound in relation to the individual physicality of the hands, attack, position of the nails in relationship to the fleshy part of the fingers and the use of dynamics. And, on a Classical guitar without amplification, you live or die by the sword(technique/sound) but when the sound is generated on a electric guitar by an amplifier and the vagaries of individual pickup styles, it can hide many flaws in individual technique and produce some really great results despite an individual's perhaps, weak, technique.
So, for me, I have been climbing a large learning curve in order to get my electric sound as close as possible to what I believe is my individual sound as played acoustically and, for me, it has little to do with technique and my instrument but everything to do with understanding the components of the electric style of playing. Play live when???? . . . . . . Marinero
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i had a classical training aswell. in my first band i refused to use a pick. Originally Posted by Marinero
but i can't say that amps and such can hide a weak technique.
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Hi, M, Originally Posted by Marcel_A
What I meant ,specifically, is that amplification can hide a weak technique in relation to sound . . . not to functionality. The process needed to produce a big sound on CG is not required, nor in my opinion, needed when playing an EG. In fact, I have learned to use a much lighter attack when playing EG since a stronger attack is not needed for increased dynamic sound or overall effects which are controlled by electronic manipulation. This was one of my first epiphanies and earliest lessons when reawakening my EG. I hope this makes my statement clear. Play live when??? . . . Marinero
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I would disagree, Marinero.
I was classically trained also. My wife more so than I, and she still plays her Hernandez y Iguado hand-built classical with such an amazing, beautiful touch.
My first gift to her was the John Williams boxed set of "Seven Great Guitar Concertos". When she opened it, and put the first LP on the turntable, we looked through the album. The head of thar guitar looked familiar, and yes, he played an instrument that, as we found later, was a near duplicate of hers. Made by the same two then-elderly Spanish gents.
Apparently he toured with like 2 or 3 of them. (And no, these have no relation to the Hernandez brand of classical guitars sold in stores.)
My playing walked from classical through folk, rock, blues and pop into eventually preferring to attempt jazz all these 45 years later.
Some acoustic playing all along, but much electric in various styles on various guitars.
The player's technique is as unique and informative in electric performance as in acoustic finger work.
Choice of pick alone can make major changes in both the tone of the sound and the "presence" of the attack. I've learned to shape my picks to get the sound I want. I can entirely change the brightness of my electric sound by taking two identical picks and modifying their shapes differently.
That doesn't even touch changing the angle of the hand to the strings ... do I use the flat side of the pick or more of an edge?
Hold the pick with a light flexible stroke is very different from a tighter, "solid" stroke.
Take the same guitar, into the same amp, same pick. Have three different players sit down and play the same song.
If they all can play, you can and will have three entirely different sounds.
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i can't say that i understand what this means. sound and functionality? i pick strings in order to make a sound. that IS the function. Originally Posted by Marinero
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"The player's technique is as unique and informative in electric performance as in acoustic finger work." rNeill
Yes, of course. But, in my opinion, the requirements to produce that sound are very different. That's my point. I hope it makes sense to you. Play live when???? .. . . Marinero
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Originally Posted by Marcel_A
Hi, M,
An amplifier can control/morph/enhance a player's sound. . . even if, functionally, his technique ,in relation to sound, is wanting in some respects. Strings are a small part of a player's mixed bag of tricks. The ingredients for his paella are just too complex to point to one aspect of his sound.
Play live when??? . . . Marinero
P.S. Can you imagine paella without mussels, prawns and turtle? It's eaten all the time! M
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you stated that a guitarplayer could hide weak technique with an electric guitar and an amp.
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I find it much easier to get a good sound on acoustic guitar than a gig volume dryish Fender amp. Mind you, given how much these amps are the venerated jazz industry standard, I have to say almost everyone sounds better unamplified; and if that were an option of course that’s what we’d be doing.
Even Peter Bernstein can sound like he’s fighting the amp sometimes. He accepts it and leans into it, which is very much his philosophy.
It’s very hard to achieve a true legato for some reason. You inevitably get gaps between the notes.... (it’s not as bad as a dry marshall, but it’s a bit unforgiving.) Ones playing has to much more consistent and perfect too. This is NOT a problem at lower volumes. Anyone know why? Psychoacoustics? Amp response? The air moving? Proximity to the speaker?
The general solution seems to be to smooth it out with ambience of some kind, such as delay. Some players have made this a trademark, but I’m unhappy with it as it distances me more from my natural sound.
And then there’s players who seem to pick very lightly and use the left hand more. But they usually use a load of the aforementioned ambience. I think electric technique is just different.
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