Tone Debate

flemingmras · Post by **flemingmras** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:39 pm

OK guys, I know I'm new on the board, but since I can tell that you all are tone purists(aka tone snobs) like myself(I'm probably one of the biggest tone snobs out there), I figured I strike up a conversation about what's wrong with peoples ears these days.

Now I know that tone is such a subjective thing and is very open for discretion by each player since one person hears things different from the next, but come on! IMHO, I would think that there's a place where we draw the line with this one. I know some people like a cleaner tone than others, some people may like a little less mids than others, some like single coil pickups while others prefer humbuckers, etc etc...I can go on for days with this one. And most experienced guitar players know tone and sound really good. But then there's the group of players that...you know, the ones where you go to a club and the band's guitar player has this little combo with all digital modeling and more effects than they know what to do with...and you listen to their tone and it's like your ears are telling you "OH MY GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!" You know, ear piercing, overly distorted, very thin, dynamic-less tone that hides the true tone of the guitar that he happens to be using. The tone where you could plug in any guitar and it would sound the same. The tone where the guitar's intonation could be way off yet you wouldn't be able to tell.

Then you go and you talk to the player, you know, just strike up a general "Hey, what kind of rig are you running tonight" conversation that most of us guitar players are known for doing when we go to clubs. And the player is like "Oh yeah, I'm running this Line 6 whatever, and MAN I've never had a better tone until I got this baby! This thing sounds just like a Marshall!" And you're thinking to yourself "OK whatever dude!" as you silently laugh to yourself.

What has happened to people's hearing? I mean, generally you can tell the condition of a player's hearing by listening to their tone and finding out which frequencies they have cut or boosted.

The next question is, how can ANYONE stand the tone that I just mentioned above? I mean, I know we all hear differently, but honestly, there's just some tones that nobody should like. Another question is, how can any guitarist stand an amplifier that doesn't respond to dynamics? An amp that doesn't do what you're own two hands tell it to? Because your true feeling is conveyed by what your hands are doing, and if the amp isn't chameleon-like enough to change with what your two hands are doing, how can one express thine-self?

And last but not least, how can ANYONE say that they don't like the natural tone of a good ol' cranked Marshall Super Lead!? I mean, no matter which era of Super Lead, IMHO they are all the "Holy Grail" of all amps, how can anyone not love these amps' natural cranked tone? Nothing beats the tone of a Marshall stack cranked. Personally I don't run mine stacked cause I don't like my ears that close to the speakers, but I run mine with one cabinet on one end of the stage and one cabinet on the other end(split mono) and OH MY GOD!!! You FEEL that tone! How can anyone not love that tone?

Maybe it's just because people want an amp that does everything for them I guess. Not only that, but they want an amp that hides all their mistakes too LOL! It takes a skilled player to play through any cranked tube amp since unlike a digital modeler or a pedal, instead of hiding your mistakes, a cranked amp AMPLIFIES them. But a cranked tube amp definitely allows the guitar's natural acoustic characteristics to really shine through so you can tell what kind of guitar it really is. That's what I love about them and I don't see how their can be people that don't like that tone.

Thoughts on this anyone?

Jon

Country Boy Shane · Post by **Country Boy Shane** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 5:55 pm

A very simple solution to your statement Jon, is that many of the up and coming players have yet to hear a GREAT TONE as us seasoned players are used to. They haven't heard the BALLS of a cranked SuperLead, an old Fender, an Orange, a Hi-Watt...etc. Today's players are bombarded with magazing ads showing the newest and "greatest" technology. They think they sound great because in fact, the only amps they have been able to hear all their lives are the ones with no dynamics, no clarity, and no soul. So i guess the biggest reason behind all of it is because of today's market and how high priced some of the great amps are. This is why i preach MetroAMP! Anyone that asks me about a great amp to buy, i automatically bring MetroAMP up. Even if they want a high-gain type of sound, there is a ton of room to mod George's stock designs with. I should also mention that since Jon is starting to make his own amps, he's only going to make that search for great tone a lot easier because he KNOWS what great tone is.

dirtydeeds22 · Post by **dirtydeeds22** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:53 pm

I agree with Shane. I think it's musical influenes. I mean if you grew up listening to new wave in the 80's, but are a somewhat talented guitar player your playing and tone is going to represent what you listened to (shitty non- organic ROBOT TONE). I also think people want the next best amp or effects pedal that can give them Marshall Tone for half the price or half the weight. They compromise and convince themselves that this thing or that thing will do the trick.
I just met these guys that want to Jam. They told me that they are old metal heads, but are using line 6 stuff, because it gives them the tones they want and it's small. One guy even has an old Marshall combo from the early 80's that he says he never uses. I bet he'll be pullin that amp out once my Plexi knocks him on his ass. I'd rather play my Plexi at -16dB's in the basement then go thru a computer ANYDAY!!!!!!!!!
NO COMPROMISE!!!!!!!

Jeff

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:06 pm

In all fairness there's a place for modeling amps. Cruise gigs. You gotta have tons of sounds at a moment's notice.
Even then, though, some of these guys think the factory presets rule. Delay and chorus washing out any tone you could have squeezed out of a turd to begin with. I don't get it.
My back and knees ain't what they used to be, but if I get gigging again I'll carry a Marshall half stack and a Fender to the gig so I don't sound like a limp digitized rag.

Post by **VelvetGeorge** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 7:10 pm

Agreed. Modeling amps sound like if you took a classic amp, recorded it farly well, added some compression, made it into an MP3 and played it back through a boom box with the pseudo surround sound and chorus on.

Just my opinion.

Most people have never actually played a great vintage amp. One that's well maintained, not modded to death and that sounds like it's supposed to sound.

Even those who have played a great classic, probably haven't spent enough time with one to learn how to coax those tones out of the amp. That's where the fingers thing come in. It's easy to pull the same old boring tones from a modern amp, that's all they do.
But play through a classic and it's up to you to manipulate your instrument. And God forbid, express yourself musically.

I love letting people play my vintage amps and my clones. They go "Oh my God!, there it is". "That tone I've been hearing all my life!".
You can literally see the change in them. No modeller will ever be good enough again.

Today, kids are copying bands that are popular. And their tone stinks, IMO. You can't tell one buzzy sounding band from the next. You end up with a catch 22 of people emulating bad tone of guys who have bad tone, who are emulating........

See where I'm going with this?

Remember when each guitar player had his own distinctive tone? How come we have more technology than ever, and less creativity?

Why does Pro Tools allow us to do anything and yet everyone does exacty the same thing? They even replace their drum sounds with the exact same samples. Boring.

Enough ranting for now, I'm off to play a real guitar through a real amp.

George

Country Boy Shane · Post by **Country Boy Shane** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:15 pm

I have a great dislike for Pro Tools. I think this is the major reason why all the modern recording sound so stale and lifeless. Pro Tools is probably one of the biggest reasons why shitty singers and players can sound pretty good on an album, but when it comes to live performances... it's time for lip-synching!

cough... ASHLEE SIMPSON!

5150loveeddie · Post by **5150loveeddie** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:07 pm

What is IMHO means?

Yeah I agree with all of you but because of my lack of English vocabulary I will just say this "screw digital", I'm an analogue one!

Thank you

Country Boy Shane · Post by **Country Boy Shane** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 10:48 pm

5150loveeddie wrote:What is IMHO means?

In my humble opinion. At least that's what i've been brought up to think.

rjgtr · Post by **rjgtr** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:27 pm

The thing I hate about Pro Tools is that you can fix anything. Unfortunately, the standard practice of correcting drums so every hit is spot on, cutting and pasting perfect choruses of guitar and BG vocals and pitch correcting everything sucks the life out of music. The other thing I hate in much modern music is the Louder than loud compression style, where all dynamics are eliminated so "my mix is louder than your mix". What you get is a reasonable faccimile of a performance, but not a real performance.

It really makes me appreciate the Beatles. Now thse guys could perform music! If you've ever heard the old Live at the Hollywood Bowl live CD, these guys play in tune and sing in tune - all without floor monitors!

All is not lost. There's some great stuff out now, but you really have to dig for it.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 11:57 pm

And as long as we're griping about tone.....
The last band I was in, the other guy wasted all his cash on one of those god-awful ART SGX preamps. He couldn't afford an AMP to run it through so he sat onstage with an old Peavey PA board and speaker.
To make matters worse, he never once adjusted the presets. The clean patches came cranked to the gills and the overdrive patches came quieted to a whisper. If he had a clean patch on when we balanced the PA out you couldn't hear his distorted sounds. If he played distorted for soundcheck his cleans would about blow you across the room.
And no matter what, HIS SOUND JUST DIDN"T "CUT" THROUGH THE ROOM.
Didn't matter if I had my '68 Bassman, a '65 Bandmaster (that I sold like an idiot) or my '78 Marshall, you could hear my tone loud and proud.
His wife and the singer's wife were sisters, and I'd been buddies with the singer since 5th grade, so he balanced the guitars out, because he was under fire from all directions to make everyone happy. No matter what he did, I had to listen to the wifeys bitching that they couldn't hear the other guy......and do you think I could explain to them that HIS TONE SUCKED??????
There were plenty of good times but I sure don't miss the BS of dealing with people that don't "get" tone.

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 1:17 am

What has happened to people's hearing? I mean, generally you can tell the condition of a player's hearing by listening to their tone and finding out which frequencies they have cut or boosted.

With the bands I have dealt with, most of the guys are trying to get the most distortion from their amps. Most don't even care to know how to figure out how to make their guitar sound good with the rest of the band. I think most guys are trying to acheive bedroom type tones when playing with full bands and don't know where the guitar is supposed to sit frequency-wise in a band

The next question is, how can ANYONE stand the tone that I just mentioned above? I mean, I know we all hear differently, but honestly, there's just some tones that nobody should like. Another question is, how can any guitarist stand an amplifier that doesn't respond to dynamics? An amp that doesn't do what you're own two hands tell it to? Because your true feeling is conveyed by what your hands are doing, and if the amp isn't chameleon-like enough to change with what your two hands are doing, how can one express thine-self?

See above answer. Most guys I know just play wide open uisng pedals in front of the amp and hide mistakes with distortion or other effects. I've come a long way in my thinking in the past 6 months and see that this is a no go for truly good guitar playing. Dynamics are everything.

And last but not least, how can ANYONE say that they don't like the natural tone of a good ol' cranked Marshall Super Lead!? I mean, no matter which era of Super Lead, IMHO they are all the "Holy Grail" of all amps, how can anyone not love these amps' natural cranked tone? Nothing beats the tone of a Marshall stack cranked. Personally I don't run mine stacked cause I don't like my ears that close to the speakers, but I run mine with one cabinet on one end of the stage and one cabinet on the other end(split mono) and OH MY GOD!!! You FEEL that tone! How can anyone not love that tone?

Most have never actually checked these amps out I think. Super Leads are not advertised by Marshall and even the reissue Super Lead heads werent advertised like I think they should have been. I would be one of those myself if I had not come across my amp at the deal I got it for. That and the fact that NO guitar store will let you crank ANY of the amps. The guitar Center in Austin has a sound booth but go in and crank any of the amps and you will have a salesman flying in theire and teling you that you need to turn it down because of other customers.

Now in my personal opinion regarding tone. You can hear a tube amp. Regardless of what brand you are using you can hear the tubes working. That is a sound that no modeling can do period.... modeling can get a similar compression sound of a tube but they cant get that tube "fade-in, chunk, fade-out breathing feeling that you get with tubes. Oh yeah thats another thing, the actual sound pressure of a tube amp cranked vs. SS, digital whatever is radically different. You feel tubes as much as you hear them, even recorded there is a different feeling to them.

As for protools and drum sampling. I can honestly say that this is the only aspect of digital recording that I like. I dont use protools though I like Nuendo myself. When you play music like we play it is very hard for the drummer to consistantly hit his kicks hard at the same level. Talking about drummers that use double bass. Almost all drummers have a strong leg and that is the leg/drum that will always be louder in the recording. being able to sample the kicks is a lifesaver sometimes. We go in and sample our drummers kicks then patch those back in in the final mix so that his signal remains consistant where he is playing fast double bass parts. It would be way too time consuming in the studio to hand mix this. And just about impossible without an automated board which costs in studio time.

Hassan Chop · Post by **Hassan Chop** » Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:01 pm

In my opinion, it's the misinformation, misdirection, disinformation in the mainstream guitar rags.

If you're young and dumb and don't have anyone to tell you/show you otherwise, you can hardly be blamed for buying into all the hype in these magazines' articles and advertisements. One of these birdcage liners actually gives you settings for one of the more popular "does-everything-just-laying-on-the-floor" so-called "signal processors!"

And some of these things do sound sort of okay at bedroom levels. But then what do you do if you actually learn to play the songs and want to perform them in front of actual people? You'll probably put one of these things in front of a clean amp or run straight into the P.A. with it. And at higher volumes it's not going to sound the same any more. In fact, you're likely to sound like hell--and not in a good way!

As to everbody sounding the same, well, that's been going on for a looong time. Does any body else remember how many bands sounded so much like the Beatles, jangly guitars, adenoidal three-part harmonies and all a few decades ago? They were imitating the Beatles' weaknesses (easy to do) while trying to imitate their strengths. Mostly, they just sounded like wannabes and copy-cats without the talent to forge their own musical sound/identity. The same thing is, of course, going on these days. (But it's my opinion that these poor copy-cats these days don't have anyone as formiddable to try to imitate as the Beatles.)

rjgtr · Post by **rjgtr** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:36 am

So we're tone purists about our guitar sound, but who cares about other instruments. Isn't that a little hipocritical?

Ok, I've also played drums for 30 years and one of the things I hate about modern drum sounds is that there are no dynamics or personality. Listen to Ringo, Mitch Mitchell, Keith Moon or Jim Gordon (you heard a lot of Jim in the 70s, from D&D Layla, to countless sessions, such as Cat Stevens, George Harrison and too many to name). Or Neil Pert and Mike Portnoy. These guy's bass drum hits aren't all the same level. They have dynamics, even on the Bass drum. I know the common practice in the studio now is to make the drummer play as hard as he can, but you make the drums choke with too much force. Drums are like any other instrument and have a range where the best tone is found, and unless it is a cheap drum it is not at triple forte. Or every backbeat is a rim shot; please. Drum machines have hurt the art of playing drums, because most people are conditioned to expect monotonous drums. Everything is loud and fast, has no feel and sounds the same; what a drag. You used to be able to tell musicians (including drummers) from the sound they make with their hands (and feet). I'd rather have an organic sound with some feel than modern perfection any day.

Just wait till they resample guitars as SOP and your beautiful Plexi is reduced to a crappy POD model of a Mesa because "that's how it's supposed to sound or how everyone does it". Then you'll understand...

Sorry for the rant, but it is really frustrating...

Country Boy Shane · Post by **Country Boy Shane** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:45 am

Hassan Chop wrote:In my opinion, it's the misinformation, misdirection, disinformation in the mainstream guitar rags.

I believe this too. Those Guitar mags are everywhere and anyone can get their hands on them. Practically 25% of the magazine is deadicated to ads and what better place for companies to advertise their shitty amps. And you guys also have a point saying that most people don't know any better when it comes to buying an amp and don't know about great companies like Metro Amp. It's up to us to preach the tone that we have all harnessed as a result of Metro Amp.

Country Boy Shane · Post by **Country Boy Shane** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:48 am

rjgtr wrote:So we're tone purists about our guitar sound, but who cares about other instruments. Isn't that a little hipocritical?

Ok, I've also played drums for 30 years and one of the things I hate about modern drum sounds is that there are no dynamics or personality. Listen to Ringo, Mitch Mitchell, Keith Moon or Jim Gordon (you heard a lot of Jim in the 70s, from D&D Layla, to countless sessions, such as Cat Stevens, George Harrison and too many to name). Or Neil Pert and Mike Portnoy. These guy's bass drum hits aren't all the same level. They have dynamics, even on the Bass drum. I know the common practice in the studio now is to make the drummer play as hard as he can, but you make the drums choke with too much force. Drums are like any other instrument and have a range where the best tone is found, and unless it is a cheap drum it is not at triple forte. Or every backbeat is a rim shot; please. Drum machines have hurt the art of playing drums, because most people are conditioned to expect monotonous drums. Everything is loud and fast, has no feel and sounds the same; what a drag. You used to be able to tell musicians (including drummers) from the sound they make with their hands (and feet). I'd rather have an organic sound with some feel than modern perfection any day.

Just wait till they resample guitars as SOP and your beautiful Plexi is reduced to a crappy POD model of a Mesa because "that's how it's supposed to sound or how everyone does it". Then you'll understand...

Sorry for the rant, but it is really frustrating...

I also fucking hate the modern drum sounds! Way stale. I have this one CD from a local band i like, and all the different drums have the same volumes. And the bass drum sounds so thin and lifeless. That's why i like to listen to some John Bonham and hear all the different dynamics he uses. It's just pure music.