OT: Whats your Tonal Preference?

[Ol Boy Rivers]

Howdy yall, Ol'boy here. This was started in another string with an OT topic, And now ive givin' it its own string. YOUR TONAL PREFERENCE! What do you want to sound like when you play your stuff, What do you want to hear when your heard? Ill go first: When im playing clean parts, I want to hear a NICE FULL sound with deep Throaty Lows and Mids, With Fairly Crisp highs. I want to hear every subtle thing i do. With my blues on Electric, I want a LIGHTLY pushed sound, But an OVERDRIVE not a Distortion. I want nice DEEP MELLOW sounds from all of my blues, WITH WARM tones, and LIGHTLY HARSH Harmonic Overtones. ( Its a weird thing with me ) When i want to get dirty with metal i want HEAVY LOWS and SWEET mids, With a sort of " Phased " Sound. The only way ive been able to get this sound is with a Sweepible Phaser with " Stop " obtions on. I want to hear ALL Of the little cratered Trebles when the distortion is pushed to the max, But still have those lows and mids to Push along the Carnage. With Rock-n-role/Rockabilly songs, I allmost never use my neck Pup. I want fairly good lows, NOT TOO HEAVY with slightly harsh highs, And light mids. I want Harmonic overtones to be Aparent, But rather light. I want to hear EVERYTHING i play. Mistakes, the sound of my pick swinging, And the noise difference between a hit-on and a pick, All of which with a Light Distortion/slash OD. ( Distortion in my terms are more of a trebled out sound, Overdrives are Deeper ) Thats just me though, What be yalls personal noise?

[Tedster]

Well, like you, different sounds for different songs.

 

A lot of times I'll just play around 'til something catches my ear. I did have one song I recorded awhile back I was going for a "Beatley" "Nowhere Man" type excessive trebly thing, and a guy I played it for said "that sounds like George Harrison". I musta done something right...he caught the vibe. ...but, trying to duplicate it..that's another story.

[Dr. Ellwood]

Because I do only cover material I try to get my tone to be as close to the way the original artist sounded on the recording.

[Bbach1]

I don't know. I'm not able to define it in words like warm, full, etc. I just tweak until I like it. My brain is shot but my ears know.

[Zephyr]

I want a clean channel with a hell of a lot of bite down on the neck (think AC/DC) and liquid-tone highs (think Hendrix). And i need a hell of a lot of sustain.

[Braxat]

if im playing clean i like warm thick clear sound, if im playing on overdrive or disto i want it to be either thick and warm or thick and very but very cold...

 

did you understand? or did i loose u on " warm "lol

[Gruupi]

I have a hard time describing tones with words, but I like all of my tones to have dynamics and sustain with rich even harmonics. Its hard to get sustain and dynamics both. I don't like compressed or fuzzed tones, in my playing at least. I don't really like effects all that much either. Most players use effects to heavily for my tastes. I will use a little light chorus or delay, but not so much that you lose focus on the basic tone. I hate it when a modulation effect covers up any finger vibrato or the little inflections I might add.

 

Tone wise I have generally gone for a darker sounds, not to bright, its pretty easy to add brightness just by picking sharper. I'm not talking muddy or bassy, just not to much treble or presence. On most amps my controls are set pretty flat and depending on the guitar a may roll off on my tone knob (especially on Strats). I play alot of styles and guitars and my tastes vary, but the things I described above are things I try to achieve regardless of style.

[picker]

For a clean tone, I like a Fender-ish sound, clean but not sterile, complex in the midrange. A touch of echo doesn't hurt, or light reverb. Sometimes a little chorus is okay, but I have gotten a bit tired of that sound. Tremolo can be nice if I'm playing chords that I want to sustain and hang through the tremolo, but short stacatto notes just don't work with it for me, especially if the tremolo is too deep. I do not like phaser on clean tones at all.

For a dirty rhythm, I like just an edge of crunch, enough to darken the tone slightly, and thicken it a lot. Phaser works well with that sometimes(ala Johnny Winter), and a chorus can be okay too, but I love the sound of it without effects, or with a mild echo.

My favorite lead tone is strong, full, and singing. Think Santana on Borboletta or Welcome. Light reverb helps, and I love echo with it. phaser can be good too, but I don't really think much of flanger with it.

I am trying to find my way back to a wah sound, and I finally got one that I like the sound of (Vox 847) after looking for a long time.

I can get pretty much everything I want out of my Boogie Mark III with a few boxes.

[stanner]

i make LOUD sound that makes men sterile and is as low as the mouth of hell.

[Greg B.]

For clean, I like the lows to have a piano-like ring to them, for the highs, I like a nice sparkling shimmer. The mids should balance the lows with the highs and all with a touch of reverb (set at about 4 on my Classic 30).

 

For the dirt, I like it to be pretty thick (set for full distortion on the Classic 30, which is still not too heavy), but also want to be able to hear all of the notes ring out when playing a chord. Along the lines of Billy Duffy on The Cult's "Electric" album, or Jimmy Page's tone from the live record "Song Remains the Same". With a little bit (same as above) of reverb, althought with distortion, I can do with or without the reverb. My Classic 30 pretty much hits everything that I want, especially with single coils-nothing against 'buckers, I just prefer single coils.

 

Now that I have discovered the thing that is the Epiphone Valve Jr (the head), I have found a new, entirely different tone that I really like, but never really knew that I would!! It's completely different than the Classic 30, but still has a pure, basic, unique tube tone that can't be beat, especially for the $$$! And it pegs the fun-o-meter!

[revolead]

Clean - the crystal, sparkling shimmer of a vintage Fender Twin Reverb (2x12, of course) with just a little bit of chorus and reverb to make it shine. Almost wet, yet delicate, like a moonbeam coming off the water of a mountain lake in summer time.

 

Dirty - A cranked Fender Deluxe Reverb with just enough tremolo to hear it, but not dominate the tone. Gritty and dusty like a stagecoach just drove by an old west saloon.

 

Angelic Voice - A smooth, halfway cranked Marshall 4x12, just enough gain to make it sing but not overpower your playing. Add echo and reverb generously. It should sound like the prettiest lead you've ever heard. Think Eric Johnson from "Trail of Tears."

 

The Mouth of God A high-gain but not oversaturated Mesa Boogie Mark IV with just the right touch of echo and hall reverb to make men crawl on their knees, bend down and begin praying that the Lord end their misery and forgive them of their sins. (NOTE: This does not mean tons of gain, it means tones of volume and tone to drive the power amp in submission. I hate metal/rock players who think they need to recreate Slayer's tone to play Metallica or worse, Green Day.)

[Gifthorse]

I am all about the fingers and the hands doing the work. I know that is cliche.. If you have ever known one of those guys (close up) who has incredible tone, they can really play through anything and it sounds great. Growing up my buddy Brad Johnson was like this. He had like the tone wisdom of an 80 yr old when he was 19 (like Eddie or SRV, Hendrix). The guy could sell anything to anyone. I mean you could go into a store and try out an amp and say, "brad this thing doesn't do it for me.." Then he would be like 'what do you mean' look on his face. Then he plugs in and it sounds instantly great.. Just from one chord it sounds different. Of course his hands are like Eddie hands.

 

I have been experimenting with some new techniques that make my 12 string sound kind of robotic in a solo context. I don't even want to tell what it is. You will hear it on our new stuff. I just haven't heard anyone else do it. It isn't groundbreaking, just something I started doing. It adds tonal dimension I think.

 

Im all about robots and spaceships..

 

I think I have good tone, I have to work more than guys like Brad with those hands.. After hearing Brad I realized i really had to 'play guitar' like a man to have tone. No pussy footin around--no doubts. You need tons of control in your pick attack, but you need TONS of strength on your left hand attack to get that clikity clakity thing going when you do fast runs or anything. It is combination of both hands not just 1 or the other. Strength in both areas makes you more able to control dynamics/feeling.

 

Don't ever let some idiot say if you have the technique to play fast cleanly (not that you even use it)--you won't have 'feeling'. That is igorance and jealousy speaking volumes..

 

I just wanted to say also that electric and acoustic are 2 different animals. I find if I am not committed to playing electric that distortion really sounds 'too much' for me. I play through it and I don't get into it because the overtones get muddied. I get turned off by the low resistance of playability too.

 

But if I really commit to it I can start hearing/playing the way I want through it. It has its own myriad of hurdles to overcome. Controlling string noise when you attempt anything is one aspect. Vai is king of this--I also think this partly cuz in the earlier stuff he didn't use that much distortion.

 

Ok sorry for the long essay..