# How would you describe your guitar tone?



## lelouch (Jul 30, 2013)

My favourite guitar tone is also my most peculiar one. When I set the treble on my amp to full, and the trebles and high mids on my GE-7 to full as well, I get a really "metallic" and clangy tone, that surprisingly sits really well in the mix when I use the neck pickup on my Tele.


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## Moosehead (Jan 6, 2011)

Not like that^^^


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Varied. I have an RP-255.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

My tone is me, I guess.


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## marcos (Jan 13, 2009)

I'm still searching for mine but getting closer.


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

Bottom Heavy Mixed with some Brown sound...but lots of mids.....and loud..


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Modern tele I guess. Clean with hair up to severely overdriven with the turn of a volume knob. Fairly balanced across the eq spectrum.


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## Merlin (Feb 23, 2009)

Jazzy, when I'm playing jazz.

Surfy, when I'm playing Surf/Instro.


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## Shark (Jun 10, 2010)

Round and clear.


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## Option1 (May 26, 2012)

Much like my playing - total and utter shite. 

Neil


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## Chubba (Aug 23, 2009)

it varies quite a bit - but I think my favourite is a really thick, warm, clean tone, kind of a jazz guitar sound, even though I don't play jazz (yet? lol) - it has to be adapated most of the time, though because sometimes it will sound amazing alone, but then get lost in the band's mix, in which case I would try to add some bite, depending on what's being played...


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

I like a bit of treble, my ear seems to seek upper mids and a bit of thump on the bottom, without the boom.
Well that covers it all, ha! Fairly neutral EQ really. 
I do find myself rolling the treble on the amp back a bit more lately. 

I like clarity and note definition too, even with a fuzz.


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## bluesmostly (Feb 10, 2006)

I have an AXE FX that gives me the flexibility to create any sound imaginable. I have different tones for different types of music that I play. but for all of them I like them to sound thick and 3D and heavy. Even my clean jazzy tone. I like my lead tones very slick and juicy and chorusy alot of the time. My blues tone has lots of heavy chunk to it.


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

boring!....


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## Fader (Mar 10, 2009)

"A strange beetle-like triangular chen."


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## Petey D (Sep 8, 2011)

Hard to define your own tone imo. Easy enough to describe your gear and settings, but to actually describe your tone is difficult. I think somebody else, has to do it honestly. Multiple people actually, because what you're shooting for and what you get can be significantly different. I think that when two or more people describe your tone in the same way, then that's what it is, no matter what you think it is.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

If I had good recordings of my current setup I'd just post that and say "you tell me".

I'd have to say right now it's "high gain", rounded with a mids focus. I also clean it up a lot for my 3-piece "ambient" band.


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## hardasmum (Apr 23, 2008)

VOXY


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

I sound like Jeff Beck without the gear or skill.


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## Brennan (Apr 9, 2008)

I generally sound like me playing a (insert guitar here) through a (insert amp here) ... except when I don't.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Here....listen to my fingers..that's where my tone is


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

shoretyus said:


> Here....listen to my fingers..that's where my tone is


Ok, will do, just don't make me smell it.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

High on the high E string and low on the low E string and medium high and low in between.


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## bluesmostly (Feb 10, 2006)

shoretyus said:


> Here....listen to my fingers..that's where my tone is


I really don't get it when people say this, well I get it, I just think its missing the point. 

I think style, phrasing, attack, rhythm, vibrato, etc, are in the 'fingers'. Does that affect tone? Yes. 

We wouldn't spend all this money on gear, and endless hours tweaking and fussing with it all if it didn't matter. 

There are a couple of guitar players in town that I know well and I can tell who they are without seeing them play, no matter what tone they are using - that's their 'fingers' I am hearing - they would no doubt say the same of me. However, I would describe their 'tone' using very different criteria and adjectives. 

:stirpot:


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

shoretyus said:


> Here....listen to my fingers..that's where my tone is


But how do you describe them?


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

My tone is



evolving


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## Scotty (Jan 30, 2013)

Whatever the mood is at the moment - I like to switch it up, makes me more creative


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

In high school, a sound guy described my sound as "like a razor blade to the eardrum" ....so, probably something like that, even though that amp (a solid state Traynor combo from the late '70's) is long gone.

- - - Updated - - -



bluesmostly said:


> I really don't get it when people say this, well I get it, I just think its missing the point.
> 
> I think style, phrasing, attack, rhythm, vibrato, etc, are in the 'fingers'. Does that affect tone? Yes.
> 
> ...


And yet, when you take some great players and put them on entirely different gear, they still sound more or less the same.


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## bluesmostly (Feb 10, 2006)

Diablo said:


> ...And yet, when you take some great players and put them on entirely different gear, they still sound more or less the same.


You mean, they still sound like themselves right? It is also true that when a player changes gear they tweak it to suit them, to get a sound they are comfortable with, that is the gear you are talking about again, not the 'fingers'. So if by 'tone is in the fingers' you mean the ability to turn knobs with them, then yes, I agree. 

If Eddie Van Halen plugs into George Benson's rig, he will sound like EVH playing (fingers) thru GB's rig (tone) - but no one listens to George Benson playing and says, "hey that sounds just like Van Halen's tone."


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I'd like to think my tone is nothing...and everything. For me sticking to, or focussing on, one particular tone would be like deciding to stick with the notes on a recorder or bagpipe, and playing nothing else in any other octave or key.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

al3d said:


> Bottom Heavy Mixed with some Brown sound...but lots of mids.....and loud..


Weird, that's how I like my women. Gross? Maybe.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

Somewhere between David Gilmour and a queef.


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## neldom (Apr 29, 2009)

Like the money I spent achieving my tone far outweighs the money spent on lessons.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

zontar said:


> But how do you describe them?


Sometimes twangy ...sometimes not...:smiley-faces-75:
.


> There are a couple of guitar players in town that I know well and I can tell who they are without seeing them play, no matter what tone they are using - that's their 'fingers' I am hearing - they would no doubt say the same of me. However, I would describe their 'tone' using very different criteria and adjectives.


Recordings of my playing tends to sound the same ..acoustic or electric. I got some recording gear a couple years ago. When I mixed a few tracks of both types of guitars together and started listening. Kind of blew my away.

a goofy piece.... but you can hear my point 
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10182602


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## bluesmostly (Feb 10, 2006)

shoretyus said:


> Recordings of my playing tends to sound the same ..acoustic or electric. I got some recording gear a couple years ago. When I mixed a few tracks of both types of guitars together and started listening. Kind of blew my away.
> 
> a goofy piece.... but you can hear my point
> http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10182602


that's a fun piece shoretyus, I hear what you mean there, sounds just like Eddie Van Halen's tone :sFun_dancing:


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## deadear (Nov 24, 2011)

Early Jimmy Page. Not the playing just the tone.


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