The missing link to good tone.

Gino Iorfida · From: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

I follow 2 mantra's when it comes to tone:
1) You tone is only as good as the weakest link in your signal chain
2) A good instrument/amp etc is a sum of ALL the parts.
WARNING.. long dissertation rambling to follow

First off let me begin by saying, I firmly believe that the statement 'tone is in your hands' is NOT true. I believe this fallacy was started twofold. First someone hears their hero playing with a setup different than their 'normal' setup, and of course the hero sounds like the hero-- in this case, the person is mistaking 'style' for 'tone' Secondly, say I wanted to have the tone that Buddy had on 'the black album', so I buy me a push pull, and a fender twin, plug in using his exact setup, and my tone is not what I hear when I play the record. LEts see, what is the missing link here... most would assume my 'hands' sure I wont have his style, but I shodl be able to get the same tone, but here I have some 'missing links' in the tone spectrum.. What am I missing? First, what cables was he using? Ok so I have ht same cables, I am also not factoring in: 1) the mic he used, 2) mic placement, 3) the mixing console and settings, 4) outboard effects, 5) tape coloration, 6) final mixing eq settings 7) artifacts from mastering from tape to vinyl Cool

aging/wear of my vinyl 9) the cartridge used on my turntable, 10) the coloration/eq settings of my amplifier and 11) the tonal voicing of my speakers, and finally, the accoustics of my room, and how they react to my speaker placement etc. SO I see like 15 elements in the tone i hear, and I only have 4 of the 15 elements the same. I'm sure there are more elements, but this illustrates how much we overlook.
Another pet peeve of mine is that 'you have to use george L's cable because it retains more high end' etc. Well that is fine, but a lot dont realize that 1) the connectiosn are not perfect being the slip on type, corrosion can and does happen. Some folks use the unplated brass ends, the corrosion will change the tone, and more importantly, add in any active effects, and the quality of this cable is not really needed, since a buffer amp will override most of the advantages. I laugh at a lot of 6 stringsrs I see running 10 or so Boss, DOD etc effects, all with buffered circuitry (i.e. the effect even when bypassed affects the tone), and they have to have the GeorgeL's cables between every effect. Overkill. the short 6" interconnects do not matter when running this many buffered effects. Not to mention, tha tmany buffered effects WILL kill your tone, no matter WHAT cables you use! True bypass is another topic for another time. One final note on cables, the most critical point for any cableing woudl be the longest run BEFORE any buffering. SO say you have a matchbox plugged into your steel. PRetty much anything from ther to the amp isn't as big of a deal as one would think, hwoever, the BIG deal is the wire from the pickup, to the controls, to the output jack (not to mention losses in the switches, pots and jacks!!). Why is it that soem of the best (read most expensive) commercially made pickups, use the junkiest wire possible (Duncan, Dimarzio etc, even Bill Lawrence uses unshielded wire, relying on the instrument to provide shielding, but he knows that cheap shielded cable is detrimental to tone... Jerry Wallace is the only guy I know who uses the best quality shielded cable on his pickups). Look to improve HERE first for your tone, where it's the most critical)
And lets look at amps. Say we were using a twin, just like buddy did, and say we could magically be in the same room when he recorded, and we find our setup, identicl to his dont sound exactly the same. Why again? his hands? Nope, we are talking TONE not style here. So we dig into the amps and find the amps both have 10% and 20% tolerance components, LOTS of room for varation there... next we look at tubes, we could be suing differnt brands, different age tubes, and even tubes of different runs all sound a LITTLE different, not to mention, how hot is his amp biased? how hot is mine? are the connectors dirty on ANY of our cables?
I could pick up a Franklin, plug into a mesa preamp, and I'd bet my tone is nothing like Mike Johnson or Paul Franklin's tone, heck I could even use a profex with the Newman presets, but I wont have THEIR tone.. it's not because of my hands, but maybe due to what the studio engineers do to the tone at that point, the artifacts from the digitization..

Point is, we can all strive for the tone we like, we can even use the setup of our heroes, but even if they sat in using our gear, I think we would all be surprised that yes, they will sound like themselves, but the tone would NTO be the same as the old recording we know and love so dearly.. Does that mean we can't get a good tone? I would say contrary to what we are striving for, if you play a good sounding and set up guitar, through a good sounding amp, you can and will have good tone. In fact, I would venture as much as to say you can have a BETTER tone than what is on the records, if only for the fact, your signal chain is less cluttered, and you have less taking away from the pure tone your ears are hearing. Plug a push pull through a volume pedal into an odl Twin, or Session 400, and you'll get goosebumps. Plug an old ShoBud into an old Fender, and you'll get lost in the rich full tone you hear, overtones and harmonics that are simply lost through the recording processes (compression, colroation, artifacts etc).

David Doggett · Posted 16 Jun 2003 9:12 am

Nice try, Gino, but I don't think this is going to work. It's a semantic problem, the type philosophers love. You have tried to separate the vague and ambiguous term "tone" into the part that comes from the instrument, etc. and the part that comes from the player, which you want to call style. I don't think that is what most people think of when they use the term "style." This term generally means musical things like phrasing, dynamics, tempo and rhythm. One could play with ones own style even on different instruments, such as steel and piano.

What people generally mean by a player's tone, is that the player could get that tone with a few sustained notes, absent any musical context that would allow it to be a style. It has to do with things like bar pressure, how you pick, where on the neck you pick, how you use the volume pedal, intonation, etc. I think the best we can do is simply modify the term "tone" with either "player's" or "instrument's", or for that matter "amp's", "speaker's", etc. to distinguish the various elements that combine to make what we hear as tone.

That being said, everything else you said seems true, and I learned some things from it about electronic things that can affect tone.

Some people are struck by the way different people can sit down at the same steel guitar, and without changing anything in the electronic path get very different tone. Thus, they say, "It's all in the hands." Others are struck by how different they themselves sound on different instruments and with different electronic components. They say, "no, it's all in the instrument and electronics." In reality it's not "all" in either one, it comes from both. So we are stuck with this ambiguos term "tone" that embodies all of it.

Jim Smith · From: Midlothian, TX, USA

Johan Jansen · From: Europe

Tone IS in the hands and the brain from the player!!
It's not only the playing experience, it's also the knowledge of the right tweaking of amp and guitar.
I believe that players like PF, LG and BE even can make a BBQ connected to a dishwasher sound right.
Also, there are players that can't get a tone out of the most expensive and praised gear.
With a little preparation, and time to get used to an instrument, a good player knows all the ins and outs of an instrument, and knows what, and what not to do with an instrument.
my 2 €cnt

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Click on the pic!

Scott Henderson · From: Camdenton, Missouri, USA

KEEP
IT
SIMPLE
STEELERS!!!!!!!!!!

STEELGUITAR+CHORD+AMP+TECHNIQUE= GOOD TONE

ANY QUESTIONS??????????

NO BRAIN SURGERY NEEDED

Jim Phelps · From: Mexico City, Mexico

"if you play a good sounding and set up guitar, through a good sounding amp, you can and will have good tone."

Sorry Gino, I've heard way too many great guitars, set up as well as you could ask, played through great amps, that sounded like crap. Yes I know tone is subjective, but there is some agreement by the majority as to what constitues "good" or "great" tone, and I'm in agreement with the majority on what good or bad tone is....and I've heard a lot of great equipment played with tones that I believe most would agree were really not too good....and I've heard some guys with cheap pieces of crap get great tone too...in general it seems the better equipment still has the best tone when the player knows how to get it out of the equipment.

You bring up a lot of important points about wire, etc., that's one of my pet peeves. All your points do contribute to tone, BUT...

Here's what I've found. I played in a band with a guitarist who was always envious of my guitars, amps and tone. (not being egotistical, it's true and he'd tell you this himself!) He was extremely frustrated with his tone, despite having excellent equipment himself, he always had kindof a rubberband sort of tone; thin and not much sustain. He naturally blamed his guitars and amps. At the time, my main guitars were an all-original '54 Fender Tele and an all-original '57 Gibson Les Paul Special. I played them through a stock '63 Fender Twin with JBL's, a stock '64 Fender Vibrolux with EV's or a '78 Gibson/Moog Lab Series with JBL's. I let him try all my guitars and amps one by one on the gig, and we were both on the same end of the stage. Never did he ever get the same tone I did. In fact he had pretty much the basic sound with my gear as with his. Same gear, same amp, even the same amp settings and stompboxes, just a different PLAYER. It really frustrated the heck out of him.

I've also seen it happen on the rare occasions I let someone else play my guitar, that even without touching anything, just passing my guitar into his hands and he starts playing and bam, a totally different tone than I had just minutes before. Sometimes better, sometimes not.

So while I agree with you that all the factors you mention affect tone, I don't agree with the premise that they are ALL that affect tone. IMHO and in my experience, I believe the players' touch, the angle of his picks to the strings, how hard he picks, where on the guitar he picks, all have a definate effect on tone.

[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 16 June 2003 at 10:47 PM.]

Travis Bolding · From: Stroud, OK, USA

Scott-
You are soooooooooooo right!!

~~ Travis

Bill Fulbright · From: Atlanta, GA

Technique.

It is in the hands.

The amp settings only color the sound of the guitar.

I have noticed the same thing with people playing my stuff NOT getting my sound, and me playing completely different rigs and getting MY sound......

I FIRMLY believe it is in your hands, heart and head. That is what makes us all individuals, and makes music so very interesting.

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Bill Fulbright
Mullen D-10 8x7; Gibson ES-165; Peavey Vegas 400;
ICQ# 2251620 My Music Site

Larry Bell · From: Englewood, Florida

quote:
NO BRAIN SURGERY NEEDED

DAMN! I'd already set up an appointment with my doctor. He told me he could make me sound as 'acceptable' as Cohen.

Why do we feel this compulsion to reduce everything to black and white? It's just not that simple. The secret to a good sound isn't going to be found in ANY ONE PLACE. Everything you do and every device you play through (including your guitar and amp) affects your tone. There is no missing link, but there are a lot of contributing factors that must be addressed.
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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 17 June 2003 at 06:23 AM.]

Gino Iorfida · From: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

wow... looks like one statement I made got blown all out of proportion, and some of the other points (the main points i made) got missed.

1)My main point was that even though you are playing the same guitar, amp etc as your hero plays, in fact I'll go one step beyond. If your hero was in your living room playing the same guitar and amp etc that he used on your favorite recording, there is a good chance the tone is different, due to the amount of variables between his amp and your ears coming off the recording vs. live.

2) I was stating that gear is very importatn to tone, No one will ever be able to convince me that a les paul through a marshall will sound exactly like a tele through a twin, or a rickenbacker through a vox, or a gibson 175 thru a polytone will all sound the same if played by the same person. Listen to Eric Clapton's playing with Cream, then his stuff in the 70's... yes it still sounds like Eric, however, his tone IS different. Same guy, same hands, different gear.
Everything does affect tone, however certain thigns more than others.. guitar, amp, pickups, speaker all have much much more effect on tone than things such as brand of strings, brand of picks, and brand of cables.
I can rethink my views on "tone is in the hands" only to some extent. That extent is the 'can you play, or not' do you have the ability to get a good tone out of yoru gear or not. The other guitar player in my band has an OK tone with his gear, unhappy with it, and happy with mine, he picks up my guitar. Guess what? he now has the same tone I have, yet it is a little different soundign due to his style of playing, but it's a good tone, albeit somewhat different than mine. I pick up his guitar, and can't get a good tone to save my life. Is ti in th ehands or in the gear? soudns like the good tone followed the gear, and nto the hands in this case.

John Steele · From: Renfrew, Ontario, Canada

So, are any of you "it's all in the hands" guys going to testify that Emmons' tone sounded the same on the Ray Price 60's sessions as he did on the Roger Miller or Gram Parsons recordings ? I'd love to hear someone claim that.
After all, they're the same hands....
-John
Maybe Tone is "all in the ears"

Johan Jansen · From: Europe

This is not, to me anyway, a discussion about producing the same tone out of every brand and type of instrument.
To me this is about 'quality'of tone. JJ

Jim Eaton · From: Santa Susana, Ca

Good tone is like the wind, I can't see it or touch it, but I know it when I feel it.
JE:-)>

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

To say that "it's all in the hands" or it is "it's ALL in the equipment", simply belie statements made by the greats and the experiences of many players.

Buddy Emmons said right on this forum, "The reason I went back to Emmons was I had a sound in my head that I could not get out of the Sierra". Even though he said he loved the rich bass strings' sound and other things about his Sierra.

The fact that 70 yr old pre-war Ricks command 10 times (or more) their original price while others of the same era can't get a tenth of their original price is proof positive that a great deal of the tone IS in the equipment. And this goes along with the recognized nusance of Ricks constantly needing to be retuned due to the slightest temparature change.

This also applies to Stradavaris Violins and a myriad of other vintage instruments like LesPauls and Fender lap steels, amps, et al

It is also true that the same player using different equipment still gets pretty much the same perceived tone (more or less) is also correct. But I must agree with this thread's author. Much of this perception IS style rather than sound.

BUT that does NOT mean the equipment does not make a decided affect on tone. Hilton volume pedals will attest to this almost by anyone who checks them out. Such is the case with a Goodrich match box.

A Boss DD-3 has such a dramatic affect on perceived sound (tone) as to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that equipment DOES indeed affect tone. And even though it does not change the tone, the delay IS perceived as a definite tonal change "in versus out" of the circuit by the human ear.

On the other side of the coin, Buddy Emmons gets a tone to die for. SO does Paul Franklin. So does Lloyd Green. As does Jerry Byrd and the late Curly Chalker, etc.

Why did Lloyd Green in his "heyday" of recording specialist remove two 12" Fender speakers from his twin reverb and replace them with two Lansing speakers?

So to suggest that the tone is ALL in their hands simply does NOT jive with the facts well documented using various pieces of equipment (some stated above).

There is NO doubt in my mind that Jimmy Day would have sounded differently IF, he had played Emmons guitars (mostly) instead of his Sho-Buds.

The arguments about solid state amps versus tube amps is more true than myth. IE, solid state devices are ONLY now approaching the tone and dynamic range (tone perception is very evident here) that tubes have inherrently had since the beginning.

It all boils down to this:

Buddy Emmons WILL sound differently depending on what equipment HE uses. Again, he asked us right on this forum, "how was my sound last night?" (he was using some new equipment) when he backed up a star on a recent "Ernest Tubb" record shop show. I personally thought the sound was thinner (tone) than I am used to hearing from Buddy. I talked to others who perceived the same.

If he asked that question, I can only conclude that he realized that at least some of HIS tone was in his equipment.

The tone Buddy got on Ray Price's new CD "Time", beats ANY tone I have EVER heard him get on anything he has done. To me it is the ultimate tone. Just incredibly beautiful. Was it all in his hands? Was it all in his equipment? Or a combination of both?

Is none of the tone in the hands?

NO!

Is none of the tone in the equipment?

NO

Is some of the tone in the hands?

Absolutely.

Is some of the tone in the equipment?

Absolutely.

It simply requires both. And unless a player has BOTH, he will not be included in most people's "list of great players"!! IMO

May Jesus richly bless you all,

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 17 June 2003 at 10:36 AM.]

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 17 June 2003 at 03:12 PM.]

Rick Collins · From: Claremont , CA USA

Well said Carl.

But:

If one would form this into an equation, I think that Tone = Player + Equipment would not tell the whole truth.

Tone = Player + Equipment + Environment IMHO would give a more complete definition. And too, I'm disreguarding listener perception.

I say this because I seem to have a much "richer" tone when playing outside.

Rick

Scott Henderson · From: Camdenton, Missouri, USA

I think their are lots of "factors" that determine tone and enviroment is a big one...
I am currently in an enviroment that is very pleasing to me. The settings on my amp are nearly all at 0...And yes I have have played in arenas where I had to find a little help in getting the tone I liked. I guess the original thread just wowed me with gadget-fever!! I see it all the time and have done it myself..owning and trying to use ever tool I could find to "enhnce my tone" As I grew older,and I am not that old..I have only been playing for about twenty years, I discovered I didn't need to lug all that stuff around. Now I wil say this I have a monster guitar that sounds great even without an amp. But learning technique sure hasn't hurt.
As far as Buddy, no disrespect but that is a lame argument. Buddy has been an innovator in the steel world for years. He is Buddy because he has never been afraid of change and has always progressed with the times. Compare his tone in 1960 to other steel players compare his tone to other steelers in 1980...etc etc etc. The man is an innovator and achieves his tone by whatever means. I can't speak for him and i'm not trying to but any steel teacher worth his salt will tell you before their's scales lick intros amps delays and tone enhancers their are two hands that need to perform as one.. You have to have a good foundation or the house will never be strong.
Do I love good gear? I love gear that is sturdy( I put 25 hours a week on my stuff) and responds to what I ask it to do.( I play agressive too)But I never forget the basics and because of that I don't have to worry about tone as much and can focus on my style and playing a lot more and that sure makes it fun!!!

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Steelin' away in the ozarks and life,
Scott
www.scottyhenderson.com

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

A great player with great hands will get great tone on any good set up...
But the TAMBOR will be different from set up to set up.

I think tone and tambor are being used interchangably, when I don't think this should be the case.
A PP and a Sho-Bud have different tambors, but you can get great tone through each.

The equipment will change the tambor dramatically, and the hands will get the best tone available in that given set up.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 18 June 2003 at 12:56 AM.]

Joe Miraglia · From: Jamestown N.Y.

What if we have different heroes?Whitch hero's tone do we try to get? Maybe
we should call it the voice of the steel. After all it talks,cries,whistles and whines,kind of like it"s owner

Joe

David Doggett · Posted 18 Jun 2003 7:30 am

Hey, David, je pense le mot est "timbre" en Anglaise. Maybe you've been over there avec les grenouilles a little too long.

But now that you've mentioned it, the term "timbre" is the unique sound of the instrument. Webster's says it is "the characteristic quality of sound that distinguishes one voice or musical instrument from another: it is determined by the harmonics of the sound and is distinguished from the intensity and pitch." And "tone" is "an intonation, pitch, modulation, etc. of the voice that expresses a particular meaning or feeling of the speaker; as a tone of contempt."

So maybe the semantic issue could be resolved if we spoke of the "timbre" of the Emmons push/pull versus the LeGrande all/pull and the "tone" of Buddy Emmons versus Joe Blow. Actually, this semantic distinction has been proposed by others, probably many times, in previous threads on the Forum.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 18 June 2003 at 08:43 AM.]

Jim Phelps · From: Mexico City, Mexico

If this is going into the "hands vs. gear, tone vs. timbre" routine, that was already discussed ad nauseum here:
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/005445.html

[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 18 June 2003 at 02:00 PM.]

Jackie Anderson · From: Scarborough, ME

Maybe there should be a "Tone" section of the Forum. It would only need two constantly running threads: one on whether it's in the hands, the knees, the @ss, the metal, the wood, the joints, the finish, the decals, the cable, the pedal, the rubber feet on the legs, the FX box, the amp, the floor, the walls, the room, the audience mass, the ears, the imagination...; and the other on whether the section should be called "Tone" or "Timbre" or "Sound" or - my preference - "Semantics."

Herb Steiner · From: Spicewood TX 78669

I thought "timbre" is what you yell out right after you attack an old Multi-Kord with a chain saw.

Bobbe Seymour · From: Hendersonville TN USA, R.I.P.

There is no missing link to good tone. A lot of players know where all the links are. They aren't missing, they are just sleeping.

Jim Phelps · From: Mexico City, Mexico

Or maybe unconscious...

Bill Llewellyn · From: San Jose, CA

Isn't "tone" just bass and treble...?

quote:

Also, there are players that can't get a tone out of the most expensive and praised gear.

Dangit, Johan, you've been listening to my playing again.

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