Tone is in the hands...

[MetallyGuitarded]

...rich teenagers with golden amps that they don't even notice when their guitar is out of tune.

....many times I feel embarrased for them and ashamed.

Jevil, when I was gigging a lot probably 80% of the bands in my town, from rock to death metal, were these 16-18 year old kids with $5000 rigs that absolutely sucked. It was extremely demoralizing when they won the battle of the bands every time... Goes to show you that talent and mass appeal are not the same thing.

 

[Fox Mulder]

Hahahaha, pity the person who gets chosen for the shit guitarist role

I can play shitty if I want to

 

[John_C]

The player comes first. Fix your playing, then buy a better amp.


on a slightly different note, try this: take a varied bit of music, a bit of everything in it (fast mutes, legato, long power chords etc...)

go to your clean channel and try and make it as powerful and tight as you can.

Slowly work up through your gain controls and channels,

At every step of the way, make it sound really good and powerful and tight. This will require you to pick harder and softer, do slightly different vibrato, basically work with the tone and use your hands to get the most out of it you can

It really does make a massive difference how you as the player work with what you've got

 

[Damphire]

to answer the question you must define TONE .

For me tone is not technique, is not how the riff is played... is how the guitar sounds through the chain and how you hear it sound. Play a open power chord and let it ring for a few seconds, you can definitely hear the tone even though no riff was played.

Performance and the final result of a recorded riffage is in the hands of the player. Tone is mostly on the gear. That's my opinon

 

[J.DavisNJ]

I think, perhaps, there is a bit of miscommunication going on here.

I don't think anyone can agree that the ENTIRE sound is in the hands. Duh. If it was, then Andy, James, Colin, etc. would be using Squier strats into Gorilla amps.

Yes, the amp, cab, pickups, string gauge ALL contribute to the inherent tone that comes out of your speakers. How that tone is displayed is what gives a guitarist his/her sound. In this argument I believe that tone IS in the fingers.

If a guitar newb who has just started playing plugs into a Diezel Herbert or other high end amp, it WILL sound like ass...unless he is gifted at birth with guitar skills. lol

In my eyes, a good player should be able to have a solid rhythm attack, minimize string noise, proper hand positioning (close to fret ends), and not accidentally bend strings when playing a chord.

-Joe

 

[Metaltastic]

Yes, the amp, cab, pickups, string gauge ALL contribute to the inherent tone that comes out of your speakers. How that tone is displayed is what gives a guitarist his/her sound. In this argument I believe that tone IS in the fingers.

Ah, obsessing over semantics Joe?

Trying to have your cake and eat it too, for shame

 

[Erkan]

In my eyes, a good player should be able to have a solid rhythm attack, minimize string noise, proper hand positioning (close to fret ends), and not accidentally bend strings when playing a chord.

-Joe

Exactly my thoughts. When a guitarist plays stuff 100% flawlessly, no mistakes, no accidental noises, picking is perfect and sharp with a good amount of force on every picking, the hand isn't accidently moving slightly and creating irritating noises etc etc etc, then the current tone you use sounds SO MUCH BETTER than with all of those mistakes in place. I don't know why, it might be psycho-acoustical, like the brain might think it's a really trashy, noisy and dirty tone if the guitarist plays a bit dirty.

With that said though, the actual tone comes from the gear of course... you wouldn't expect getting a production OK tone from a plank with strings attached on to nails, and then going into some old homebrew amp, would you?

But damn is it important to play clean and hit the goddamn strings like you mean it... it's the same for any instrument. Drums might be slightly more important in that regard, since drums are pretty much all transient instrument, so if you hit like a girl, it's gonna sound crappy, while with tons of distortion, you can get away with it on guitars.