What IS good tone?

[cloy26]

This has always bugged me. Good tones, whether they be bass, guitar, drums, are all subjective. However, what is the objective standard that I am trying to reach with my poop recording? Should I just try to emulate a tone I particularly enjoy? Underoath's guitar tone on Lost in The Sound of Separation is one of my favorites, so do I just try to copy that sound? Even if I do, I always fall short.

Pretty much: What makes a good tone?

 

[Skinny Viking]

you know you have good tone for something when 9 out of 10 people say it sounds nice

there's always 1 asshole who's just trying to be different

seriously, use references as a guide but don't always try so hard to imitate. Its been said a billion times, what works in one project or song may not work in a different one.

Just try to determine what it is about an instrument sound that gets you excited and try to bring out those characteristics in your own tones ... capturing as much of it as you can WHILE tracking and saving the tweaking for after.

Always keep in mind that what sound great on its own may not always work in a mix depending on what you're trying to go for

 

[Ermz]

This:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LH4a6BLrx4&feature=channel_video_title[/ame]

and this:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuM-yLNtiv0&feature=relmfu[/ame]

 

[smy1]

Good tone is what fits the vibe. Ola's videos that Ermz posted are completely unsuitable for a lot of stoner/blues/industrial-rock. If the tone creates an atmosphere that is coherent with the attitude and direction of the music, then it's "good".

On one project I purposely used a shitty JCM900 ampsim and ran it through 3 distortion plugins to make it as fucked up as possible. That's the main guitar tone and it fits perfectly.

 

[dcb]

If the tone creates an atmosphere that is coherent with the attitude and direction of the music, then it's "good".

On one project I purposely used a shitty JCM900 ampsim and ran it through 3 distortion plugins to make it as fucked up as possible. That's the main guitar tone and it fits perfectly.

+ 1

people overestimate "tone". smoke on the water sounds horribble (to me at least) but its considered one of the greatest riffs of all time (i hate it though ;-)
great tone will not make your song rock... a great riff will though.

 

[B36arin]

Great tone is 95% in the hands of the player.

 

[reg3n]

you know you have good tone for something when 9 out of 10 people say it sounds nice

there's always 1 asshole who's just trying to be different

seriously, use references as a guide but don't always try so hard to imitate. Its been said a billion times, what works in one project or song may not work in a different one.

Just try to determine what it is about an instrument sound that gets you excited and try to bring out those characteristics in your own tones ... capturing as much of it as you can WHILE tracking and saving the tweaking for after.

Always keep in mind that what sound great on its own may not always work in a mix depending on what you're trying to go for

I needed to read that so bad... I kind'a go desperate tweaking when i track, and I am one of those bad examples of what you don't have to do. Makes a lot of sense!

 

[crillemannen]

+ 1

people overestimate "tone". smoke on the water sounds horribble (to me at least) but its considered one of the greatest riffs of all time (i hate it though ;-)
great tone will not make your song rock... a great riff will though.

Smoke on the water is actually a organ ran through a amp

 

[K Odell]

Yeah that riff from "Smoke On The Water" is a weird combo bc the guitar in there is finger picked and like stated above it was also an organ behind it through an amp. Cool stuff though and its def all about the RIFF with me too. If the riff blows then fuck it just quit playing and sell your guitar on ebay hahahaha.

 

[P-E]

Kinda OT but that tone from Ola's Framus Cobra video must be his best. Wow.

 

[dcb]

Smoke on the water is actually a organ ran through a amp

when the song starts its actually just blackmore,
the organ comes in on the left speaker after the intro.
they sound quiet similar, haha !

 

[Mutant]

Apart from the obvious: a good tone is a tone that sounds good to majority of listeners (Ola's Mr. Hector clip for example).

From my experience:
A good tone is a tone with the correct frequency spectrum curve, without any strange peaks and holes in the spectrum.
These holes create thinness and strangeness and peaks create harshness.

 

[Jevil]

Talking about references, we've got plenty of them for guitar in this forum, but is there any good BASS tone reference?

 

[slayercannibalsuffohead]

Talking about references, we've got plenty of them for guitar in this forum, but is there any good BASS tone reference?

Anything Exodus, Overkill, Fear Factory and Iron Maiden.

 

[Ermz]

Soilwork - Stabbing the Drama
In Flames - Come Clarity
Meshuggah - Chaosphere
Korn - Untouchables
Decapitated - The Negation

Just realized most of the best ones are in B or lower. Go figure.

 

[abt]

Good tone... hmmm... what's a good painting look like? Good tone to me is the sound best suited to what I'm trying to say. To me this is the essence of what people mean when they say "the tone is in the fingers" it's the tone that lets you talk, be you, be original. You know what tone you like when you hear it because you relate to what it's telling you. It jumps out at you and makes you want to move. There's a million examples of sounds that basically defy what seems credible, may even be considered shit, but are some of the most loved sounds in history. Get to the core of why they are loved and you'll find your tone.

EDIT:
See for yourself in the two posts above this one.

 

[Flat Fifth Fury]

Tone is personal. Some tones as stated above fit a project or artist and others don't. When Pantera hit the scene there were loads of people reviewing Cowboys From Hell who said that his tone was essentially an anti-tone, nothing more than an angry buzz. Well he sounded unique and influenced truckloads of players to have a more angular sound. Look at the first two Mercyful Fate records ... chorus into a distorted amp for a heavy band, are you nuts? Worked for them. Eric Johnson's lead tone sounds wonderful for what he does but it's so round and squishy it would be terrible for say, Industrial music. I have acquired a few awful sounding distortion boxes that I have just for the occasional need for an ugly sound. If it fits, it fits. The question to me is not really "what is good tone?" but "what is the tone that has my voice?"

 

[grywolf627]

Using Ola as an example is a little unfair. He works some kind of magic. He could play through a Metal Zone into a PigNose and it would still sound awesome.

 

[Skinny Viking]

He could play through a Metal Zone into a PigNose and it would still sound awesome.

Will he accept the challenge?

 

[Jind]

Great tone is like art - too subjective to define easily and in many cases dependent upon style. Just as great cubist paintings can't be compared to great realism paintings, a great blues tone can't really be compared to a great modern metal tone. Even if we were to qualify the question as "What is a good METAL tone?" we would still fall prey to further subjective classifications based upon sub-genres; a great thrash tone is probably not a great djent tone; a great black metal tone would sound pretty shitty in a power metal band - you see where I'm going. Add to that the difficult nature of building consensus in defining whats considered great to each individual person, we can probably agree it's somewhat futile to try and define great tone.

Just an observation - continue trying to define the undefinable.