What's your favorite Guitar tone/sound?!

[carlosguardia]

Well, I've been playing the guitar for about 15 years now, and the electric for a little over 10. Ever since I started to play the guitar, the idea was to emulate the style, chords, notes, solos, leads and wardrobe of my favorite guitar players; at the time, these players were Randy Rhoads, CC DeVille from Poison, Adrian Smith and Dave Murray, Kirk Hammet, Eddie Van Halen, Marty Friedman, the guys from Skid Row, and Richie Blackmore. Well maybe I'm leaving a couple of players out but it has been a long time. The purpose of playing the guitar was because I felt it was really cool to make all those hair-raising sounds like artificial harmonics and two hand tapping; and in doing this, be able to get popular with the "bad" girls from high school.

When I started taking guitar lessons, I began to learn about music theory and harmony, technique, technique, and a little more technique... but very little if anything about the sound of the electric guitar; almost nothing about EQ, and only the basics of what my fingers can do to affect my tone.

As time went by my taste changed (not too much) but I learned about other guitar players and stopped listening to some. Mainly what changed was that I began trying to not only emulate some licks but started to think about what my guitar should sound like, other than being distorted. I fell in love with the guitar sound of 2 players, Paul Gilbert and John Petrucci. To my surprise, or not, both used guitars built with basswood and both used DiMarzio Tone Zone pickups. Then I decided to buy a a guitar made of basswood and install the Tone Zone in the bridge. I got close to the desired tone but I needed to EQ a little to get the "right" sound out of my amp. I began to isolate their sound, pass it through a spectrum analyzer and get a mental picture of the way the EQ should be set up so I could tweak a 7band graphic EQ to that sound.

In that process I developed my own sounds, which may not differ too much from Petrucci's sound on Images and Words or Gilbert's sound on Lean into It, but still I NOW consider to be my own tone.

What does your guitar tone sound like?! Some food for thought.

Carlos

[mshea]

ANYTHING that requires a WAH pedal and a wammy (did i spell that right) bar...(i'm not a guitarist, but i wish i was).

[Cyrokk]

My current preference is a Les Paul sound, either through the Mesa Boogie, or a classic fuzz as can be heard in surf metal and Smashing Pumpkins debut (though I hate their sound as a whole).

Godsmack has a great sound on their Awake album, a real loose Les Paul sound.

But I think the wah is being overused nowadays. You used to hear wah on maybe two songs per album at the most. Now it's EVERY song. Maybe the players aren't really that good and they are using the wah to mask their poor technique, I dunno.

Cy

[PFDarkside]

I'm a big fan of the Les Paul neck w/ tone rolled back sound. Slash at his finest...

I also love the crunch of 'Sad but True' from Metallica and Zakk Wylde's tone from his BLS stuff.

[Middleman]

Favorite guitar tones

Dazed and confused - Jimmy Page
Funk 49 - Joe Walsh
Anything by George Benson
Jim Messina or Stephen Stills on a Telecaster
Eric Clapton on the Blind Faith Album

I totally agree about the tone thing. Given a highly proficient player with flat tone and a so so player who has spent time on tonality I would rather listen to something unique in tone than a lot of notes.

[jimlove]

One time I opened up for Dwight Yoakum. I really would have liked to meet Pete Anderson, but that tour used the now deceased Eddie Shaver on guitar. I talked with him at length about his setup. He used a couple of Teles with 12s. I could barely make a G chord on that thing!! I use 9's. Ran it through a delay pedal at about 110ms and used the stereo outs into two Fender Twins. One Twin also drove a Marshall cab under the stage. ABSOLUTE HILLBILLY HEAVEN!!! Don't think he ever switched off the bridge pickup.

[6gun]

jake e. lee, straight up cranked marshall sound.

[kjam22]

Picking an absolute favorite is pretty tough....... but I have to list Pink Floyd "Time" off Dark Side of the Moon as being in the top 10.

[hixmix]

My favorite guitar tone/sound, no matter who's playing has always been a good piece of wood, with good tube amplification and minimum, if any, effects.

[juststartingout]

Originally posted by hixmix
My favorite guitar tone/sound, no matter who's playing has always been a good piece of wood, with good tube amplification and minimum, if any, effects.

I AGREE...TOTALLY....100%....FOR SURE

There is nothing better than raw clean power, with a minimum of overdrive (you want to distinguish between the notes), maybe a little compression added in to keep things consistant.

My 57 humbuckers into my fender twin or a blues deville (or both at once)

[riley357]

Warren Haynes.

[matty_boy]

Rob Ramos from Strung Out.

[justinchannell]

If you mean my favorite tone to play at, it's the following:

Squier Affinity Stratocaster - 3rd pickup, both tone knobs at 10
through
Fender Frontman 25R: Treble at 6.5, Mid at 3.5, and Bass at 3.

Then again, that's the only guitar gear I have... well, I also have a Boss DS-1 and a Danelectro Pastrami Overdrive, as far as effects go.

[deadleafecho]

Im a real fan of all the soundgarden sounds. Best one i think is Superknown. think they used MB triple recs?

[AlChuck]

Jeff Beck has a great tone, almost always...
Robben Ford, especially on the Jing Chi album
Lowell George and Ry Cooder for slide
Eric Clapton on the John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton record, a.k.a. the Beano album
Pat Thrall
Santana's tone is pretty sweet...

[savageblues]

The opening riff from "Cant you hear me knocking" (Mick Taylor was the best Stones guitarist)

Billy Gibbons different tones on DeGuello (and a lot of other early ZZ tunes).

Selected Frank Zappa tones.

Doyle Bramhall's tones on Arc Angels.

SRV - Little Wing.

[jimistone]

jimi hendrix tone on little wing

[bdbdbuck]

I've always been fond of Mark Knoffler's CLEAN sound. Classic strat!

[freshmattyp]

Tele through a Twin, or a Rickenbacker through an AC30 Top Boost.

[King Elvis]

Originally posted by jimlove
One time I opened up for Dwight Yoakum. I really would have liked to meet Pete Anderson, but that tour used the now deceased Eddie Shaver on guitar. I talked with him at length about his setup. He used a couple of Teles with 12s. I could barely make a G chord on that thing!! I use 9's. Ran it through a delay pedal at about 110ms and used the stereo outs into two Fender Twins. One Twin also drove a Marshall cab under the stage. ABSOLUTE HILLBILLY HEAVEN!!! Don't think he ever switched off the bridge pickup.

I love Pete Andersons playing, not so much his tone but his playing. His tone has gotten better over time. I am a BIG fan of the twangy, hillbilly type county, not the current pop-rock type of country. Dwights records kick A.

[King Elvis]

Billy Gibbons always gets a good tone!!!
Also, and I know this is going WAY back, but Buddy Holly got a cool tone on his records, and those things are in mono. Its the classic clean strat thru a tweed bandmaster sound.

[Aaron Cheney]

Hendrix "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)" is one I always put in my "tone bucket". Billy Gibbons as well. Early EVH, especially "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" and the solo from "Beat It". Mark Knoplfer as well. Oooh.. and Joe Pass.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com

[King Elvis]

Knopfler has a great tone. Especially on tunes like SULTANS OF SWING, where he plays it clean. I HATE his tone on MONEY FOR NOTHING, it was horrendous!!! On a distorted tone he is less effective.

[badassmak]

...Big Sugar.

I love how hes got it cranked at all times, and is actually able to use the distortion and feedback to his advantage. Seen em live a couple of times now and it always blows me away. He plays double-necked gibsons a lot (i think theyre gibsons lmao), old f hole guitars and the like. Personally thats not what I play musically, but from what Ive seen live I like that sound the best so far. And after getting the nerve to more than just look at the 'spensive guitars (ie try one out) I must say id really really, possibly kill to get a gibson.

[flapo1]

David Gilmour in "The Wall", the whole album.
Knopfler clean tones in the last two or three albums from Dire Straits are great. Or slightly distorted (Brothers in Arms-like)

Me.