G
GOYA
New member
Silly me. I thought you were just trying to be acute.
(I thoroughly apologize for that. I should try to be more complimentary)
Silly me. I thought you were just trying to be acute.
(I thoroughly apologize for that. I should try to be more complimentary)
muttley600
Banned
Silly me. I thought you were just trying to be acute.
(I thoroughly apologize for that. I should try to be more complimentary)
There is however method in my obliqueness.
The question is meaning less without context. How I choose to answer it was correct in every regard. In fact it was perfect, more perfect than any other answer you will get on the subject. The fact that the answer isn't the one you wanted to hear is the issue. Maybe you should put some context to the discussion, or should we move on to define love, art, and awareness now we are done. Those are harder to define as they have no root in science that can be clearly defined.
c7sus
Disenfranchised Member
There's more than one.
It can be thick or thin.
Horn or bell-like.
Muted or ringing.
Harmonically complex or a simple sine wave.
So many different qualities, timbres, the different chops needed to get the most out of all the different instruments out there.
Tony Rice has good tone. I bet he could make a cardboard guitar sound good.
Garth Brooks has all the tone of a fart harp. That's a toilet seat with a neck and strings.
Richard Greene has great tone. Jack Benny not so much.
I like Warren Haynes sound. When I've seen him play live it seems it takes a while for him to dial it in. Like it's a bit too distorted at first..... not shimmery but clipped. As the show goes on it seems like they're able to dial his tone in and eliminate the early breakup or whatever and get to the singing really syruppy overdriven sound. Jerry Garcia was like that too, but had more tones in his pallette than most players, IMHO. I read an interview where Jerry talked about being 15 and walking in the hills above Palo Alto and they were getting high and they got to the top of a hill and just then a low-flying jet passed over. Jerry said he'd been trying to play tones like that ever since. A good example is Jerry's final solo in Morning Dew.
Other times I'm really taken back by how some bands are really able to harness tones that are essentially noise on their own into a cohesive overall sound. Some Zappa comes to mind, as does some Guns and Roses and Velvet Revolver. Beck too but in a very different way that sounds much more produced.
My recent fave tones I have access to are a 77 Martin D-35L and a 74 SG Standard w/Super Distortions > KLON > GT Brick > Leslie. I like Bob Moog's filters too. Snappy and thick as a milk shake.
muttley600
Banned
It was all going so well and then you started on that subjective I think, I like stuff. Oh well we still don't know any thing else about tone.
G
GOYA
New member
You assume I didn't want to hear your answer and that is not the issue, if there is an issue. Actually, I expected to hear objective answers and I expected subjective answers. I also expected answers that weren't answers at all. So far so good.
muttley600
Banned
c7sus
Disenfranchised Member
How can you define "tone" without citing some examples???
If you can't discern good tone from lousy tone for yourself, you'll never be able to define what it is about certain tones and tiimbers that make them interesting and you won't be able to figure out how those sounds are achieved. If having your own signature tone wasn't important I guess Eddie Van Halen would have clued everybody into the Variac thing years earlier. He told folks he was cranking up the voltage when in fact he was turning it down to create more sag.
And live sound is obviously different than recording tones. That's already pretty well established.
And what exactly is the point of taking the time to appreciate somebody's sound and thinking "Man, I could do that too. How'd they get that sound?" ??? To me, it's about understanding, about trying to connect with what the artist was trying to get across. You have to have some base to start from.
If it didn't matter there wouldn't be single coils and humbuckers and wah wahs and fuzzes and the whole "tape delay vs digital delay" and LP vs CD vs MP3 and on and on.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1980-12-12.fob.glassberg.motb.89134.sbeok.flac16
Dig the drums/space bit. There's tones galore in there.
If you can't discern good tone from lousy tone for yourself, you'll never be able to define what it is about certain tones and tiimbers that make them interesting and you won't be able to figure out how those sounds are achieved. If having your own signature tone wasn't important I guess Eddie Van Halen would have clued everybody into the Variac thing years earlier. He told folks he was cranking up the voltage when in fact he was turning it down to create more sag.
And live sound is obviously different than recording tones. That's already pretty well established.
And what exactly is the point of taking the time to appreciate somebody's sound and thinking "Man, I could do that too. How'd they get that sound?" ??? To me, it's about understanding, about trying to connect with what the artist was trying to get across. You have to have some base to start from.
If it didn't matter there wouldn't be single coils and humbuckers and wah wahs and fuzzes and the whole "tape delay vs digital delay" and LP vs CD vs MP3 and on and on.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1980-12-12.fob.glassberg.motb.89134.sbeok.flac16
Dig the drums/space bit. There's tones galore in there.
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Tadpui
Well-known member
I think that the definition of tone transcends good or bad.
c7sus
Disenfranchised Member
The definition of tone may very well transcend good and bad but when you hear shit tone you tune it out or find something else to listen to.
Light
New member
Muttley took care of the dictionary part of it. As for the other part, it comes down to something I hear Steve Martin say, but which I'm sure he stole from someone:
Talking about sound is like dancing about architecture.
Which makes me so damn glad that my job is basically to talk about sound in a convincing manner.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Talking about sound is like dancing about architecture.
Which makes me so damn glad that my job is basically to talk about sound in a convincing manner.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Milnoque
Resident Curmudgeon
For our purposes, I would add the qualities of attack and decay to this definition.
muttley600
Banned
Thats covered. They also are dependant on the harmonic series and the amplitude and impedance of vibration for each one of them.
Milnoque
Resident Curmudgeon
Fair Enough
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ggunn
Crystal Flavolian
Two things: The quote is "Talking about music...", and I did some research on it a while back; it appears that Steve Martin is indeed the originator.
lpdeluxe
The Precision Bass Guy
I've heard it attributed to Frank Zappa. Since Mr Zappa was quite an aphorist, I'll persist in the belief that he originated it. You may recall his remarks about rock critics: "Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read."
But that issue is probably unresolvable (at least to my satisfaction, which would be that the quote came from FZ -- any other outcome wouldn't satisfy ME). What about tone?
Simple: it's why I play Gibson guitars through Fender amps, and why I play Fender Precision basses.
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ggunn
Crystal Flavolian
It's by no means definitively attributed to anyone:
http://home.pacifier.com/~ascott/they/tamildaa.htm
CMunch
Well-known member
Tone is a Marshall amp with the Gain between two and three,mid treble and bass between five and seven,the master volume up high and a wee touch of reverb,to complete roll guitar volume down then gradually increase until smile reaches widest point.
Tone is the reason why amps have knobs.
Tone is the thing that will still elude line 6 when Pod 10 is in production.
Tone is the thing that Rhoads,Jimi ,Clapton,Young and Gibbons understood that no one who fiddles with virtual knobs and sliders all day ever will.
Tone is the reason why amps have knobs.
Tone is the thing that will still elude line 6 when Pod 10 is in production.
Tone is the thing that Rhoads,Jimi ,Clapton,Young and Gibbons understood that no one who fiddles with virtual knobs and sliders all day ever will.
lpdeluxe
The Precision Bass Guy
Wow. Thanks a lot. That's a real trove of information. Perhaps this is one of those aphorisms (for example, "everyone talks about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it", attributed most frequently to Mark Twain -- who denied he ever said it) that is assigned to whomever is in the eye of the person quoting at the time of the quotation.
I feel vindicated that FZ is at least a contender. I have never come across a direct source (not surprisingly!) but remember reading something 'way back when that made the attribution.
G
ggunn
Crystal Flavolian
I am relatively sure, however, that Uncle Frank is the originator of "Great googly moogly!"
Light
New member
However, the earliest confirmed attribution he has is Elvis Costello, which means I'm changing who I attribute it to from now on as Elvis Costello is cooler than any of the other people on that page. (I end up saying it a lot, as customers are always asking me questions which no one could honestly answer).
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
