dingwall said:
I really hope this wasn't a serious comment. John Frusciante has one of the best guitar tones I have ever heard. BAR NONE. Old Marshall Plexi's ready to explode. Can't beat it.
man I love his setup, and he comes up with excellent chording lines and great ideas, but its the way he generates tone from his fingers (or doesn't) that bugs me. I'm a player before an engineer, and a very serious one, but I'm also totally open to other people's playing styles, and I love lots of what he does. Just that he doesn't do things the way I would so for me it's sort of odd to have great amps (I love plexis too) when he still uses virtually no vibrato or other forms of string manipulation to generate any character in his tone. Hey, it's just the way I do things, I'm an SRV and clapton guy for the love of tone, you know what I'm saying. Guys like that who pick up an acoustic and still have their signature guitar tone, because it comes from the fingers. For Frusciante it's a different way of generating tone, and he does his thing, but on record it does come across as thin when he's playing clean, because honestly if he was to play just one simple chord it wouldn't stand out with anything special. Where someone else that I would like better might make that chord sing. But then Frusciante will play something that knocks your socks off completly with the originality and complexity and musicality of the line, but it still is just his tone that isn't very interesting, musical or well really just not very good to me.
That was by no means a judgement on him as a musician, it's the way he chooses to play and it works great for what he does, but it is thin compared to the guys I listen to and play somewhat similarly to I suppose (srv, vai, VH, Clapton, Jeff Beck (now there's a guy who plays a simple strat through a simple amp and makes every note count and sing for all it's worth, although to watch him is deceptive as he makes it look so simple).
But Frusciante is a great player and like I said, thin is in, it's a matter of his taste and his choice, it works for him. also works well for their mixes, they need Frusciante to play fairly dry and without much meat to his tone because otherwise he'd get in Flea's way, and everyone knows you don't want to do THAT!
Meant to be constructive and analytical, not meant to "dis your idol" or anything.
Also, this is seriously off topic, sorry for bringing it up

, I'll let it lie now.
Cheers,
Don