What does your guitar REALLY sound like? An experiment.

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Let's not forget an equally important part of the system: the player. Two different guitarists playing the same rig will often obtain recognizably different sounds.
that's also very true ...... I use hard picks and I use the back end of them. Makes a particular sound.
And I tend to play fairly easy on the strings .... I never break strings for example ..... a different way of picking wouldn't tell me anything about how it would work for me.
 
Thats exactly what I was getting at when saying that you need to consider attack and where on the string, and the angle and how hard, and with what...
Right, got that.

that's also very true ...... I use hard picks and I use the back end of them. Makes a particular sound.
And I tend to play fairly easy on the strings .... I never break strings for example ..... a different way of picking wouldn't tell me anything about how it would work for me.

Right, and that's why even listening to sound samples of a guitar mic'd through an actual amp won't give you the whole picture. So much depends on the player's style that unless you can see what a player is doing with their hands it's hard to know what part of the sound is coming from them.
 
Right, and that's why even listening to sound samples of a guitar mic'd through an actual amp won't give you the whole picture. So much depends on the player's style that unless you can see what a player is doing with their hands it's hard to know what part of the sound is coming from them.
yep .... that's a big reason why so often we'll see people get an amp that they've heard someone they want to sound like use and then they can't get the same sound.
 
I think that, in the grand scheme of things, the player would have a rather small difference compared to more noticeable things if they are playing the same tune. I'm talking in terms of overall sound of the instrument... obviously the dynamics and "feel" will be different, but I think that, all other things being equal, that might not have such a huge difference. You'd still get a general feel for how the instrument sounds. (I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a Les Paul generally sounds like a Les Paul no matter who is playing it)

Muttley, I think that you're wrong about me not getting it; I think I'm just being overly optimistic about what seemed like a good idea in my head (you don't have to be so negative about everything though...). What you are saying about ingredients vs finished dish makes sense. Cinnamon will still taste like cinnamon no matter what you put it in, but its overall impact will be different. I had considered that a more useful database would be one where you could pick a guitar, pick an amp (and cab if necessary), then get a sound clip based on that. Ideally, you would also be able to adjust the parameters on the amp. That project, although considerably more useful, is one that I really don't see as even practical, especially when you consider mic choice, preamp choice, interface, acoustic space, mic placement, etc. I was really hoping we could come up with an intermediate step that would eliminate some of those insurmountable variables, but it is seeming like there is probably not a way... Bummer. It would be a far more useful way to compare guitars than listening to YouTube clips.
 
I think that, in the grand scheme of things, the player would have a rather small difference compared to more noticeable things if they are playing the same tune. I'm talking in terms of overall sound of the instrument...
You'd be wrong.

You saw Lt. Bob's description of how he picks - with the back side of a hard pick. He's picking with the rounded side of the pick so there's not much attack.

Now take me. I use a hard pick with a pointy end (Dunlop Jazz III) and when soloing I expose just the tip and use lots of pick angle and attack. I get pinch harmonics almost by accident all over the fretboard if I hold it just right.

You think Lt. Bob and I are going to make the same sounds out of the same equipment?

Oh, and how about Jeff Beck, who plays with the flesh of his thumb?
 
Yes, I think if I told the two of you to play the same tune on the same instrument using a pick the "normal" way you would get sounds that are similar enough that any differences are not significant enough to be relevant for the purposes of comparing one guitar to another. There will be slight differences (notice I never said there wouldn't be), but they would not be enough to overcome the essence of the guitar. The idea was never to give people room for nitpicking. It was simply to allow people to get a general feel for what on particular guitar would sound like.

I would also add that attack is an element of style, not really an element of a guitar's tone. It has more to do with dynamics than harmonic content (which isn't to say it doesn't effect both, just one more than the other). Have you ever listened to a clip and thought, "Boy, I really like the attack on that guitar," or, "The dynamics of that guitar sure are great"? I'm guessing you are generally more interested in the harmonic content. And I will admit that fingerpicking WOULD significantly change that, but you could easily create separate clips for picking vs fingers.
 
How do you use a pick in the "normal" way?

I use mine the way I use it; Lt. Bob uses it his way; and everyone that holds one in their hand will be addressing the strings in a slightly different way. Not only that, but people differ on where they pick along the string length, which unmistakably affects the tone - it's not just a "style thing."

For the purposes of building a database, you could probably devise some kind of mechanical device, with a control plectrum, that uses a standard method of exciting the string. Unfortunately, that will probably be almost completely unlike the way anyone actually picks.

Which gets back to the point that Mutt, Lt. Bob, and others are trying to make: If you eliminate enough variables so that your process is repeatable, you will only obtain a small piece of the picture of guitar tone. Will that part of the picture be enough for an evaluation of different guitars? I dunno.
 
One more comment:

You are wasting valuable time arguing. Go and do your thing, and present the experimental protocol and results to us for peer review. :)
 
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Muttley, I think that you're wrong about me not getting it; I think I'm just being overly optimistic about what seemed like a good idea in my head (you don't have to be so negative about everything though...). What you are saying about ingredients vs finished dish makes sense. Cinnamon will still taste like cinnamon no matter what you put it in, but its overall impact will be different. I had considered that a more useful database would be one where you could pick a guitar, pick an amp (and cab if necessary), then get a sound clip based on that. Ideally, you would also be able to adjust the parameters on the amp. That project, although considerably more useful, is one that I really don't see as even practical, especially when you consider mic choice, preamp choice, interface, acoustic space, mic placement, etc. I was really hoping we could come up with an intermediate step that would eliminate some of those insurmountable variables, but it is seeming like there is probably not a way... Bummer. It would be a far more useful way to compare guitars than listening to YouTube clips.

The way I have approached this is far from being negative. What I have attempted to do is save you from a lot of wasted effort and frustration and council you into devoting your efforts and desire to explore and learn in a more positive direction.

You are mistaking plain speaking negativity.;) Seriously I teach this stuff at degree level, well up until recently I did and I also have 30 years in the trade building and repairing guitars and stringed instruments. I would never discourage people from exploring these things, heck I've fallen for the same thing myself in the past and got distracted from the real purpose behind what we do and that is make good and enjoyable music.

I can be very blunt on here with some folks as others will testify so trust me I'm not being dismissive of your intentions just trying to tell it like it is.

If I was to attempt an exercise like your are suggesting I would set my stall out to be a lot less ambitious to start with and do some sound samples of classic combinations, include all the set up details and information regarding guitar, amp signal chain etc. and take it from there. I would also make sure I included all the caveats I could think of. What we are talking about here is essentially subjective and as such even things such as how your brain interprets sound is different to mine. You're on a hiding to nothing.

That leaves us with only one practical way to explore what guitar works for each of us and that is to audition them ourselves or get one built guided by some accepted principles. There really is no substitute.
 
.............

I would also add that attack is an element of style, not really an element of a guitar's tone. It has more to do with dynamics than harmonic content (which isn't to say it doesn't effect both, just one more than the other). Have you ever listened to a clip and thought, "Boy, I really like the attack on that guitar," or, "The dynamics of that guitar sure are great"? I'm guessing you are generally more interested in the harmonic content. And I will admit that fingerpicking WOULD significantly change that, but you could easily create separate clips for picking vs fingers.

No that is not what attack is when you are discussing tone. Attack is the speed with which a sound wave propagates from source when energy is applied. It is the opposite of decay which is the rate at which the energy declines when energy is lost from the soundwave. On a guitar it is associated but not entirely dependent on the way in which the pick or finger strikes the string. The same pick energy and location will result in a different attack for for different string gauges and types. A significant component of attack and decay relates to the rate at which individual partials of the fundamental propagate and decay. It should also not be confused with amplitude to which it is closely linked but not dependant or with sustain which it is also linked with.

Just so we are clear.
 
I wasn't attempting to make a substitute, just a way to rule out some that you could tell you definitely don't like. Which, in the end, doesn't seem as useful to me now as it did when I thought it up. I guess if you're going to try out guitars anyway, you might as well try them all.

I do realize, especially upon more careful thought, that how you pick has some impact on the tone. Not as much as amp choice, perhaps, but I suppose a reasonable amount. When I thought about it as a drummer instead of a guitarist, it made more sense (because the difference, I think, is more pronounced). There is a huge world of difference in how a drum sounds depending on how you hit it. I think guitars are a bit more subtle, but I can see what you guys are saying. Basically, the database, if everything else were to magically work together, could be useful in comparing different brands/models of guitars in some cases, but amongst the same brand or variations of a model within that brand, playing style could affect tone as much as the guitar itself.
 
I do realize, especially upon more careful thought, that how you pick has some impact on the tone. Not as much as amp choice, perhaps, but I suppose a reasonable amount.

Actually, a huge amount:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpJNUGHxC3M

I never gave it much thought either until I watched this Paul Gilbert video, but once he gets into a discussion of pick angle, and furthermore starts varying his pick angle while alternate picking a single note through a distorted amp and even over Youtube you can hear night-and-day differences, I completely came around.

So much of this stuff is just about how the player interacts with the guitar, and what's 'normal' varies hugely from player to player. You can't really control for this, unless you're using a single player for everything.
 
Let me rephrase something I said earlier. Let's say tone is a function of six variables. I just made up that number, so assign them to anything you like. Let's say you want to document guitar acoustics and electronics, and we treat those as variable a & b. c,d,e,f are other independent variables. The dependent variables are frequency response and overtone series.

OK, so we have:

x,y = f(a,b,c,d,e,f)

x and y can be tested independently, so that's not a huge worry. What is a problem is you'll be doing a multiple regression analysis where you don't have data on c,d,e,f. It can be done, but you need a very large data set to tease out the effect of a & b. I used over 100 observations of a single phenomenon in my thesis, it accounted for only 2% of observed variation, but I was able to demonstrate that effect to statistical significance (hooray! :( )

In other words, you can either attempt to control for things like string age, amp input impedance, and pick attack, or you can just collect enough observations where those differences "average out", for lack of a better word.

So if you set out to determine the difference in types of wood used in LP construction, you could have 100 guitarists play the same music on their LPs into a DI. That's probably good enough IF they all had the same pickups. If somebody has P90s, toss them out right away. If you want to study pickups and wood, you'd likely need many more than that (I don't hazard a guess because I don't know the varieties of LP construction that well).

Your problem is you want a comprehensive database of all guitars and all options for those guitars. So you'll have an incredibly difficult time getting enough observations of each model to generate statistically significant data.

Instead, you could scale down to the typical shootout approach: "here's what each of my guitars sound like when I playing them similarly but not exactly, one at a time". Enough such anecdotal observations can be useful, but it does require every listener to listen to all of them. That's the disadvantage of the anecdote (and the advantage of the expert luthier/player/whatever).


PS the effect of pick angle, type, placement of pick relative to neck/bridge on tone is VERY large. Think about classical guitarists (who don't use picks!) and how they generate a range of tones arguably larger than a typical electric guitar's difference in neck/bridge pickup response. mutts will be quick to tell you that tonal difference is a measureable change in the instrument's overtone series, which is what you are also trying to study with different types of guitar construction. And when you think about it, the picking action has a much larger effect. Which is brighter, a LP picked right at the bridge, or a Tele at the 12th fret?
 
footnote on timber. Due to it's unique nature and anisotropic composition no two pieces of timber can ever be the same. You need to exclude the timber from any conclusions for this reason since only the known broad classifications regarding tone can be relied upon.
 
Yeah, so.... scratch that project off my list then. Ha.

Boy, especially after watching that video I can see what you're talking about. I had noticed that sort of thing before, but I guess I hadn't really considered it that way. I remember a while back trying to get the palm mute tone that Tom Delonge uses on the blink albums and noticing that it seemed like he hit it more with the side of the pick like in the video. I may need to find some more videos like that. I sure wish I could play like him...
 
I'm confused...you want us to record our 'natural' guitar sounds by eschewing an amp in favour of an interface... in my case, a pre-amp, A/D converter and, by way of output...an amplifier - how are these different?
 
You are completely misunderstanding. I'm not trying to define tone. I don't WANT to define tone. I am trying to give people a tool to compare tones so they can make an informed decision about the tone they want. I'm trying to give people the online equivalent of going to the store and plugging in a bunch of different guitars to see what they sound like, which sounds like exactly what you are so adamant about continuing to do.

Read the "reason for editing" for why I deleted the post. I don't approach the issue of tone the way you are discussing, and for that reason I won't be contributing any more to the thread. Mark it up as another win for the good guys.

As Buddy Holly put it, "Rave on!"
 
Of course, a player looking to buy new gear could go to a guitar store and try out a plethora of guitars through a plethora of amps in about the same time as they could sit and listen to a shitload of audio files hosted on a site. Hell, they would even be able to tweak the amps and guitars, and would be able to tell how a guitar plays. They would be getting information perfectly relevant to his/her picking style.

Call me old fashioned, but since when has this method of finding gear become obsolete?
 
oh i loooove zombie eater by faith no more, sorry just had to say that. cool experiment i am trying to listen to them all now.
 
You'd be wrong.

You saw Lt. Bob's description of how he picks - with the back side of a hard pick. He's picking with the rounded side of the pick so there's not much attack.

Now take me. I use a hard pick with a pointy end (Dunlop Jazz III) and when soloing I expose just the tip and use lots of pick angle and attack. I get pinch harmonics almost by accident all over the fretboard if I hold it just right.
and it might surprise you but I have absolutely no problem getting pinch harmonics anywhere I want them but, as far as I can tell, I do it differently that others do because of the uncommon way I hold my pick.
I have to ..... well, hmmmm .... I can't actually describe it ........ but I can do it.
That's sorta strange.
And I actually make several open chords different than almost anyone else.
Too much acid in college I suppose.
:)
 
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