Why is it

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jpw23

jpw23

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that no matter what guitar I play.....they all sound alike.....others can play and I can tell what brand of guitar they are holding just by the sound,now when I get my hands on one, whether its a gibson, ibanez, fender...does not matter....they all sound the same......what the hell is that?
 
Is this through the same or different amplifiers?

My brother owns 16 guitars, ranging from Rickenbacker 12 strings to Gibson Les Pauls, Fender strats, Tele's, and on and on...

and he plays every last one through a Fender Blues Deluxe that for whatever reason makes them all sound EXACTLY THE SAME.

And his tone isn't that good - its shrill and overbearing (just imagine what a Ric sounds like through that :D)

Out of all of those, I think the Ric is the only one I can actually hear a different with, and that's mainly due to the fact that its a 12 string.
 
its the same though different amps......they all sound like lp's....not that its bad.......just the same!:confused:
 
Its all about feel...and prefrence..however my tele knockoff sounds quite a bit diff from my epi LP
 
i heard the differences in the guitars, but i have no idea what guitars are used. one is pretty deep and dark, the next is thin and bright, and next is thicker and less bright, but brighter and thinner than the first one. that's as much as i can figure out.
 
Well your right, they all sound exactly the same, washed in reverb and delay. Did you use the same amp for all three guitars? Did you make any any amp EQ adjustments? I wonder if you're adjusting the amp to get the sound you think you want, rather than letting amp make the guitar sound good.

I'd say it's more about the amp and individual playing techniques that any particular guitar. I mean you can't make a Deluxe reverb sound like a Mesa Mark II, or a Vox AC30 sound like a Trainwreck.

I think I'd look at what others have done to get a particular sound and emulate that. We all know what SRV did to get that sound, and how Angus gets his sound. It's a combination of the guitar and amp.
 
mikemorgan said:
Well your right, they all sound exactly the same, washed in reverb and delay. Did you use the same amp for all three guitars? Did you make any any amp EQ adjustments? I wonder if you're adjusting the amp to get the sound you think you want, rather than letting amp make the guitar sound good.

I'd say it's more about the amp and individual playing techniques that any particular guitar. I mean you can't make a Deluxe reverb sound like a Mesa Mark II, or a Vox AC30 sound like a Trainwreck.

I think I'd look at what others have done to get a particular sound and emulate that. We all know what SRV did to get that sound, and how Angus gets his sound. It's a combination of the guitar and amp.
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I used 2 different amps, different eq settings....reverb and delay were what I wanted for the song......I'll put it this way, I could go to your house and pick up your guitar and it would sound like mine......have done this with several guitars(not my own) I don't think its a bad sound...its just that, if I'm playing a strat, I'd like for it to sound like a strat:rolleyes:
 
I'm sorry, what I said didn't come out quite right. It's that every guitar sounds like it has the same spatial character because of the effects used. I know what you're saying because every guitar I pick up takes on my "sound" because that's how I play it. In fact if I can't make a particular guitar sound like me, I won't play it for long. I've never been a Gibson man, I just can't make one sound "right". I took my new Epi Les Paul to a gig and my bass Player was floored. He kept telling me how good that guitar sounded. I thought it sounded like crap and put it down after 5 or 6 songs. I also rediscovered p90's on a PRS I bought and hated it for a while, but you couldn't mistake it for my Strat, even though it's still single coil. I do find I have to fool my ears and change my playing style on different guitars. I don't play a Strat the same way I play my Tele, it just doesn't feel or sound right. It's really an ethereal thing. I mean if B.B. King grabbed a Gretsch for his next gig, would he automatically have Brian Setzer tone, or would it sound like some ever so slightly different version of Lucille?
 
mikemorgan said:
I'm sorry, what I said didn't come out quite right. It's that every guitar sounds like it has the same spatial character because of the effects used. I know what you're saying because every guitar I pick up takes on my "sound" because that's how I play it. In fact if I can't make a particular guitar sound like me, I won't play it for long. I've never been a Gibson man, I just can't make one sound "right". I took my new Epi Les Paul to a gig and my bass Player was floored. He kept telling me how good that guitar sounded. I thought it sounded like crap and put it down after 5 or 6 songs. I also rediscovered p90's on a PRS I bought and hated it for a while, but you couldn't mistake it for my Strat, even though it's still single coil. I do find I have to fool my ears and change my playing style on different guitars. I don't play a Strat the same way I play my Tele, it just doesn't feel or sound right. It's really an ethereal thing. I mean if B.B. King grabbed a Gretsch for his next gig, would he automatically have Brian Setzer tone, or would it sound like some ever so slightly different version of Lucille?
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No need to say you're sorry....I understand what you are talking about. I do however envy those that can pick up a strat, lp or whatever and make it sound like a strat, lp or whatever.....must be in the hands somewhere:D
 
BTW....the electric guitars used on that song were a strat, lp and an ibanez.....you would have also heard a regal resonator in the along with an old epi(1976) flatop.
 
jpw23 said:
No need to say you're sorry....I understand what you are talking about. I do however envy those that can pick up a strat, lp or whatever and make it sound like a strat, lp or whatever.....must be in the hands somewhere:D
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Well, I have a pretty horrible technique (self-taught, that's what you get ;) ) and the type and shape of the fretboard has a big impact on the way I play. I get a much darker sound from my LP than I can ever get out of any Strat, no matter how hard I try. Also, on a strat, my solos tend to be a lot rougher... no idea why, but on a LP it all just sounds much smoother. And this is all through the same amp. So needless to say, i don't understand your problem, but it might be that your technique is just a lot better than mine :)
 
I find that all my guitars have very distinguishable, characteristic sounds. Even my real Strat and Strat clone, while both sounding like Strats, have unique sounds. The Telecaster couldn't be mistaken for anything but. The old Harmony Stratotone, with its sweet DeArmond pickup, is unique sounding. The dual-pickup Melody Maker sounds like nothing I've ever heard before.

The Les Pauls sound like none of the above, particularly in the way they push a tube amp, and their tone and sustain sets them apart.

All that having been said, with high gain and lots of effects, I think most guitars tend to lose their individuality.
 
Well, it's a cliche, but a certain amount of tone IS in your hands - where your picking hand falls, whether you fret with just your fingertips or more of the fleshy part of your fingers, little things like that. If everything sounds like a LP to you, I'm guessing you pick a bit closer to the neck than is normal, and tend to err on the side of fretting with the softer, fleshier part of your fingertips? That'd certainly darken your "tone" a little bit...

For kicks once, I recorded a quick backing of the last "Comfortably Numb" solo, mic'd up my amp... ...and then grabbed a new Schecter C7 Hellraiser I'd just picked up that the two guitar forums I post to by and large didn't know I had. Everyone knew I owned an Universe and a Stratocaster, and I posted the clip without much in the way of explanation. Now, a Hellraiser is a 26.5" scale set neck fixed bridge guitar with a set of EMG 707's, and my strat's a maple neck trem-equipped alder guitar with gold lace sensors, so we're talking night-and-day different. And most of the comments I got were "man, you've got me really gassing for a Stratocaster now." Sure, EMG's are actually voiced a little more like singlecoils than most people would expect, but come on...

But yeah, while I sound like me no matter what I play, if I put down my strat and pick up my Universe, it DOES sound a bit different... Weird that you hear no difference.
 
None of my guitars sound alike, and my total collection is currently at 17. My Squier Fat Telecaster has a rosewood fingerboard, while my Fender Telecaster has a maple fingerboard, and I can tell the difference between the two. There are tones from my Epiphone Les Paul Jr. 90 that I cannot replicate with my Gibson Les Paul Faded Double Cut (lead position). Several of my guitars do have similar enough tones that I could use them interchangeably, but I can still tell the difference otherwise. I once tried out a Fender Standard Telecaster versus a Fender Highway One Telecaster, and although I didn't plug either into an amp, I could hear the difference between the two.

Matt
 
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