How do you set your tone?

[Eagle]

I don't set my tone with the knob. It's in the fingers.

So you can switch between a Marshall and Fender all in the fingers
Your potential tone is 100% your gear but your finger are responsible 100% for realising it .

 

[paisleywookiee]

So you can switch between a Marshall and Fender all in the fingers

Not sure what you’re getting at. Barring a modeler, you can’t easily do that with much.

 

[Eagle]

Not sure what you’re getting at. Barring a modeler, you can’t easily do that with much.

I clarified since you answered. Fingers can only get the most out or the gear you are using.

 

[Mooselake]

Usually I'll start with the guitar volume on about 7, tone all the way up, and neck pickup, as I'm most drawn towards strat style guitars and slightly warm tones. Amps I usually start with tone controls at noon, master when available pretty low, usually 1-3, and the gain up just high enough that I get some breakup if I dig in. Tweak from there. I don't cycle through new guitars and amps very often, so now I sort of know where to start with all my available guitar/amp pairings for whatever I'm shooting for. It would probably be a good exercise to go back through the process as if everything were new to me to ensure habit isn't giving me suboptimal results.

That said, most of my playing is through modelers, and for those I just start at the defaults and adjust to taste/mood, and often start with much higher master volumes because I can control the SPL hitting my ears independently.

 

[Mooselake]

So you can switch between a Marshall and Fender all in the fingers
Your potential tone is 100% your gear but your finger are responsible 100% for realising it .

I like to use the word 'timbre' to describe the gear's contribution to the overall sound because of the "tone is in the fingers" way we guitarists like to think. I actually like to use 'articulation' for the player's contribution, then say tone = timbre+articulation. Likely that will stir objections but I believe it's a both/and rather than either/or when it comes to dividing tone between player and gear.

 

[Bruce]

So you can switch between a Marshall and Fender all in the fingers
Your potential tone is 100% your gear but your finger are responsible 100% for realising it .

How do you switch between the Marshall and the Fender models, with your feet? How do you adjust Bass and Treble?

Tone is 100% in the fingers.

 

[Fireproof]

 

[Stone]

 

[Eagle]

How do you switch between the Marshall and the Fender models, with your feet? How do you adjust Bass and Treble?

Tone is 100% in the fingers.

And you seem to 100% miss understanding what I said. Your gear is your potential tone . Your fingers need the ability to access it.

 

[Bruce]

And you seem to 100% miss understanding what I said. Your gear is your potential tone . Your fingers need the ability to access it.

Then how come only I sound like me thru my gear and I still sound like me thru any other gear?

It couldn’t possibly be:
Articulation
Style
Technique or
Approach.

It’s the TONEZ, man. The TONEZ


TONEZZZZZZZZZZZ

Im so damn good and unique I roll off 15dB at 5k just by pick and finger position and actively think about this when I’m doing it all night instead of simply reaching for the TONE knob.

 

[Bruce]

Look at those beautiful naughty nuggets of tone there.

 

[Bruce]

I like to use the word 'timbre' to describe the gear's contribution to the overall sound because of the "tone is in the fingers" way we guitarists like to think. I actually like to use 'articulation' for the player's contribution, then say tone = timbre+articulation. Likely that will stir objections but I believe it's a both/and rather than either/or when it comes to dividing tone between player and gear.

I like to think I have a toilet made of solid gold and I’m surrounded by 22 year old supermodels. does that actually make it so?? I think Im missing out here.

 

[Eagle]

Then how come only I sound like me thru my gear and I still sound like me thru any other gear?

It couldn’t possibly be:
Articulation
Style
Technique or
Approach.

It’s the TONEZ, man. The TONEZ


TONEZZZZZZZZZZZ

Im so damn good and unique I roll off 15dB at 5k just by pick and finger position and actively think about this when I’m doing it all night instead of simply reaching for the TONE knob.

Im not disagreeing but you can’t realise a tone that your GEAR can’t produce. IT holds the boundary but you impose your personality on it. If you play a strat and a LP it’s definitely different but also definitely you. Do you see what I mean?

 

[Mooselake]

I like to think I have a toilet made of solid gold and I’m surrounded by 22 year old supermodels. does that actually make it so?? I think Im missing out here.

How so? Unless one posits that every imaginable guitar/amp/effect combo sounds identical (which would make a forum like this pointless) then we have no choice but to assign something in the final musical tone to the gear. And as you point out, there's certainly an aspect of the players persona that comes through regardless. I like to use the word articulation as an umbrella for the player contribution because I don't know a better one, and because for me I've found it's ~80% rooted in my picking hand. Timbre is the quality of a sound, typically you'd think of it as why a given note, say C3, sounds different on a piano than it does on a guitar. The difference is stark enough that there's really no way to fail to distinguish the instruments. It's more subtle, but the same principal can be applied to the various combinations of guitars/amps/effects out there. Each variation in the gear changes the resulting sound's quality (clean, overdriven, modulated, spectrum of overtones, etc.).

If you want to redefine 'tone' to mean exclusively the performance idiosyncrasies that distinguish one player from another, that's certainly your prerogative. I prefer to stick closer to the traditional musical definition of tone which includes both the characteristics of the object(s) that produce the sound as well as how the human player interacts with the object(s) to craft music.

 

[Bruce]

How so? Unless one posits that every imaginable guitar/amp/effect combo sounds identical (which would make a forum like this pointless) then we have no choice but to assign something in the final musical tone to the gear. And as you point out, there's certainly an aspect of the players persona that comes through regardless. I like to use the word articulation as an umbrella for the player contribution because I don't know a better one, and because for me I've found it's ~80% rooted in my picking hand. Timbre is the quality of a sound, typically you'd think of it as why a given note, say C3, sounds different on a piano than it does on a guitar. The difference is stark enough that there's really no way to fail to distinguish the instruments. It's more subtle, but the same principal can be applied to the various combinations of guitars/amps/effects out there. Each variation in the gear changes the resulting sound's quality (clean, overdriven, modulated, spectrum of overtones, etc.).

If you want to redefine 'tone' to mean exclusively the performance idiosyncrasies that distinguish one player from another, that's certainly your prerogative. I prefer to stick closer to the traditional musical definition of tone which includes both the characteristics of the object(s) that produce the sound as well as how the human player interacts with the object(s) to craft music.

I want tone to mean what it means, not the magical unicorn like quality guitarists impart on the word in order to feel special.

 

[Mooselake]

I want tone to mean what it means, not the magical unicorn like quality guitarists impart on the word in order to feel special.

Ah, okay. Very hard for me to discern that from the way you responded to me above. Got it now.

 

[Bruce]

Ah, okay. Very hard for me to discern that from the way you responded to me above. Got it now.

Sarcasm doesn’t translate on forums.


IN MY OPINION.

 

[Gearzilla]

I want tone to mean what it means

Might help you to learn the definition first.

 

[Bruce]

Might help you to learn the definition first.

I know. Ive been dialing it in wrong for all these decades. Who knew all I had to do is wiggle these magic meat mittens and woola!!!! Manufacturers been putting TONE KNOBS on my amps and guitars all these years and its been in the hands all along.

 

[jay mitchell]

Before I start screwing around with amp/modeler/guitar controls, I will first play a guitar that is new to me unamplified. I pay close attention to the response of the strings and body to pick (or finger) attack, the overtone content of the sustaining notes, and the characteristics of the decay. I might decide to change string gauge, action height, or string spacing at the nut, although the latter isn't something I would tend to do right away.

Once I am familiar with a guitar's unamplified sound, I'll then play it through a sonically neutral rig consisting of one of my modelers with a pass-through preset (no amp, cab, reverb, etc.) and one of my monitors. I'll audition every pickup selection as well as the effect on tone of the volume and tone controls on the guitar. As I'm going through this process, I'll set pickup and polepiece heights to get the most even response from each string.

I haven't bought a new amp in more than a decade now, and I'm intimately familiar with the behaviors of the amps I own and the amp models I use. That means I know in advance the ballpark ranges for their control settings as opposed to having to start from scratch. My evaluation process for an unfamiliar amp can be time-consuming and varies depending on the amp's controls, its sonic signature, and my intended use. I will always acquire a schematic diagram and potentially make circuit modifications to adapt the amp's sound to what I'm going for.