Getting Good Tone Without Selling A Kidney

[GodBlessTexas]

OK, so I was reading the latest issue of Guitar World and saw the interview with Eric Johnson. In the interview, he's asked how to get good tone, and he says the key is to start with good transparent amplification, and build upon that with effects. Sounds simple, right? But, I've been playing guitar for 17 years now, and over that whole time I've never really been too happy with my tone. I've gone through a couple of amps in that time, mostly cheaper and mid-range solid state models, but all left me cold and unhappy. I sold my last amp off a few years ago, and only had an acoustic until last year when I decided to buy another electric. I'm now taking tone seriously, and the last part of that equation is amplification.

Any advice on good amplification for around $400-500? Tube or solid state is fine, but what I'm really looking for is transparency. I could spend more, and might for compelling reasons, but I'm just a hobbyist. I've got money, but I've also got other things (wife and four kids) to think about before buying high dollar toys for myself.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

[thegarehanman]

I paid $400 USD for a carvin tubemaster head on ebay. I'm using a 1975 randal half cab with electrovoice speakers. Now the distortion channel is crap; it's just freaking abismal. But the clean channel....wow. Everyone tells me it's one of the cleanest, richest clean channels they've ever heard. Of course you need distortion, so I sunk another $140 USD into a "Dr. Jeckyl & Mr. Hyde" Liquid Sound distortion/overdrive pedal. The tubemaster comes in combos and they always have a few tubemaster models on ebay. It's switchable from 100w to 50w so you can get full saturation at lower volumes. It's got presence controls for each channel. Well, that's enough, I could go on for quite a while. I firmly believe that having a great sound relies on having an amp and guitar that are capable of crystal clarity, and this does it for me.

[Mickguard]

.

[GregP]

I don't care what anybody says, Eric Johnson's a fool if that's his recipe for tone. As **** as he is about tone, I think his sucks. Do NOT take any of his advice if you want good tone.

The simplest recipe: plug your guitar into an amp that DOES have some colour to it and forget about a chain of effects, each of which will progressively rob you of tone. the amp needn't be transparent. The reason amps like the AC30 or the Fender Twin are classics is because they are NOT transparent, and sound great when a guitar drives them a bit.

Eric Johnson... what a knob.

Now, if only I could afford a twin or an AC30, I'd be able to have some good tone, too.

Greg

[Supernova9]

OK, so I was reading the latest issue of Guitar World and saw the interview with Eric Johnson.  In the interview, he's asked how to get good tone, and he says the key is to start with good transparent amplification, and build upon that with effects.  Sounds simple, right?  But, I've been playing guitar for 17 years now, and over that whole time I've never really been too happy with my tone.  I've gone through a couple of amps in that time, mostly cheaper and mid-range solid state models, but all left me cold and unhappy.  I sold my last amp off a few years ago, and only had an acoustic until last year when I decided to buy another electric.  I'm now taking tone seriously, and the last part of that equation is amplification.

Any advice on good amplification for around $400-500?  Tube or solid state is fine, but what I'm really looking for is transparency.  I could spend more, and might for compelling reasons, but I'm just a hobbyist.  I've got money, but I've also got other things (wife and four kids) to think about before buying high dollar toys for myself.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

←

The best resource I've seen for these sorta questions would be the Harmony-Central reviews - www.harmony-central.com

To be honest, I'm not sure about transparency, but an amp I've really really liked that was around that price range was the Peavey Classic 30.

[Mickguard]

.

[Daniel Sorbera]

Edited July 21, 2005 by Godin SD

[jer7440]

The funny thing is, is that we guitarists are the only ones who really care about our tone! The average person in the audience wouldn't know good tone if it came up and bit them in the rear.

That being said I think alot has to do with how good you play, technique and such. I play with a couple of guys at my church who are just incredible players. For reasons too numerous to go into we have to play direct into the board. One guy uses a Boss gt-3 and the other guy uses a sans amp something or another with some stomp boxes. They both sound amazing in the house. We cover a wide range of music from heavier stuff like POD to jazz, and they know how to make it all sound great.

[marksound]

Another thing to remember is the sound you get in your rehearsal room, garage, bedroom, whatever, is most likely not the same tone you'll hear in a live setting. That is, unless you always run your amp through the PA under your bed for the sound man in your closet.

[Mickguard]

.

[Guest gsr-guitars]

Another thing to remember is the sound you get in your rehearsal room, garage, bedroom, whatever, is most likely not the same tone you'll hear in a live setting. That is, unless you always run your amp through the PA under your bed for the sound man in your closet.

←

Yup, I'll second that. You go from rehearsal to a large room packed with people. S'gonna sound different.

My old guitar teacher used to have a thing about that... bands who sounded great in the rehearsal room but not live. Why? They were thrashing out speed metal that - when live - just became muddy and blurred into one.

The moral there... there are certain things you can only play in certain environments. Plenty of bands change tunings, change key, change how they play when live as compared to the studio recording.

Back on topic... there's a book called "Getting Great Guitar Sounds" by Michael Ross. Not a bad read at all...

Cheers,

Gary

[lovekraft]

First of all, transparency is the last thing you're looking for - if it was, we'd all be playing Polytones, and this discussion would be pointless. A transparent amp sounds like you plugged your guitar directly into the board, bland and insipid. I'm sure you have a tonal range in your head, and it would be helpful to know what it is, but for a small, cheap gig rig, I've always been partial to the Peavey Classic 30 and your favorite distortion/fuzz/overdrive pedal - my current favorites include the HAO Rust Driver, several of the Tubescreamer clones ( Fulldrive, Sparkle Drive, etc.), and a couple of DIY boxes (BSIAB2, ROG Tubereamer and Thunderchief, Tim Escobedo's Cinnabar, etc.), but that's going to depend on what (and how) you play. The C30 has a decent clean (not quite Fender, but nice enough), a nice Voxish gentle overdrive, it works and plays well with most pedals, and above all, it's plenty loud when cranked. That basic setup should handle everything from country and light jazz to classic rock and hair metal. For metal gigging, I'd use a MIDI preamp and a rackmount power amp. But that's just me...

[sepultura999]

Alright, here is how I got my tone. Keep in mind this is before I knew anything about guitars, amps, woods, and all that.

Step 1: The guitar and a crappy practise amp

I bought from sears 5 guitars they offered, 3 of them yamaha, 2 of them some crappy brand called nova (particle board if not chip). I also bought along with it their crappy 30 watt practice amp. The great thing about sears is you can buy stuff, return it a month later and they don't care. So if anyone needs furniture, a tv, or appliances temporairly, go for it

I tried each guitar in clean and overdrive. I tried one, I then tried another, compared the two through a process of elimination.

Nova 1 - strat style = terrible because the frets aren't filed down properly

Yamaha Pacifica = Great, smooth playability, sounds really clear to my ear.

Winner = Yamaha Pacifica. Nova 1 goes back to the store.

Nova 2 - The neck (I think it was mahogany) doesn't have a finish on it. I can feel sawdust on my hand.

Yamaha EG112 - Sounds okay, nothing like the Yamaha, but is way better than Nova 2.

Winner = Yamaha EG112.

Yamaha RGX121S - Thick sounding, great smooth playability, frets are fine, neck is tight in the pocket, sounds great.

You get the idea. Tournament style, even though I only had 5. In the end, I spent about an hour deciding on the the Pacifica or the RGX121S, and I made my choice. There is only one guitar I would currently pick over my Yamaha RGX121S, and that's an Epiphone Goth. I have tried PRS, Epiphones, Ibanez and I am just not pleased with them. Maybe it's the radius, maybe it's the really crappy twang it gives me when strumming chords when they have humbuckers, I don't know, but I'm happy with it. There was actually 2 other guitars I almost considered buying, a Schecter 006, and a Dean Hardtail Select.

Step 2: Buying the new amp

Next thing in the list is the amp. After a while I got tired of the nova amp. The nova amp sucks, and I wanted a new amp. This is months later. So I take my guitar to the store, and I try amp after amp. I asked myself before I wanted an amp what I wanted. I said, "Well, they have pedals for metal which you can change the sound by the EQ on it, and other features if it has it. So, I will pick an amp that has the best clean, especially since a lot of music has a lot of clean involved", then I asked myself, tube or solid state. My current amp is solid state and it sounds way too thin. I tried a few solid state amps and I hated them for clean. I tried a few tube amps and I was hooked. I tried maybe 4-5 different amps (not that many I know, but when you cancel out solid state amps, and you're on a budget, it also cancells out the expensive tube amps like mesa boogie). So I bought the best sounding clean amp to my ears, the fender 4x10 hot rod deville. Now 60 watts of tube power a lot of people say is too much, however for 750 bucks Canadian used with new tubes, I am happy, since it's cheaper than the deluxe being brand new.

Step 3: Choosing the distortion pedal that has the sound I want

When I bought my pedal, I was currently in the process of looking for the fender amp I want, be either the deville, deluxe 2x10 or deluxe 4x10. I was hooked alread. So now I have the guitar, and have the amp in mind. WOO. Now the distortion. I tried DS-1, and some distortion/overdrive boss pedal through my friend, with my crappy practise amp.

DS-1 = don't like it, but when everything is turned up all the way, you get some nice nintendo sounds on a crappy practise amp lol.

Boss distortion/overdrive (was my friends) = don't like it. I don't want overdrive, and the distortion/fuzz part or whatever it is, I don't like.

I went to the local music store, they were having clearence sales. I asked myself, what do I want in my distortion. I wanted really heavy, thick, distortion.

They had only 2 distortions in their store at the time, the boss metal zone, and the digitech metal master. I tried both of them, I had them hooked up together with the fender deville so I could turn one off, and turn the other one on, that way the sound is still fresh in my mind. After playing on different settings for like 30 minutes, being told to turn it down 3 times by the staff because they couldn't hear on the phone, I decided what I wanted. I wanted the digitech metal master because

1. It was easier to use in my opinion.

2. I think boss pedals are too thin.

3. It covered all the bases I wanted it to.

So I bought the pedal. So now I have my guitar, my amp in the process of being sought and bought, and my pedal. Excellent. I later buy the amp.

So now what do I need to make my "tone" sound better.

1. I need to learn more guitar, and practice, practice, practice! Didn't EVH say that tone lies in the fingers? He's right. Try playing differently. I would strum sometimes too hard, and I wouldn't let me fingers flow, but I learned from that, and now not only do I feel like a better player, but my playing doesn't sound like it's missing notes, unless I actually screw up lol.

2. The only piece of gear I may get to enhance my sound is an EQ.

As you can see, the approach I took was extremly simple, simply because I didn't know anything about guitars. Keep It Simple. This is why when I listen to pickup samples online like dimarzio and duncan, I can't tell a difference between some models. Some of the samples of pickups they have are played too fast and I can't hear a difference. At least on EMGs site I can, it's a bit slowed down, and there is a possibility that they are using better equipment. And when I try new guitars, amps and effects, I play chords, be it open or power. If I just soloed for an hour, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in highs, mids, and lows and sustain compared to other pickups. When I was choosing everything, I played powerchords and open chords and chose and eliminated guitars, amps and pedals simply using my senses; hearing and tactile touch.

It worked and still works for me, and you can give me any guitar to try, name it, I will try it if the store here offers it. Heck, Ed Roman can bring his pearlcasters, centurions and all that and I will try it, and even if I do buy it because it offers something that my Yamaha doesn't, I am still going to keep the Yamaha, because it was my first guitar that I bought which brings strong centimental value to me, but it still offers me a sound that I love.

-Jamie

Edited July 19, 2005 by sepultura999