What is your ‘sound’?

Rocker · October 9

Might be in the wrong section but when you plug in your guitar into your amp, what sound makes you smile? It is clean, not too much top and a little breakup. Early Eagles or Luther Perkins. On bass it is a traditional 50s, 60s or 70s thump. Most easily got from a Fender Precision. Which is why I have one.

Twinfan · October 9

For me, it's a gainy Marshall and a guitar with humbuckers. Bridge pickup, volume on full. Amp is at gig volume. Big boy open G chord (with the added b-string D).

Think AC/DC live.

ICBM · October 9

Gain, bass and treble on max, mid on zero, master volume on just enough not to piss off anyone in the house.

OK, I'm joking - gain not on max, treble not quite on max

.

terada · October 9

Either clean and warm through a fender black/silverface.

Or

EL34 overdrive through an orange. Either a strat or a les Paul get me there.

designerseye88 · October 9

For me its either Jimmy Page or SRV

DannyP · October 9

I suppose stonesy break-up with plenty of guitar character coming through.

Phil_aka_Pip · October 9

The Beano Bluesbreakers sound, or the sustained and creamy Andy Latimer sound, or the clean but just on the edge of breakup jazzy/bluesy sound, or whatever else is floating my boat at the time ...

pintspiller · October 9

I like a crunchy rhythm sound on guitar. On bass it's much the same to be fair. EQ flat.

gringopig · October 9

Fender Twin reverb clean or Victory V40 Deluxe both with a wee bit of reverb. I like to hear the guitar and concentrate on playing. I might try pedals but end up fussing and give up.

prlgmnr · October 9

I've got a few sort of "go to" sounds:

dead clean no breakup but fat, with delay/verb/maybe chorus for sort of fusioney chords,

thick juicy lead with not a lot of hair and a stereo delay of some sort (I like to stack multiple overdrives into a high headroom clean amp for this, but recently I've found a Buffalo TDX sort of handles this on its own),

super dry high gain where a palm muted E5 blasts the windows out,

phase 90->ep preamp->echo->cranked JCM 800

But I really can't play mid gain "crunch" kind of sounds, it always feels to me like it's neither nowt nor summat as my old grandad used to say. Not about guitar tones, I hasten to add.

Lestratcaster · October 9

Ballsy modern high gain with lots of low end thump. Drop tuned power chords have that chug you want.

ChuckManual · October 9

I'm on a seeming endless quest to get six sounds from one guitar;

1) Robben Ford - bridge
2) Nile Rodgers - bridge and middle
3) Generic Strat middle p/up tone (I like it, OK... Don't hate)
4) Peter Green - bridge and neck
5) BB King - bridge and neck
6) Grant Green - neck

I haven't quite nailed the right guitar / pickup combination yet - but I'm getting there, I'm getting there...

p90fool · October 9

Anything expressive, with potential for light and shade.
This is my go to sound mainly;

digitalscream · October 9

Clean - nope.

Rhythm - a bit bass-heavy, quite a bit of gain (but not as much as most metallers will go for - I like clarity), mids about mid, enough treble and presence to let the gain shine through.

Lead - 520ms-ish delay, loads of gain almost to the point of feeding back, but smooth and not piercing.

The Soldano-ish sound is what I go for, hence the Jet City amps with the bright caps removed. Can't get away from it, that's just my tone and always will be.

JezWynd · October 9

Guitar is clean with a touch of reverb and slow tremolo or two stage phaser with a cranked compressor to give a plucky sounding attack.
Bass is clean, bass heavy with a touch of hi band flange and enough gain to get some valve fuzz going when I attack the strings hard.

fastonebaz · October 9

Vai and Justin Derrico

Overdrive compressed chorus delay reverb. Thick juicy wide lead tones.

skippy76 · October 9

My 56 Les Paul Special P90s pushing a broken up tweed or the 61 Strat through a silver face (neck pickup)

MattFGBI · October 9

Somewhere between modern Alice in Chains and End of Heartache era Killswitch Engage.

For clean it's a smooth but chimey sound with a touch of analogue delay.

Definitely humbuckers.

thecolourbox · October 9

I think the closest I've ever got to a sound I'd be happy to use add my own in a parallel universe where I'm a rock star with a signature sound, was in fact with a Vox Lil Night Train. Gain just below noon, is before the bigger gain cuts in, but boosted, telecaster guitar on bridge pickup. Into the crap 1x10 matching cab. It sounded scratchy, trebly, almost like it was direct without a proper cab sound as such. Brilliant for Velvet Underground rhythm guitar.

I don't think the bigger Night Train models sounded quite the same as the Lil Night Train (though that's based only on YouTube, would be happy to be proven wrong!!), it's such a shame it doesn't feature a decent line out without dummy loading it to use with a bigger power amp or to add reverb etc etc

Stevepage · October 9

Some where between that huge Dino Cazares tone on Demanufacture and John Petrucci for hi gain rhythm tones.

Then some where between Petrucci (again) and Zakk Wylde for lead tones.

I don't try to sound like them but I feel I'm some what in that ball park.

I very rarely use clean tones but I always remember loving a Strat through a big Fender amp for that huge Fender 'thud'

tone1 · October 9

Somewhere between cats fighting after midnight and nails down a blackboard

Edit.... But aiming for SRV/Mayer Clean to Zep/AC/DC Dirty

DrJazzTap · October 9

Ideally something that sounds as close to a keytar as possible.

fendergibson · October 9

Atm, Chris Bucks sound is pretty spot on, plenty of room for clean/mush by using the vol knob on the geetar.

Sporky · October 9

Kazoo into trombone.

p90fool · October 9

Let's hear them then, descriptions are too vague!

rico · October 9

Les Paul into a cooking Matamp with a fuzz as a slight boost in front. Throaty, ballsy and it never fails to inspire me. It’s definitely my sound and relatively unique.

fendergibson · October 9

p90fool said:

Let's hear them then, descriptions are too vague!

Here’s the sound I’m thinking of, admittedly with a famous guitar, but he sounds the same with everything he plays.

https://youtu.be/ho56osrcKdc

TTBZ · October 9

Dont really do cleans and rarely use neck pickups. I play heavy bluesy/stoner rock with a lot of single string riffs like Clutch. A Gibson with bridge humbucker (or a P90) into a loud Marshall is my happy place. Currently a Mini Jubilee. I tend to go for a modded Marshall kinda tone ala Jerry Cantrell and seem to like lots of mids and decent amount of thickness but with enough treble to stop it being dark and congested. Leads are just the same but louder and more mid/high - might add a delay if I'm feeling fancy or boost with a TS if I want more gain and harmonics. Cleans are just whatever I get by rolling off the guitar volume. Like the idea of fuzz but I also like a lot of percussive attack/definition in my tone which doesn't go so well with fuzz.

Philly_Q · October 9

I hardly ever actually plug in, but...

My favourite sound - which would probably be completely useless in any practical situation - is neck humbucker, lots of distortion, guitar's tone control on zero so it really sings with very little "attack" when the strings are picked.

Bridge pickup would be completely different, distorted but tight and crunchy, much brighter but not painfully so.

For cleans I prefer single-coil sounds, but "nice" sounding, not too bright or thin. Again I tend to turn the tone control down a bit. I like Tele neck pickups...