Is tone in your hands or equipments?

thegummy

John_A said:

timmypix said:

So another account that doesn't contribute to the forum apart from when they've got a YouTube video to promote?

Don't be so rude to people.  

The video is very relevant.  If EVH posted a 'check out my new album' post would you have a go at him?  The more people that contribute guitar related stuff the better IMO, and if anyone that posts is made to feel welcome they might just stay and contribute a bit more instead of thinking 'this place is full of dicks' and moving on.

@arayadis  welcome to the forum, there are some decent people around here

 if you look at the date he joined and the first time he started a thread to promote his YouTube channel you'll see it's a bit late to welcome him to the forum

He clearly didn't just move on though, he did come back several times but only when he had more to advertise

thegummy

merciful-evans said:

The question is naïve. Fingers vs equipment? It’s a false premise to start with.

‘Tone’ has several definitions. None of them are applicable to the expression ‘tone is in the fingers’. Some say ‘tone’ when they mean timbre or sound.

 

Yes I can recognise some guitarists by ear, but it has more to do with phrasing or pick style. Neither of which are encompassed by the term ‘tone’.

 

For me, ‘tone is in the fingers’ explains nothing. It’s a cop out term that some find attractive. Maybe because it sounds enigmatic?  It can justify nice playing and excuse poor playing. It can mean exactly what you want it to mean precisely because it’s vague and woolly.

Yes I agree with Greatape & mikeyrob73 about the importance of plectrums too.

I totally agree with you.

Sometimes the phrase is used by people to mean that gear makes no difference but, as I said, I'd doubt many knowledgeable people would believe that.

I suspect they might just be trying to sound clever.

thegummy

soma1975 said:

thegummy said:

soma1975 said:

Clapton sounds like Clapton on a 335 or Strat, or through a Champ or a Soldano SLO, which couldn’t really be further apart. 

Technique is the key to tone. How to attack and finish notes. 

A great sculptor could still make something in his in his or her style with an unfamiliar chisel, but the one he or she prefers may inspire him. Or her. Or they. Sheesh. 

Clapton isn't going to start making speed metal if he's handed a pointy Schecter and a triple rectifier, it's still going to be bluesy adult contemporary but it will have a different tone to his usual Strat into a fender.

He sounded very much like Clapton going from a regular Strat and Champ to a Mega Strat with active mid boost and Lace Sensors and a Soldano which is almost as much of a change as the one you posted. 

He'll always sound like Clapton cause that's who he is but are you saying the tone is the same when he plays is the same regardless what gear he's using?

John_A

I think ‘tone is in the fingers’ shouldn’t be taken too literally, what the expression means, and how it is mostly used is ‘sounding good is in the fingers’ and for the most case, I’d say this is very true, take an average player and give them a great guitarists gear and they’ll still sound average, give a great player average gear and they’ll sound great.

obviously Steve Vai, EVH, or Whoever, can’t reproduce their normal sound with any old gear, but without a doubt Steve Vail on a strat through a Fender twin would sound better than me because ‘tone is in the fingers’

The video should have had one great player in there, which would have proved the point.  All the players are average, so all sound similar

monquixote

I think this is one of those pointless debates which devolves into an argument about definitions

A component of the sound you make is determined by what you play and another by how you play. Confusion about which bit contributes what is what determines there being more money in making pedals than giving guitar lessons.

soma1975

thegummy said:

soma1975 said:

thegummy said:

soma1975 said:

Clapton sounds like Clapton on a 335 or Strat, or through a Champ or a Soldano SLO, which couldn’t really be further apart. 

Technique is the key to tone. How to attack and finish notes. 

A great sculptor could still make something in his in his or her style with an unfamiliar chisel, but the one he or she prefers may inspire him. Or her. Or they. Sheesh. 

Clapton isn't going to start making speed metal if he's handed a pointy Schecter and a triple rectifier, it's still going to be bluesy adult contemporary but it will have a different tone to his usual Strat into a fender.

He sounded very much like Clapton going from a regular Strat and Champ to a Mega Strat with active mid boost and Lace Sensors and a Soldano which is almost as much of a change as the one you posted. 

He'll always sound like Clapton cause that's who he is but are you saying the tone is the same when he plays is the same regardless what gear he's using?

As had happened a few times in this thread I guess we are just arguing semantics. Tone/Timbre etc... 

His tone/timbre/voice etc is more similar than different despite those changes in gear. 

ICBM

Grangousier said:

Actually, that's not true. I've heard a number of people play the same open string on roughly the same kind of acoustic guitar using the same kind of pick one after another and there's an enormous variety - different volumes, different cleanness of picking, confident, hesitant. They're obviously all the same kind of thing, and sound the same compared to, say, an electric guitar or a bass guitar or a mandolin or a euphonium, but between them you'll find a number of different personalities. 

I don't disagree that there is a tone difference too - I've heard it when passing the same guitar back and forth between me and another player - but it's not the majority of the tone. If you changed the type of acoustic guitar - say from flat-top to archtop - you'd likely hear a much bigger change of tone.

With an electric guitar much more of it is in the equipment - mostly the amp, in fact. You can usually change the tone far more by turning one knob on the amp than the difference between what different players produce from the guitar itself.

HAL9000

Mick Ronson shows it’s in the fingers. Telecaster straight into an amp. AFAIK the only effect that he regularly used was a wah set to its sweet spot, yet he somehow manages to make things sound more Les Paul and less Tele...

https://youtu.be/gYL-WRqBehs

ICBM

HAL9000 said:

Mick Ronson shows it’s in the fingers. Telecaster straight into an amp. AFAIK the only effect that he regularly used was a wah set to its sweet spot, yet he somehow manages to make things sound more Les Paul and less Tele...

That's a perfect illustration of you recognising what he's *playing* - compare the bit where he plays Ziggy to the record. The actual *tone* is very different - much brighter, and also with more gain than the original which is quite thick and softer-sounding.

(This is a clip of Ziggy, even though Youtube shows the cover of Heroes.)

John_A

ICBM said:

HAL9000 said:

Mick Ronson shows it’s in the fingers. Telecaster straight into an amp. AFAIK the only effect that he regularly used was a wah set to its sweet spot, yet he somehow manages to make things sound more Les Paul and less Tele...

That's a perfect illustration of you recognising what he's *playing* - compare the bit where he plays Ziggy to the record. The actual *tone* is very different - much brighter, and also with more gain than the original which is quite thick and softer-sounding.

The phrase ‘tone is in the fingers’ has nothing to do with the literal meaning of tone/sound/timbre, it just means being a good player in important to making a good sound 

Philtre

.

ICBM

John_A said:

The phrase ‘tone is in the fingers’ has nothing to do with the literal meaning of tone/sound/timbre, it just means being a good player in important to making a good sound 

lol

BloodEagle

Welcome to the Tone Zone

thegummy

BloodEagle said:

Welcome to the Tone Zone

I'm considering buying one of those!

thegummy

As pointless as having the debate is in the first place, surely it's even more pointless to have a personal definition of the word tone and use it when talking to others?

Tone is timbre and what makes the same exact note sound different played on a piano as an oboe as a guitar.

Grunfeld

Stuckfast said:

robinbowes said:

Also, we're not all guys.

Um, wishful thinking aside, we kind of are, though.

So tone is in the underpants?

Blueingreen

I don't believe there's a single great player, however much associated with equipment that gets specific sounds - Les Paul into a Marshall, Strat into a Tube Screamer into a Fender amp or any damn thing you like - who wouldn't have been a great player if the particular guitar. amp and pedals he used had never been invented.

Gear is important to some players, less important to others.  If gear matters hugely to you, that's what interests you, you've got nothing to apologise for.  If you've played the same guitar through the same amp for a gazillion years because you've worked out how to make it sound the way you want and you have no curiosity about other stuff, you have nothing to apologise for.

Andy Timmons, for example strikes me as a guy who really understands the nuances of gear and gets a fabulous tone.  I think if he was a different sort of player, who stuck with his first decent guitar and his first decent amp for the rest of his life he'd be a great player getting a fabulous tone.  Different routes, same destination.  "It's all in the fingers" is maybe too reductive, but it's in the talent you have and the work that you do.  If you're creative you find the tools to create.

John_A

ICBM said:

John_A said:

The phrase ‘tone is in the fingers’ has nothing to do with the literal meaning of tone/sound/timbre, it just means being a good player in important to making a good sound 

lol

Care to explain?

Sassafras

I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that it doesn't matter apart from giving us nerds something else to obsess over.

Fretwired

skaguitar said:

I believe it’s 80% player 10% equipment and 10% environment 

OK. Give a Tele and a Roland Jazz Chorus to Steve Vai and get him to play for the Love of God. He could do it, but it wouldn't sound how you'd expect and if you heard the audio you'd probably laugh. The same goes for most metal players ... equipment counts for far more than 10%. David Gilmore has said as much .. his signature tone requires some serious gear.

These days gear is important - take delays away from the Edge and you'd get ........

The fingers argument dates from the days of the blues and was valid .. nobody sounds like Peter Green, BB King etc but then they were mostly guitar into a slightly driven amp.