Tone is in the fingers

NelsonP

Uncle Larry helping to articulate why that is. Found this really useful....

guitars4you

Not watched that clip yet but to a large degree he will be right- But even so, if I play a £300 Epi LP and a £7K Murphy Lab LP, then I know I will generally sound better- So that ‘improvement’ is not down to my fingers 

We all know that a Gibson Greenie LP ain’t going to make me sound like Gary

We all have our own touch and phrasing that contributes to our ‘sound’

guyinlyon

Sorry Uncle Larry. You may have tone in YOUR fingers but I've got none in mine.

dazzajl

Surely your sound comes through your fingers? The phrasing, the intent, the passion and the individuality. The tone comes from the the gear and how you set that. 

If your sound is bad, no amount of top level kit is going to fix that. If your sound is great, that will rise above the poorer tone from cheap gear. 

Wazmeister

Uncle Larry - LEGEND ! Such melodic playing always...

I found that the more I spend on gear, the more I sound like 'me'

Offset

...and Groove Is In The Heart.

thecolourbox

And that lovely thick distortion tone in the chorus to the Cranberries Zombie is in your head, in your heeeeeeaaaaad

Petepassion

Really enjoyed that. Tom was getting all a bit Bruce Lee 
   The grip thing also true for motorcycling, grip too hard and it won’t handle, they say to hold with the same level of grip and sensitivity you would a small bird. And I’m sure this applies to many other things as well…come to think of it…

richardhomer

Does anyone else question their masculinity when watching Tom Bukovac?

Sporky

dazzajl said:

Surely your sound comes through your fingers? The phrasing, the intent, the passion and the individuality. The tone comes from the the gear and how you set that. 

"Tone" has multiple meanings, often shifting during the course of a discussion.

Blah blah [insert famous guitarist] still sounded like them playing a Daisyrock Heartbreaker through a Pignose etc.

timmypix

And the usual "tone" being used to mean both timbre and expression causes confusion again.

Personal expression is in the fingers. Timbre is in the instrument/signal chain.

That aside, excellent advice from Mr Bukovac on control, as ever!

Voxman

This age old hackneyed chestnut again which always divides opinion.

Tone is in the gear... You can't (without pedals) make a Fender Blackface sound liike a cranked Marshall Super 100 or create wah, reverb, delay or chorus/flange effects etc or make a Les Paul with humbuckers have the brightness of a single coil traditional Tele or Strat, or make a traditional acoustic sound like a Strat in position two, with your fingers. That's all to do with the physics of gear. 

But it's fingers that are the distinguishing element that makes each one of us sound different and delivers the skill, touch, expression, phrasing in how players utilise their gear and create their own style. Hendrix played through Marshalls, Selmer, Vox, Fender amps etc with Strats, Teles. SGs, Flying Vs, Les Paul's etc and yet he always sounded like Hendrix. The underlying tone would always be a little different because it was gear dependent but his skill, touch, phrasing, style were what made him Jimi Hendrix, not the gear. Its all about how your brain is wired and how that translates to your fingers.  It's in the brain and fingers that generates the skill, style, dexterity, technique, genius/natural musical ability (or otherwise), touch etc... But it's not tone.. Tone is in the gear.

Some people will argue differently of course, and they always will but audio physics and playing ability are two very distinct and different (albeit inextricably connected) things. 

Petepassion

Even with different gear we are still dialling it in to our own sound and style

pintspiller

Anybody worked out if it's the flesh of the fingertips, thickness of skin, amount of bone or blood type of the fingers?

mo6020

pintspiller said:

Anybody worked out if it's the flesh of the fingertips, thickness of skin, amount of bone or blood type of the fingers?

“Toneflesh” 

Kittyfrisk

Brian May often uses a 'wall' of AC30's to get his inimitable tone, and yet...

thecolourbox

Kittyfrisk said:

Brian May often uses a 'wall' of AC30's to get his inimitable tone, and yet...

That's still modelled on the same thing though, if he was sounding like that through a Zoom 505 or a Line 6 Spider then maybe...

Kittyfrisk

thecolourbox said:

Kittyfrisk said:

Brian May often uses a 'wall' of AC30's to get his inimitable tone, and yet...

That's still modelled on the same thing though, if he was sounding like that through a Zoom 505 or a Line 6 Spider then maybe...

True, but I have seen Brian playing another guitar (think it was a Squier, but not certain) & still sounding like himself.
Wish I could find a clip, but no success as yet... 

newi123

It depends of course on your definition of tone - if we use the guitarists definition that tone = sound, then obviously it's incorrect. No one can make a strat through a twin sound like a Lp through an 800........

But if tone is 'quality of sound' (dictionary correct), than yes. Very largely in the player to make a particular sound better or worse. 

Litterick

Tone is in Japan.

Kurtis

Tone's in yer arse.