Well, not half as important as we mostly think.
For acoustic players, it is conventional to think of great tone as the Holy Grail. This is why we search out obscure tropical timbers and ponder scale length and body shape, and spend vast sums of money looking for the magic guitar with the perfect tone to die for.
And you know what? It's bullshit. Well, for the most part it's bullshit.
Tone isn't important. Yes, good tone is a necessary starting point, just as having the guitar in tune is a basic essential, but it's only the starting point.
What REALLY sorts the sheep from the goats isn't quality of tone (once you get over, say, the £1000 mark, you can expect a good basic tone as of right), it is consistency of tone, it is the way the tone transitions from one area to another - from bass strings to treble strings, from open strings to up the neck, from gentle fingerpicking of single note runs to two and three note chords to full-on strumming.
It's not "perfect tone" that makes a great acoustic guitar, it is the way the guitar transitions from one sort of tone to another sort. All guitars have many different tones. What sets the best ones apart is the way the different tones it makes blend beautifully from one to another, leaving you, the musician, free to think about what you want to play, and not having to worry about how to force the instrument to do what you want.
Comments
Have you found it yet, 8 guitars on...? Lol.
I have bought guitars on the tone alone. I find most guitars playable, albeit variably, and looks are important, but subsidiary.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Most people seem to like tones from Martins, Gibson's and so on, but some seem to dislike 'modern sounding' like Taylors.
People search out their own tone favourites, probably dictated by the type of material they play, whether they use a pick, fingers etc.
Also we've all seen wonderful players that can make any old dog of a guitar sing. (That's not me, by the way!).
Yes everything has to interact, even balance etc. Every guitar is different and that's the beauty of tone
So for me it’s not the perfect tone it’s the perfect player.
I agree with acoustics that balance is at least as important as "tone". I think that sort of consistency and control is also a big part of getting an instrument that records well.
Non comprendo.
Whilst we're on it - I do agree that good classical players have the ability to extract lovely sounds from seemingly any student instrument, but acoustics? Personally, I'm not sure that's true to the same extent. Many acoustics sound lovely but many sound lumpen and flat - in anyone's hands. Personal opinions obviously.
However, the £1000 guitar can't produce great tone in anything like the variety of circumstances that the £4000 one does. It doesn't transition from one sound to another with anything like the same aplomb.
It's like the difference between a talented kid on the cricket field and a genuine champion. The kid can knock up a nice 50 or even a century no worries ..... if the pitch suits him, if the bowling is to his taste, if a dozen other factors go his way.
The champion can get runs even when the ball is flying off a good length or turning square, even when the bowlers are top-flight and the weather is unhelpful.
Same with guitars. Most £1000 guitars can play at least a few things pretty well and sound good within a very limited ambit, but although they can produce a great sound at their best, the gap between their best and their worst is large.
What I'm saying here is that it is not "great tone" that makes a great guitar. Most half-decent guitars can produce a great tone some of the time. It's the ability to produce great tones in many different ways, and the poise to meld these ways such that the performance is continuous as it transitions from one sort of sound to another.
I've never played a modern Martin that can do all of that.
I was thinking the other day how much of the music I like was actually made on cheaper instruments with tonal 'limitations'.
So in the spitrit of that, really anything will do, as long as it is playable.
But now we actually have expensive instruments made to accuratly copy the cheaper instruments, with their limitations.
And those cheap instruments are now incredibly expensive instruments. So I woudn't say a £4k instrument is necessarily something that sounds good in all situations.
Sorry Tom, I don't follow you there?