Most Overrated/Underrated Tone

Bro KV said:
Such a great record, nasty riffs. I remember my mom took that cassette away cause the media said Ozzy was “the devil”. Years later I remember her watching The Osbournes and how much she loved Ozzy. This comes up every once and a while and she always says “the media is believable lies, gotta do your own research”
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Ya I remember those days . And it’s so funny to think AC/DC was considered so evil and satanic lol
 
braintheory said:
I don't mind show-off-y if done with tasteful licks that tell me something musically (I very much welcome that). That's the problem imo with EVH's leads. They sounded obnoxious to me with nothing to tell me. I want flash with class if one goes that route like Rhoads, Friedman, Becker. For my taste he wasn't getting away with it. It always to me stuck out like a sore thumb as the weakest parts of the songs. IMO there's no valid excuse to have parts of any song or piece of music that take such a dive in musical/emotional quality. It doesn't matter if it's a lead, riff, chorus, whatever, every part of piece should strive to be of good musical quality imo. We can all agree it's nice to have more than boring rhythms (his rhythms were not at all boring though), but tasteless/vapid leads get equally boring fast. Of course it's great to have fills IF (and only IF) they're actually adding musical value to the piece. Randy Rhoads fills in Crazy Train and Mr Crowley were actually accomplishing this as an example. He was flash with class and sadly that has been such a rare thing to have in this genre. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite since I don't really write music (I mostly just play classical guitar), but I really thinks these guitarists should step up their game with the musical ideas they come up with. Leads shouldn't be an afterthought with respect to the music
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I think I need to find a live bootleg VH from the late 70s for you to listen to. Live, EVH never really played the same lead twice...and some of his late 70s bootleg stuff is just unreal.
Still, you may not like and that's ok.
 
romanianreaper said:
Overrated would be Randy Rhoads but I love the guy, love his riffs and to be honest is just a tone issue for me.

Underrated is Tony Macalpine for me. Most people don't even know who he is but he is accomplished on guitar and piano and has some killer stuff. I heard Autumn Lords when I was in high school and blew me away.
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I'm still blown away by that song every time I hear it.
 
Techdeth said:
Great album too
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[Skid Row's Subhuman Race] It is a fantastic album all around. I was somewhat joking when I said the past few weekends. More like the past few decades :yes: I bought this album when it came out and loved the tone immediately. Skid Row 'grew up' a bit with the tunes AND tones worked hard IMO to stay relevant as hair metal faded out. But HAVE revisited the album a lot over the past few weeks. Same with Slave to the Grind.
 
Techdeth said:
Ya I remember those days . And it’s so funny to think AC/DC was considered so evil and satanic lol
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It’s funny, my first concert was AC/DC For Those About to Rock tour at Cobo in Detroit. My parents drove is up and dropped us off. As we were walking to the Arena first we got stopped by a guy wanting to sell us weed. Then we got hit up by another guy passing out pamphlets about how we were gonna go to hell for going to the show and how satanic the band was…eye opening experience for a 15 year old.
 
311splawndude said:
[Skid Row's Subhuman Race] It is a fantastic album all around. I was somewhat joking when I said the past few weekends. More like the past few decades :yes: I bought this album when it came out and loved the tone immediately. Skid Row 'grew up' a bit with the tunes AND tones worked hard IMO to stay relevant as hair metal faded out. But HAVE revisited the album a lot over the past few weeks. Same with Slave to the Grind.
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Sub human race was on mtv a little like Motley Crue was in 94 . Both great tones
 
Greazygeo said:
It’s funny, my first concert was AC/DC For Those About to Rock tour at Cobo in Detroit. My parents drove is up and dropped us off. As we were walking to the Arena first we got stopped by a guy wanting to sell us weed. Then we got hit up by another guy passing out pamphlets about how we were gonna go to hell for going to the show and how satanic the band was…eye opening experience for a 15 year old.
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The good old days !
 
Overrated - Jerry Cantrell's modern tones, basically anything from the new AIC. It just sounds generic to me. It's a shame cause I love all of his tones from Dirt to Boggy Depot.

Underrated - Dimebag's tone of course. Far Beyond Driven man, that tone just rips my head off every time I hear it. Love it!
Also Crowbar, the tone they got on Sonic Excess is huge and 100% solid state I believe.
 
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RaceU4her said:
I just put Stryper on, their tones and production are superb. I had this record when I was a kid, literally haven’t listen to this in over 30 years lol. Never hear anyone talk about them



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I think they used Mesa Marks to get that tone. Not sure if it was the IIC+ or III's?? Definitely boosted and scooped to hell though... or boosted and scooped to heaven i mean.
 
Meanjoegreene said:
Over..Zak. It works for him but it just sounds a tad unnatural to me. Kinda like I hear more pedal than amp.

Under…Cantrell off Bogey Depot. Obviously the Dirt stuff is excellent but his tone on Dickeye is just about perfect imho.

Also STP Core should be a benchmark for hard rock guitar…for the stuff I do anyway.
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Boggy Depot is a very underrated album, and I love all the tones on it.
 
braintheory said:
That’s the problem, I don’t think anyone really complains about the tone (since it’s great), it’s the quality of the music itself that’s the problem, enough so that the great tone doesn’t redeem it
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I don't really care for the tone on Reload, the whole album is too polished sounding to me. I prefer the more raw tone they got for Load. It's a bit dark for sure, but it's really unique sounding.
 
Racerxrated said:
Haha sorry truth hurts. It was his tone, and absolutely fits for him. That's cool, and he was a fantastic player, IMO maybe the fiercest metal player ever. Loved his attack.
But no one, I repeat no one of any significance(or influence to most guitar players) has tried to emulate that tone other than the Dime heads. That's just the way it is.
Doesn't take away from his talent and influence as a player on thousands of guys....his legacy is cemented forever.
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Dude, there were many bands in the early 90's trying to rip Dime's tone. Fucking Crowbar did it, White Zombie did it, but put their own spin on it and made it there own in a way. So i'll kinda disagree with your comment. I mean who of any significance has ripped of Hendrix's tone, and who of any significance has ripped of EVH's tone, not that many if you think of it, well many, but they never made it in the business because that tone is just too much of a footprint or signature sound to just rip off. Ya know what I'm talking about?? probably not. Dime had a signature sound that you couldn't just rip off and get away with it.
 
anomaly said:
Dude, there were many bands in the early 90's trying to rip Dime's tone. Fucking Crowbar did it, White Zombie did it, but put their own spin on it and made it there own in a way. So i'll kinda disagree with your comment. I mean who of any significance has ripped of Hendrix's tone, and who of any significance has ripped of EVH's tone, not that many if you think of it, well many, but they never made it in the business because that tone is just too much of a footprint or signature sound to just rip off. Ya know what I'm talking about?? probably not. Dime had a signature sound that you couldn't just rip off and get away with it.
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Cmon man, just about every HR act in the 80s tried to rip off EVH tone. It’s not even debatable. When it comes to Dimes tone, I admittedly don’t listen to much metal so I defer to your opinion on that with one exception-White Zombie. I covered a few tunes and have their albums. He used a triple Recto to my knowledge and scooped the mids, which every metal band I’ve heard does as well. Metallica started that in the 80s. Not Dime.
Dime is one of my fav players but his tone isn’t my favorite. But it worked for him and is the Pantera sound. It is what it is. If you like mids you won’t like Dimes tone.
 
"who of any significance has ripped of EVH's tone"

Even Steve stevens used the same rig...
guitar-cables-amp-effects-wdw...

Vitto bratta in the 1st WL album...
 
Racerxrated said:
Cmon man, just about every HR act in the 80s tried to rip off EVH tone. It’s not even debatable. When it comes to Dimes tone, I admittedly don’t listen to much metal so I defer to your opinion on that with one exception-White Zombie. I covered a few tunes and have their albums. He used a triple Recto to my knowledge and scooped the mids, which every metal band I’ve heard does as well. Metallica started that in the 80s. Not Dime.
Dime is one of my fav players but his tone isn’t my favorite. But it worked for him and is the Pantera sound. It is what it is. If you like mids you won’t like Dimes tone.
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They ripped off his playing style, not his tone so much

J from White Zombie used Randall Century 200's (he also used marshall valvestates on the first WZ record) in combination with recto's. For a while though he was just using the Randall's that Dimebag also used. Same thing with Crowbar, Kirk used Randall's for most of their albums.

I'm not saying no one ripped off EVH's tone, it's obvious that people did. But not anyone of any real significance.

Re-listen to FBD and TGST, there's mids there, fierce grinding mids. CFH and VDOP had a lot less midrange, but still enough to cut.
 
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blackie13 said:
"who of any significance has ripped of EVH's tone"

Even Steve stevens used the same rig...
guitar-cables-amp-effects-wdw...

Vitto bratta in the 1st WL album...
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Guitarists of significance. Even Kirk from Crowbar is more significant than Vitto... Kirk plays in Down and wrote much of their material. Not a shredder, but still a good riff writer.
 
TONS of early 90's - early 2000's metal to nu-metal bands were going for that ultra gated, Solid State sounding (whether it was SS or not) buzzsaw Dimebag crunch. Not quite my taste for my own needs but I loved hearing it in action with such a formidable player as Dimebag. Sometimes I value uniqueness over pure tonal quality (of course even an average Les Paul/Marshall setup may sound 'better"). Dime made it work because I believe his unusual setup had a direct influence on the type of riffs he wrote.
 
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