Has perfect high gain guitar tone been achieved?

[Tone Monster]

It seems to me no matter what tone you’re going for there is a pristine example available these days.

I was born in 1977 and in my rock ‘n’ roll formable years there were only a couple of iconic tones. Now there are dozens and it’s awesome!

How much further can tones go at this point?

 

[Reverend Bow]

Ratt - Lay It Down
John Sykes - Bad Boy Live
Badlands - Self titled

That is all

 

[Techdeth]

What’s the new modern leading tone of today ?

 

[Philhouse]

What’s the new modern leading tone of today ?

Divine Portashitstudio tonez

 

[saxxamafone]

I think as far as various tonal options. We’re pretty much done

 

[Reverend Bow]

Divine Portashitstudio tonez

I'll save my money and go dig out my Portastudio 424MkII from the closet

 

[BABMusic]

How much further can tones go at this point?

It seems like to me, the only thing that's really changed is that a lot of people use lower tunings and 7 strings. I'm not a fan of this, as I was born in 1980. Other than that, I'm curious too as to what can really be different at this point. In my eyes, lots of perfect high gain tones have already been achieved, but it's just a matter of preference.

 

[Hiwatts-n-Gibsons]

Ratt - Lay It Down
John Sykes - Bad Boy Live
Badlands - Self titled

That is all

Too limiting.

 

[marvcus]

Like flavors of soda. Every conceivable option is available across the spectrum. You just choose what you like best.

When it comes to recorded tones, all bets are off. You can just about make anything sound like anything and hardly anyone will be able to tell the difference in a mix

 

[Hiwatts-n-Gibsons]

It seems like to me, the only thing that's really changed is that a lot of people use lower tunings and 7 strings. I'm not a fan of this, as I was born in 1980. Other than that, I'm curious too as to what can really be different at this point. In my eyes, lots of perfect high gain tones have already been achieved, but it's just a matter of preference.

I was born in '72, and Sabbath was tuning down to C# in '70-'71. I currently have guitars tuned to E, Eb, C#, C, and A standard. I sometimes play with open E, C, and G tunings too.

 

[tallcoolone]

In the end, after buying and selling an embarrassing number of amps a good old Marshall with an OD in front is pretty much the sound in my head

 

[Exo-metal]

I'm very close...

 

[CarlF]

One of the most perfect high gain tones I ever heard was Brad Gillis on Ozzie Speak of the Devil album, the live album recorded at the Ritz in New York

 

[RevDrucifer]

What makes any tone perfect for me is if it works for what it’s doing on the album. Ty Tabor’s tone on Dogman is a perfect high gain tone, Zakk on No More Tears, anything Cantrell did, Petrucci on Awake, Dime on any of the Pantera albums, hell, Gilmour on PULSE is perfect high gain for me even though it’s all a Big Muff, all the way up through Killswitch on End Of Heartache to Cattle Decap on their last couple albums.