Tone is in the Fingers

['63-Strat]

 

[Anonymous]

Style is in the fingers, heart and brain. The tone is in the gear. Sure, the fingers can coax certain sounds out of the gear based on how you attack the strings but the TONE is coming from the gear. That's why Les Paul's and strats sound so different. It doesn't matter if the same guy is playing both guitars. He will sound like himself with a strat tone on one and sound like himself with a Les Paul sound on the other.

A lot of this debate was started by Eddie Van Halen's line about Ted Nugent wanting to plug into Eddie's rig back in the day and Eddie said he still sounded like Ted Nugent. Well, no shit. If he plugs into Eddie's gear, his fingers don't immediately download Eddie's style. But I'll bet what they were hearing was Ted Nugent with a different TONE than he normally got with his Fender amps.

I don't understand why this debate happens every three months on the interwebz.

And the main "tone is in the fingers" guys normally have a $40k gear list in their signature with 10 different boutique amps listed. Ironic?

Steve

 

[Racerxrated]

Style is in the fingers, heart and brain. The tone is in the gear. Sure, the fingers can coax certain sounds out of the gear based on how you attack the strings but the TONE is coming from the gear. That's why Les Paul's and strats sound so different. It doesn't matter if the same guy is playing both guitars. He will sound like himself with a strat tone on one and sound like himself with a Les Paul sound on the other.

A lot of this debate was started by Eddie Van Halen's line about Ted Nugent wanting to plug into Eddie's rig back in the day and Eddie said he still sounded like Ted Nugent. Well, no shit. If he plugs into Eddie's gear, his fingers don't immediately download Eddie's style. But I'll bet what they were hearing was Ted Nugent with a different TONE than he normally got with his Fender amps.

I don't understand why this debate happens every three months on the interwebz.

And the main "tone is in the fingers" guys normally have a $40k gear list in their signature with 10 different boutique amps listed. Ironic?

Steve

Yup! And all those expensive amps/guitars, once they get them dialed in the way they like, I'd bet each and every rig sounds like the next....or damn close. We all have a tone in our head that we love....so all those Bogners/Marshals/Diezels sound the same anyway....or close.

 

[RG955TT]

Style is in the fingers, heart and brain. The tone is in the gear. Sure, the fingers can coax certain sounds out of the gear based on how you attack the strings but the TONE is coming from the gear. That's why Les Paul's and strats sound so different. It doesn't matter if the same guy is playing both guitars. He will sound like himself with a strat tone on one and sound like himself with a Les Paul sound on the other.

A lot of this debate was started by Eddie Van Halen's line about Ted Nugent wanting to plug into Eddie's rig back in the day and Eddie said he still sounded like Ted Nugent. Well, no shit. If he plugs into Eddie's gear, his fingers don't immediately download Eddie's style. But I'll bet what they were hearing was Ted Nugent with a different TONE than he normally got with his Fender amps.

I don't understand why this debate happens every three months on the interwebz.

And the main "tone is in the fingers" guys normally have a $40k gear list in their signature with 10 different boutique amps listed. Ironic?

Steve

Yup! And all those expensive amps/guitars, once they get them dialed in the way they like, I'd bet each and every rig sounds like the next....or damn close. We all have a tone in our head that we love....so all those Bogners/Marshals/Diezels sound the same anyway....or close.

Actually yes I agree, this is true because we all tend to dial in what we're after, the nuances may be different but I have found this myself...and I have a long list of amps in my sig....

 

[jammin1]

Tone is in the FAB pedal.

Damn! He was shredding till he dropped his pick Can't wait for that Iron Man lesson

 

[Heritage Softail]

I realize tone ISN'T in the fingers but that video shows that ability is WAY more important than gear and that a great player can make crappy gear sing and sound good.

You have also pointed out that what is often called crappy gear.... Is actually quite fine gear , if the player was good.

 

[TrueTone500]

Tone is actually in your picking hand... Using the bridge pickup only, try altering your picking zone, and listen to the harmonic variation. If I want a mellower, more singing type of tone, I move my picking close to the end of the neck...sometimes even over the frets themselves. This sounds especially cool when chicken pickin'. I did this so much in the 80's, that I scalloped my Jackson super strat from the 17th fret up.

 

[shredi knight]

Nuno had a cool thing to say about this in his rig run-down video.
I've URL'd this to play from the relevant comment so it will take an extra few seconds to load.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1duw7XVnOMU#t=4m48s

All I took away from that is that apparently Nuno Bettencourt & Ted Nugent and the same person!

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Most of us seem to be saying the same thing. The RIGHT picking hand is the tone and the musician's sense of timing is his tone as well. That's it that's all. Gear means jack $hit to me. Yngwie will sound closer to yngwie through a crate solid state then you will through his 70's marshall and gear.

 

[mentoneman]

my finger tone story is i dialed in a fuchs ods-100 to pretty much exact robben ford tone with my tyler (or at least as close as i've heard anyone get outside of scott lerner) handed my gtr to a friend who was working on achieving that very sound with his rig, and when he played he didn't "understand" the approach physically on how to bring out or enable that tone with that rig, and what came out was brutal.

he plowed right through the way the rig was set up dynamically and the outcome was very flat unimpressive tone. it sounded like a very pedestrian amp in his hands. his limited abilities as a player technically prevented him from being able to extract the sound from the rig.

i've had similar experiences with guys playing through my mojaves as well as my current rig with heavy fx engaged. if you strum hard versus brush the strings, or dig and chop versus lightly touch and hold notes you wind up with nonsense.

conversely when i ask *experienced* players whom i respect to check out and play my rig they normally plink around a little to get a bearing on the touch response of a particular tone, and THEN they play and great players sound great on my rig and always compliment me on the setup of things.

the greatest tone compliment i ever got was from doyle dykes who had just spent time in eric johnson's studio. he heard me soundcheck and said i was a great player and that it sounded a lot like ej's tone at his house, and how he could never play that "bluesy stuff" like that (yeah right). for me that is as good as it gets as i am a self-confessed preschooler compared to dr. doyle the phD encyclopedia of guitar playing style and experience.

 

[thiswaythatway]

Tone is in the FAB pedal.

Damn! He was shredding till he dropped his pick Can't wait for that Iron Man lesson