F
fretout
Active member
I tend to think it is both the player and the gear that makes an individual tone. But, gear definitely influences a guitarist's technique.
I tend to gravitate towards amps that are clear, transparent, or amps that track more quickly than others. This allows more of what the player does to be transferred through the amp, and to the listener's ears. Something as simple as pick attack can either be accentuated, or completely masked-over by the amp itself. If I was to play a particular chord through my Mark III, you would hear each one of the strings get hit, and you could also hear the amount of pressure each string was struck with. If I played the same chord through my Rectos, you would hear each string as it was hit, but you wouldn't be able to tell what attack each string was picked with. So, he way I play through each amp changes a little bit, and one amp transfers more of my "personality" more than the other.
Now, within the amps themselves, there are basically a few different types of circuit designs. I think of them as "Fenders", "Marshalls", and "Soldanos". Sure, you can take these types back further, but to me, they represent different approaches to amplification. They can all run off of the same types of tubes (whether it's 6L6s and it's variations, or EL34s and it's variations), but they all sound very different from the next. Anything from the capacitors in the circuit, to how the circuit is routed makes a difference on tone.
For example, the Soldano SLO had a tone all it's own that had more gain and "girth" than the amps that came before it. Several companies used the SLO to design their own "hi gain" amps. Mesa had the Rectifiers, Peavey had the 5150s, Bogner had the Ubershall along with several others. Even though each one of these companies tried to basically copy the tone of the SLO, they all sounded a little different. Each company tried to introduce little tweaks to the SLO design, and because of different capacitor values, and different signal routes, each amp has the "hi gain" circuit, but they all sound different.
Then, there's examples like comparing Mesa's Mark IIC+ and the Mark Vs channel 3. According to Mesa themselves, they copied the exact same circuit in the Mark V as the Mark IIC+. But, when they were copying the circuit, they used Doug West's Mark IIC+, which happened to be a non-GEQ model, which had a different capacitor value at the end of the circuit. This difference (which is what John Petrucci modified on his Mark V), makes a massive difference in the feel of the amp, to the point where people say that they can get a Mark V close to how a Mark IIC+, but it isn't the same.
So, tone is something that starts with the players approach to his rig, and how he has developed his technique based on his rig. The rig's tone is basically the value of the capacitors, and what the path of the circuit is.
Anyway, that's my non-technical way if explaining tone...
I tend to gravitate towards amps that are clear, transparent, or amps that track more quickly than others. This allows more of what the player does to be transferred through the amp, and to the listener's ears. Something as simple as pick attack can either be accentuated, or completely masked-over by the amp itself. If I was to play a particular chord through my Mark III, you would hear each one of the strings get hit, and you could also hear the amount of pressure each string was struck with. If I played the same chord through my Rectos, you would hear each string as it was hit, but you wouldn't be able to tell what attack each string was picked with. So, he way I play through each amp changes a little bit, and one amp transfers more of my "personality" more than the other.
Now, within the amps themselves, there are basically a few different types of circuit designs. I think of them as "Fenders", "Marshalls", and "Soldanos". Sure, you can take these types back further, but to me, they represent different approaches to amplification. They can all run off of the same types of tubes (whether it's 6L6s and it's variations, or EL34s and it's variations), but they all sound very different from the next. Anything from the capacitors in the circuit, to how the circuit is routed makes a difference on tone.
For example, the Soldano SLO had a tone all it's own that had more gain and "girth" than the amps that came before it. Several companies used the SLO to design their own "hi gain" amps. Mesa had the Rectifiers, Peavey had the 5150s, Bogner had the Ubershall along with several others. Even though each one of these companies tried to basically copy the tone of the SLO, they all sounded a little different. Each company tried to introduce little tweaks to the SLO design, and because of different capacitor values, and different signal routes, each amp has the "hi gain" circuit, but they all sound different.
Then, there's examples like comparing Mesa's Mark IIC+ and the Mark Vs channel 3. According to Mesa themselves, they copied the exact same circuit in the Mark V as the Mark IIC+. But, when they were copying the circuit, they used Doug West's Mark IIC+, which happened to be a non-GEQ model, which had a different capacitor value at the end of the circuit. This difference (which is what John Petrucci modified on his Mark V), makes a massive difference in the feel of the amp, to the point where people say that they can get a Mark V close to how a Mark IIC+, but it isn't the same.
So, tone is something that starts with the players approach to his rig, and how he has developed his technique based on his rig. The rig's tone is basically the value of the capacitors, and what the path of the circuit is.
Anyway, that's my non-technical way if explaining tone...
