Excuse me, sir, but I don't care for your tone
One of the things that most struck me about the YouTube snippets of the Led Zep reunion was that Jimmy Page sounded exactly the way Jimmy Page - and any other Very Loud Les Paul - is supposed to sound. I don't know if it's because of the Very Large Arrays of effects pedals that guitarists these days seem to feel naked without, but decent guitar tone has been pretty thin on the ground for the last, ooh, 30 years or so.
OK, so let's clast some serious icons here:
Eric Clapton - Blackie? A dog's name for a dog of a tone since about 1979
Robert Cray - the man who plays the blues on an electric ukelele in his bathroom
Brian May - a Blue Peter guitar and a sixpence, eh? Groovy!
Mark Knopfler - someone please let that damned bee out of that biscuit tin.
Of course, Cray and Knopfler's crimes against tone can largely be put down to their recreational chorus-pedal abuse (as can Messrs Edge and Marr's, too, come to that), but even when you've got something decent under your plimsolls, like the good old hummin', cracklin' Dallas Rangemaster treble booster that Brian May says he's always sworn by, total tonal success can never be taken for granted. (Right, Gazza Moore?)
For an example of just how heinously sucky an electric guitar can sound, and leaving aside the abject naffness of the whole exercise, the tone on display here is so Dead Wrong it should be on every guitarist's iPod, tagged "Just Don't":
Sorry, Brian, but [markellenvoice] I think you'll find [/markellenvoice] that Dead Proper dirty tone isn't that; it's this:
(See also Paul Kossoff, Mick Taylor and, yes, even Angus Young).
Whereas this, Mr Knopfler, is Dead Proper clean tone:
(See also Roy Buchanan, Steve Cropper, Reggie Young.)
Ah, glad that's off my chest at last. So who do you think should pull out all the plugs and start all over again? Or, at the other end of the spectrum, who else merits induction into the Tone Hall of Fame?
[Note for Mr H & Fraser: way too long I know, so please do what you will to shift the vid links off the main blog page if you prefer. I would if I could but I can't.]
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Spot on
about Brian May. A very nimble player for sure, but the tone always puts me in mind of a wasp trapped in a milk bottle.
Rory Gallagher
I just love that. The man played from the heart. Go out and buy "Irish Tour". Just the boll**cks.
Always loved Frank Zappa's tones...
There's the 'clean' one (which on that excellent Classic Albums documentary for 'Overnite Sensation'/'Apostrophe' Dweezil Zappa said sounded a bit like Mark Knopfler, funnily enough!) and that great 'dirty' fuzzed-up one like you hear on 'Willie The Pimp', 'Transylvania Boogie' and some of 'The Grand Wazoo' album.
The latest Word podcast has David extolling the virtues of John Martyn's wonderful playing and I have to concur, especially when he uses the Echoplex- that's a really distinct tone.
Steve Hackett of Genesis is a personal favourite and a very diverse guitarist (he's done classical and blues albums too- the classical ones were really well received I seem to recall). The best examples of his tone are probably tracks like Genesis' 'Firth Of Fifth' or his own solo piece 'The Steppes'.
I honestly don't like too much Eric Clapton did after the early 70s. I love those solos he played on those Yardbirds B-sides in particular.
Though I like his playing, Mick Box of Uriah Heep might want to lay off the wah-pedal a bit; the word 'overkill' springs to mind!
My favourite Gary Moore work was in the 70s for Colosseum II. Got a bit bored of all those 'got the blues' albums he does...one was enough IMHO.
Yechnology
I think a lot of the problem with modern crap tone is that guitarists like MK etc have entire studios of effects build into huge effects racks so they can try to recreate live exactly the sounds they used in the studio. Purveyors of great distinctive tone like Buchanan, Kossoff, Rory, Zappa, Gary Moore, Hendrix, Santana, even Keef is instantly recognisable - basically had a great tone by the combination of guitar, nice valve amp, maybe a few simple pedals and their own fingers. Dozens of digital boxes have the, err, effect of homogenising and pasteurising the sound till it has lost any character.
Rory used a very simple setup, the Zappa distorted sound was even more simple - a $75 Pignose practice amp lying on its back on the studio floor. Most of the others used a Marshall amp and a decent Fender or Gibson.
As any guitarist will tell you, exactly the same guitar/amp/pedals combination will sound different according to the player. Much of the tone is in the fingers, as long as there isn't some digital mountain in the middle to spoil it.
Classic Tones
My faves are..
Stevie Ray Vaughan
All you want in a guitarist,tone texture and technique.
Keef's Tele in open G
'Happy' 'Start Me Up'
Mick Ronson
That halfway wah pedal, did it for him
Steve Jones
Lovely growling guitar work
J J burnell
Immediately identifiable
John Martyn and the Echoplex
Mellow, gently melting and ghostly notes
Pete Townshend in his SG period
Some insider info is here
http://get-that-sound.blogspot.com/
In defense of Mark Knopfler...
...his tone is among the most distinctive, warm and original, however he gets it. He seems more interested in writing songs these days but when he wants he can still make his Les Paul sing. For those who have perhaps left him alone since Sultans of Swing, check this:
just on the train ride home
I marvelled at the sound of Ron Asheton (Not Right) Dave Davies (Brainwashed) and Neil Young (Powderfinger) all utterly distinctive and standing up to repeated listening for decades.
I could happily live out my days without ever hearing another note of Noel Gallagher's clueless meanderings or The Edge's pedal-wank.
Yes Tone-Ality
Me, I could never abide Steve Howe's tone, trebly and irritating (even the bass sound in Yes was trebly let alone the singing). That makes 3 times (treble) the treble you neeed.
Mick Taylor. There was a lad with a tone. Anyone who saw the John Mayall
Laurel Canyon era tour should be able to back me up on that and the Rolling Stones have never been quite the same since he took to his toes.
One of life's mysteries
It was virtually impossible during Yes's heyday (1970-1973-ish) to have anything but an acceptable tone. The Vox AC30, Fender Bassman and Marshall 100W stack were the bricks and mortar of building a sound back then, and even the then-cheapo alternatives like Orange amps are slobbered over today because of their wonderful tonitude. Yet somehow Steve Howe managed to balls it up completely, you're quite right. Was he playing a Blue Peter instrument (AKA the Stickybackplastocaster)- as later to be endorsed by Brian May - or something? Surely it was impossible for a Strat, Tele, Les Paul or SG to sound quite that bad back then, however hard you tried.
Ritchie Blackmore
used to get a wonderful screaming tone out of his Strat, particularly around the time of the Gillan/Coverdale switchover. Listen to the BBC Kilburn gig to see what I mean when he storms into a long solo in the middle of "You Fool No One".
Many moons ago, the lead guitarist of the band I was in for a while used to have a big old Marshall on steel castors; when we wheeled it across the pavement into a bar for a gig, the reverb whatsit inside used to bounce around going "whang-ga-zing-ga-zing". Classic kit - one reason why his tone was so good. Where are you now Steve Odd?
Chain of command
Blackmore's set-up was basically the same as Rory Gallagher's chain - Strat/treble booster/tube amp cranked up to natural overdrive. What else does anybody really need?
Both Rory and Ritchie would eventually succumb to the fad for TubeScreamers and digital overdrives in the '80s. Their tone was never quite the same. Smoother and hum- and crackle-free, yes, but somehow too processed, too forced. (I'll stop now before I start sounding like a wine bore..."subtle hints of fruits of the forest abound blah blah"....)
Natural Overdrive
I just found the name of my next band, if there ever is one.
Quick!
Wiki up an album title and get back to us.
Then It Lasts Forever
Which I quite like.
Or it would...
...if you played it.
No not a wine bore
But definitely like some takling about car torque. and so to sleep ZZZZ.
But i agree with you.