What's your Recipe for a great tone??

[Sarah93003]

This has been a very interesting thread to read and it affirms to me that achieving the tone you are after has a ton of variables and the combinations seem to be endless. One thing I've noticed is that years ago I could hear a new song on the radio and tell who the band was by the sound of the guitar even before I heard the singer. Therefore, guitarists used to achieve their tone and stick with it. Today it gets much more complex as some guitarists, such as The Edge, try to find a different tone on each song. It's interesting and certainly brings out the "artist" within the guitarist.

[Desert Surfer]

Well, his tone is not in his hands.....

[Veenture]

Well, his tone is not in his hands.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12FMHLweh9A

Hah, that a good one Vincent!

The main reason (IMO) that this is such a great topic is because there are so many factors that make up tone that almost everyone has a different idea as to what it is.

I don’t think anyone’s going to argue with what Jim so aptly states in a nutshell. We are all looking at the same ‘object’ but each more or less from a different angle or perspective.
Indeed a very interesting discussion but we seem to be drifting away from the topic heading as probably was intended by rynaro.
From reading the initiator’s own description for his personal recipe for great tone, I read it to be those hardware components coming together before even touching an instrument. I have to agree with Danny who also seems to understand it in this light.

OK, so then there’s “tone” and there’s “sound” and how to arrive at the end product -however one wishes to name it- (beyond setup), involves indeed many factors, the artist’s unique talent obviously being the most important one, outweighing all the others by far but at the end of the day the topic seems to imply ‘equipment setup’, no?

[oipunkguy]

for me it's a mosrite with a basswood body played through a marshall with a ton of Volume and even more GAIN

[JohnnySonic]

This guitar:


This amp:


And if I need to be loud for a lead, this pedal:


Fender 1.0mm HVY picks, 10-46 Elixir strings, perseverance and a passion for playing.

[Jakehooker]

My gear keeps changing. Until very recently, I pretty much only used my PRS Custom 24 through a Fender Hot Rod Deville 410 (used to use a Hot Rod Deluxe) for clean tones, and a varying array of pedals for dirt. Sometimes the Fender drive/more drive channel was perfect, sometimes I hated it, as goes with most distortions. For a hot distortion, I use a Radial Tonebone Plexitube, which is very versatile and has knobs that stay where you put them! My most reliable fuzz that has never let me down, and has always fit my mood is a custom job from FuzzHugger(fx) called the AlgRoar (combination of their Algal Bloom and VelcRoar fuzzes). I largely stick to the Algal Bloom side, which is always readily available at fuzzhugger.com.

Anyway, I recently bought an Orange OR50 head, seeking that notorious British tube distortion, of which there is plenty on tap. I had loned my Deville to a friend, so I used the Orange through an Emperor 212 cab, dropped the gain to about the 10 o'clock position, and dimed the master volume to discover full, lush, sparkly clean tones that handled my pedals every bit as well as anything I'd ever previously played through! Who knew?!?

Minutes ago, I left my jam room after noodling with my '58 (?) Jazzmaster ('63 neck) through the Orange and a Fender 215, which I think is from the '70s, and I am strongly considering going exclusively with single coil pickups for my surf setup. I'd ring out chords or do a bunch of stacatto (sp?) picking, and simply ooze over how good my rig sounds to me!

The one problem is that this amp has no reverb, which is okay, because I really don't care for Orange's reverb, and Fender still has the ol' '63 reissue Tube Reverb tank. Mine should arrive within a couple weeks. Yay!

In closing, if you're still reading, I find that the most important step in selecting gear is finding a proper clean tone. Best if there are as few knobs as possible, as well as the shortest signal path possible. I recommend endlessly to keep it simple. You shouldn't have to work to make the amp sound good, knobs should be used to balance your amp against the rest of the band.

Cease transmission.

[Jakehooker]

As far as tone in the hands goes, I would push further and say it's in the heart, brain, and soul. The best I've ever felt was playing a single note a certain way and making the other three people in the room laugh hysterically.

Tone is synonymous with Zen.