You can buy a lot of things to help your playing.One thing you cant buy is great chops which is probably #1 on everyones list.#2 is Tone which runs neck and neck with chops but unlike chops you can buy things to help your tone but it still does not mean you are going to have a good or great one. Now I was thinking of some of the greatest tones to me and I am not going to hog up everything with a list I am just going to name a few amazing how does he get that tone players then see who the forum thinks is a tone master Brian May-I have been a queen fan since I was 14 and this guy just sounds like no one else talk about original its not thick or creamy its just May. Santana-From Samba Pa Ti to Soul Sacrifice and Europa Carlos shows that speed is not as important as everyone thinks one note and I know who it is. Gary Moore-Still got the Blues still gives me goose bumps and it does not matter if he has a Strat,Tele, or a Les Paul his tone is killer and outside of Django is there anyone that can rip off a run as fast with just there index and middle finger. Well these are three of mine and yes I have tried to copy Carlos and Gary with Brian somethings are better left alone.

Find the "Abraxis Pool" album/CD and listen to Neal Schon. It's the whole Santana band, but without Carlos.

Neal also does some great playing on his i on U (all instrumental) CD.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

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Joe Satriani said he got to play Mays Red Special ,with Mays set up .He said he was expecting the tone you described.But all that came out was Joe. Its probably that chops and tone are develope as one style,IMHO

It's the way your hand "choke" the notes out of it. There are many factors to the part of your tone that comes from your hands...

- the thickness of the pick
- the edge on the pick
- the angle at which you pick it
- how strongly you hold the pick
- whether you pick closer to the bridge or closer to the neck
- how hard or light your pick attack is
- your use of vibrato
- light lazy vibrato or space alien fast vibrato
- if you play the strings wide open or partially palm mute your notes
- how strongly you fret the notes

... and these are just the obvious ones I can think of. Not to mention gear. Amps are a huge, probably the biggest, equipment factor of tone. Then guitar and pickups. Tubes vs ss, big tone difference. Speakers, cabinet wood. Active or passive pickups. Cheap pedals with no true bypass.

Not to mention your interpretation of the music. We can pick a very simple blues lick. Five of us can play the exact same notes, same position, on the same rig, and you'll notice a difference in that lick and the tone of it.

All these little things, together, make up your tone. Once you get to the point where your playing is consistent and at a high level, you can play most rigs and still sound pretty close to "your tone", but less bassy, or more gain, etc.

Bottom line - yes, a good amount of tone is in your hands, to a point. Yes, a pro player "can" play on a crappy rig and still "sound good"... to a point. But when you get to that level, you "want" a better rig to bring out your tone much better, so you can get the perfect sound you hear in your head. And that sound probably won't be a strat starter pack Just sayin'.

I know one friend of mine in particular. Great guitarist, better than almost anyone you'd hear anywhere. Amazing. teaches, tours, records. Great. To me, wretched tone. I can't listen to him. I can appreciate "what" he plays, but the sound of it makes my ears bleed, and in no good way at all. And, he admits that tone is a very low thing he doesn't really care about or pay attention to. Now that is something I myself, cannot understand at all

I didn't enjoy Journey's music but Neal Schon's a flat out fantastic player. Great tone, expressive and fluid, almost like an operatic singer on lead guitar, but with just the *right* amount of schmaltz - he didn't overdo it like Brian May;)

He and Steve Lukather, session aces, that have played on more records than you might believe. Both are a pro's pro.

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Mike I am a big fan of Lukather as he is just a beast,but I have a dvd of him Beck and Santana in Japan and the tone on his rig is just awful it sounds like $@!& I could not believe it . I just sent him an email last week on his site to ask him what the hell was up with that .He is such a cool guy I bet he answers me I have been keepin an eye out.

Hi gratz: this is a very good point and I have more evidence to support it.

I have a Guitarist magazine CD from years ago where Brian May himself A/Bs his own Red Special against the (then) latest production line version of it, the Burns. To my ears there's no difference, and he himself joked that he may as well sell the real one. And indeed he often plays copies live.

I also have another recent Guitarist DVD where Simon Bradley uses a Red Special copy, a Greg Fryer BM Sig treble boost pedal, and a max'd out AC30 to try and get a Brian May sound. He gets moderately close - but no banana.

The cliche is true: that great tone comes from that gentleman's fingers.

Cheers - C

I haven't heard that one, but he likes to stay over in that area of the world for some reason. His son is a great player too!

His blog is interesting :

http://www.totonetwork.com/blog/18

_________________
Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Mike check out STEVELUKATHER.NET that is his officil site. He is one crazy mofo and he laughs at the end of just about everything he says hahaha even in magazines he does it. But when you look at his session credentials it is just mind blowing that he has played on over 700 albums. I dont even have to wait for his answer I was thumbing through back issues of mags in the basement I have about 500 I save for tabs and came across an interview with him and he brought up that period and said his tone was $@!& because he had to many pedals and rack equipment going and it sucked the life out of his tone and something about a phase he was going through he would rather forget.lol Then he was talking about an album he was producing for his idol Jeff Beck. Well I guess something must of happened and that must still be in the can somewhere because nothing ever came out.

Robin Trower.
Great strat artist with unreal command of the electric signal.

Eric Johnson.
Strat tone guru with chops to die for.

Mark Knopfler.
Lets his hands do the walking and the guitar do the talking.

I wasn't even trying to make a "strat" list, but long ago I started noticing that a lot of the tone masters I admired had strats in their hands.