That pretty much covers it.

Cheers - C

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Being a Bass Player and having played the bass with strings attatched-- I find it hard to remember or recall any bassist or Bass Player ever saying or affirming that he or she wants to sound like any other bass player.

I think there are some guys who want to sound like Jaco.

They ( whoever) do sell Artist basses. I think once a guy gets an artist bass he figures out pretty quick he's not going to sound like the artist who he's playing the bass of.

So I will make the blanket statement that the "sound like" other guitar player thing is mostly amoungst the 6 string players. Of course there could be guys who play sax that want to sound like Wayne Shorter.

As a relatively new guitarist I can see the point in trying to emulate someone's tone or style. It's what got me into the instrument in the first place. But the importance of imitation / emulation shouldn't lie in becoming like that player - it should be to extract some sort of influence from it that you make your own. Kenny Wayne Shepherd for example has a very similar style to SRV, and the latter's influence is inescapibly evident, but KWS has crafted his own tone and style from SRV's. I guarantee a lot of KWS' playing and style development came from early days spent trying to BE SRV. As you try to perfect their tone / style, you're gonna find things that work for you and things you would do differently.

Basically, emulation plays a huge role in developing your own style and tone but if you spend your whole career trying to BE one of your influences then you're wasting your time with the instrument.

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[08 MIM Standard Arctic White] > [Danelectro Fish n Chips EQ > Radial Texas Bones OD > Tonerider British Distortion > Electroharmonix Russian Big Muff Pi > Vox V847 Wah] > FM65R

Couldn't agree with you more. As to another post, discovering one's own sound is great, sometimes it takes a while and a bunch of money. If we had more patience it wouldn't be so expensive.

So Tribute Bands fall under....cloning..
Is it real or is it Memorex.. To quote an old slogan

For myself I don't advocate tribute bands, i fail to see the point, no mater how successfully marketable. Case in point would be the Australian Pink Floyd band... Why
I would have enjoyed seeing Pink Floyd ( original line up ) I don't enjoy hearing the tribute band.
I always wanted to go hear Journey. ( I'm referring to early Journey, when they had just split from Santana, actually Journey was the result of Santana fracturing, before Perry joined.)

I caught Led Zep, Aerosmith, REO Speedwagon, Uriah Heep, Mahogany Rush, Trower, Moody Blues, Yes, Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, Doobie brothers, Eagles, CSN, NY Dolls, A Cooper, TenYears After, in a nutshell most of the top bands of the 70's, 80's into some of the 90's.

Each time I walk into a club and listen to a band replicating a song almost note for note It leaves me wondering as to why...? Play a song with recognizable hooks but infuse it with your own personality. That will ensure that I return to hear the band. It is so much more enjoyable to hear a bands own version of a well known and sometimes not well known tune. Sometimes it falls flat but more often than not it becomes a very different perspective.

Any one familiar with Menphis Minnie.. then listen to "When the Levee Breaks " Minnie's version then listen to the much later ( 40+years ) adaptation of Led Zeppelin's rendition. Same song, but in each case tweaked to fit the musicians's.
That to me is the prime reasoning for avoiding at all costs ( no puns or reference to preceding posts Intended ) sounding like a cloney.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

When you run a Strat through a Marshall (getting a nice crunchy distorto-tone), you can't help but sound like a number of other famous guitarists.

If you play in a covers band, you want the songs to sound like the originals.

Slavish attempts to mimic some famous artist is another thing.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

There's no such thing as creating in a vaccuum. Any type of creative work, be it music, liturature film or art, is going to be influenced to one extent or another by things that the artist has absorbed or been impacted by in his or her past.

In guitar, I think it's part of the natural learning process to try to copy the things that your favorite players have done. It's useful to learn, for example, what gear and David Gilmour used when recording The Wall, if you enjoyed his sound on that record.

The goal, of course, is to eventually take all that nformation and eventually mix it into something that is your own unique sound.

Seems pretty silly to try to precisely replicate something that "So and So" has done and steal it for your own sound, unless, of course, you're in a "So and So" tribute band.

Marketing.

It's the same with clothes, cars and beer. You can't have the same "great life" if you're not using the same products.

"He can't be a man if he don't smoke the same cigarettes as me." -Satisfaction, Rolling Stones

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-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

I think that after you become a seasoned player then you recognize other people's styles for what they are,when you're a beginner or have only played for a few years you really haven't put it all together yet pertaining to "styles and tone".
Every great guitar player that I've listened to for awhile has a signature tone and licks,the origin of the licks are fairly easy to understand and the tone sometimes makes you wonder how they get it,but for my taste,the cleaner start of overdrive and sustain will get my attention everytime.

I have never tried to sound like someone else. I have learned my share of cover songs, but only to 80-90% where you know what song I am playing. I have never played someone elses solo note for note. I dial in my amp to a sound I like and play. I have no idea who, if anyone, my originals sound like. I am sure I have pulled influences from who I have listened to, but I have never really copped licks, even for learning purposes. This may have given me less in my lick library to refer to, but I have always just played what my fingers told me to play, good or bad.

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Have someone else play through your rig while you stand in the crowd. I let I guy play my gear at a blues jam once. I thought my gear sounded great. It's a little different when you hear it when your not playing.

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Just a point of view, I have several guitars each one has it's own purpose and I let them be and don,t really strive to sound like anyone, I do own an srv and it's a great guitar but I own it because it's in my opinion just that, I can,t play as well as srv and don,t really have any illusions about ever thinking that I could, although I do try and have a great time, the guitar has I think a very versitile quality, and in the right hands can do alot, for only the second time tonight will be a change up for me as I have been invited to the tuesday nite jam down the road were lots of guitarist will be attending and it's a southern kind of deal, Allman brothers, Skynyrn, all of that, I,am really quite nerved up and I,ll be taking my srv, my gmm, and my epi res down with me, when I got the invite they asked me what kind of guitar I play and when they heard srv they lit right up,so tonight I,am breakin the rules of ownership and I going to let some of these folks play the srv, it will be intersting to see how they can pull the true potential out if it and do maybe with it, what I can not do, maybe they'll do the try to sound like thing but I don't care, I want them to experience this guitar and then get there feedback, considering that some of these players are really very good, not one of them have ever jamed with any of these guitars and it should be a blast for them and for me.