A long time ago, when the earth was green (Mid to late 80's) I was playing in a rock trio called I Spy and gigging regular weekly. Our guitar player had a roland synth guitar for all the 80's stuff but it functioned as a regular sounding guitar too. Supposedly, You see our guitarist was never happy with his sound. Tweaking every day, down to the club in the daytime for sound checks and him fussing with his amp and his sound would change a lot from night to night or week to week. It was frustrating. One night while playing a bar in Vancouver BC Canada where we toured from, A local legend guitarist walks in Jerry Doucette (Mama let that boy play some rock and roll) The big hit of his Mama let him play. 70's. Well its not long before Jerry asks to Jam. The drummer and I actually knew him from previous experience and so saying yes was a no brainer. Keep in mind our guitarist was having a particularly frustrating night with his tone. Knob twiddling during songs between songs. Jerry straps on the Roland guitar, about 5 seconds he glances and fiddles at amp control panel (Roland JC120) and proceeds to count in some blues... It sounded absolutely heavenly as a guitar can only sound. From that moment as a 27 year old I was convinced that all the upgrading and space magnet pickups and one way cables and ionized strings and such was really moot point if you can't play. Practice or gigs should be the first on the list. Upgrade if you like. Don't forget to "Play"

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[i][size=85]2013 American Standard Precision bass
1959 Jazzmaster
Hartke KB12
Old tube amps

Endless knob twiddling is uisually a sign of guitarist who has no idea as to what tone they are looking for from their amp. You have to know what you are looking for. If you do, it only takes a couple of seconds to dial in your tone.

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Tim

I've noticed that since I got my amp and guitar I havent upgraded anything. But the more I play it the better my equipment sounds.....


funny how that works

And some people were just born to play... and some not. The rest of us just keep plugging away!

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

It kinda sounds to me like your guitar player didn't quite have the right amp "for him". Although JC-120 is a very good amp (I use a JC-50 and 77 regularly), it can't do everything. If you try to get a Fender blues tone out of it, forget it. JC's are mid-heavy amps and the stock speakers really aren't very good in my opinion.

Just 2-days ago I was trying to get a good rock tone out of my JC-77. Something just beyond clarity with a slightly dirty sound. Nothing doing. It's just not made for it. Took out my Fender HRDV, strapped on a Tele, and there it is.

I can be very fussy about what I want to hear. But like 7tmm2 pointed out, I know what I want to hear, and it won't take me long.

Later on today, I'm going to test out a Peavey Classic VT. Solid State preamp with a 6l6 power section. I'm going to see if I can squeeze out some power tube saturation with a 70's type sound. Hopefully it has what I'm really looking for. A nice clean channel, and a good power tube saturation option without having to deal with an amp that requires 11 freaking tubes to get it. Something similar to a JC, but can saturate.

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If you've played a long time like me and finally settled on the tone you want for the style of music you play,you just plug in and go for it....for me it involves a Strat and vintage Fender amps,the size of the amp depends on the room and the tone gets adjusted very little for my signature sound...bad or good...it's me,most people who hear it like it.

I've helped a lit of kids and newbies to enhance their equipment to get as good of a sound as they were gonna get.

Although to me (and I think to many of us here) it always seemed intuitive to find the setting that will give me what I want, it seems there are a lot of people who have no clue how to get "there..."

Although I use a few pedals, my goal is always to get an organic, natural un-effected-sounding tone (much like RebelSoul's stated goal). 

There's nothing wrong with a bit of "searching" or "chasing" tone, but if someone cannot ever get a satisfactory sound out of a decent mid-quality rig, then they just can't play. Case in point:
There was a kid I was giving some lessons who constantly griped about his "cruddy" guitar and amp. To be fair, he had a cheap starter rig, but it wasn't the worst piece of junk I'd ever played. One lesson, I said, "I'm going to tweak your amp settings."

After changing his EQ settings (turning everything down from "10" was a good start)...and all of a sudden, his tone was better. But for several weeks he kept insisting his rig was holding him back. Finally, I got tired of him griping and said, "Let's trade rigs for this lesson."

Playing my modified US Vintage '62 Stratocaster and '63 Reissue Vibroverb, he still sounded no better than he sounded on his cheap Strat copy and tiny solid state amp.

He was astounded..."Why does your rig sound like that? Why does my rig sound so much better?"

"Because I've been playing for twenty years and you're a Doofus newbie. Until you learn to play, you're gonna sound like crap no matter what you do."

He never got it; because he was dead-set on playing Avenged Sevenfold and sounding like "them", he just didn't learn to play.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Another way to get upgraded guitars? Certain people (I used to be one of them) will fix up budget guitars with great parts and then soon after they sell them often at significant loss. A little research and luck can find you "Work already done" guitars.

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[i][size=85]2013 American Standard Precision bass
1959 Jazzmaster
Hartke KB12
Old tube amps

Kind of defines the difference between playing guitar and being a guitar player!

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2012 American Standard Precision V - Candy Cola Red
2012 Squier Vintage Modified Jazz V - Surf Green
2011 FCS Custom Classic Special Jazz Bass V - Violin Burst
1996 MIM Stratocaster HSS - Black
1975 Precision Bass - 3 Tone Sunburst

Nothing can be further from the truth. For some maybe, but It's usually someone who knows how to control their tone if they tweak it from their guitar. Tone and volume is a continuous thing. It can take you from a whisper to a roar depending on the passage in a song. Every room is different too. I don't want or need to have the same settings for everything I play. The tone controls and my technique are my brushes. Some folks just need to practice using them a little more.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

The big secret of guitar playing is finding that elusive nerve that runs from your heart to your hands.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

I constantly hear words like "I'm looking for THE tone or MY tone." I just don't get it. I have many tones that make me want to melt when I play depending on what type of music I'm playing or what mood I'm in. Maybe this is for people who only play one type of music???? For example, if I sit down and play blues.....guess what, the sound and tone that I use depends on what type of blues and what type of mood I'm in. Do I want warm or do I want that that twangy high in a box around the corner sound? Just depends. It should always change depending on what you want to hear. I understand throwing in pedals to get diferent sounds, tone, etc., because of this variety but I rarely want one sound, one tone, one anything and that's just me talking about blues. Hell it all changes between genre and within each.

Either I don't have a good ear or my ear knows exactly what it wants so I tweak a little bit to get there.

Alright so.. The Peavey Classic VT wasn't my thing. The amp sounded worse than most of my practice amps.

But on my way home, I happened to run across a really cool guitar.



My camera was acting up today, so this was the only one where you could see the color of the guitar. It's a DeArmond M-70. The picture does nowhere near the justice of how beautiful this guitar is. It's in GREAT shape. Just missing a cap off one of the knobs. But barely a scratch on it. Still had the plastic on the neck pickup. Frets are like new.

I plugged it into a Vox Valvetronix to test it out, and almost pissed my pants. It sounds that good. This thing has monster tones oozing from it. The pickups are amazing!!

So all in all, a better tone adventure than I had planned today.

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