In most interviews I've seen with him over the past few years, he seems to feel that he maybe went a bit overboard in his pursuit of the perfect tone for a while there. At least he can laugh a bit at himself over it... I'd get quite annoyed if people kept on dredging up something I'd said twenty years ago when I was at the height of my obsession.

Eric Johnson is an incredible talent, but he's the only one who hears this stuff. Seems like he has some kind of OCD or other mental thing going on.

I wonder: if Eric has such incredible ears and incredible tone, why does he use SOOO much processing in his sound. Too much use of echo and too much gain/unnatural distortion to my ears and bewilderment.

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Yes and running scales!

Very good question. I never thought his tone choices were the holy grail. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary.

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No no and no

I loved Tones when it came out in 1986 (well...I think that's when I bought it, anyway) and he was just a "you've gotta hear this guy" sort of player you'd read about in magazines. Maybe I'm overly sentimental, but most of that album stands up incredibly well for me and I still listen to it often on my way to work. I just have a tacit agreement with myself to ignore the lyrics (which have deteriorated over time... he's like a pale imitation of Bryan Adams, which is... well, quite an achievement, I guess).

But yeah, I have to agree with orvilleowner on this one. Hunt down any live stuff on youtube, and it all tends to have that same echo cluttering things up. I do like that thick, foghorn-across-the-water bowed-instrument sound, but it seems more a product of a decent amp setup with the treble backed off than anything fancier. Usually the comments on those clips will be like "OMG!!!11! how does he get that sound out of single coils!!?!", but there really isn't much of a trick to it.

I prefer the range of sounds he gets in his instructional material... beautiful, and he's obviously put a great deal of work into the mechanics of fingers on strings, which is where any player's tone truly begins. There's some stuff floating around of bluesier-sounding material on a 335 -- very tasty, as I recall.

Now, I'm never going to be able to touch him in the playing department, and he's earned every bit of respect he gets as far as I'm concerned. I just agree that his "go to" solo sound seems a bit...dialled-in...these days, like it's a preset of some sort.

He's a great player, but I have never liked his sound. Too fuzzy and weak for me.

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1994 Standard Strat, Blue
2000 Standard Strat, Black, with GFS block, and GFS Lil Killer pickup.
2004 Standard Telecaster, Black
1971 Gibson SG
1985 Kramer Baretta
1986 Kramer Vangard
Carvin X60B
Marshall 50 watt 2x12 combo