Axe-Fx III 16.00 Beta 11 "Cygnus" Firmware - Public Beta #8

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My friend and I played the same riff on the same guitar, same strings, and same rig with same IR and BMT hitting the same levels on the VU meters.

His tone is more upper mids and sounds like there is a bass roll off at 150 Hz.

My tone sounds like it has a bass boost at the same frequency and a more even tonality in the upper mids.

If we didn't do it in the same room literally with a couple of minutes passing while we passed the guitar and pick to each other, then I would be incredulous regarding your fingers/hand being a major component of tone too.

That experience made me realize how much hand structure, tissue/bone density, and hand pressure contribute to tone variance.
So this.

The way you address the strings — with both your picking and your fretting hand — makes a significant contribution to tone.

Tone isn't entirely in your fingers, but your fingers do make a meaningful contribution to tone.
 
But these differences are what is called "expression" or "execution", not exactly "tone", although they give a character to the tone. If these differences not existed, all players would sound the same, as far as they have the skills to execute the notes.

I believe that it is better to differentiate with a different name, so we know how far we need to adjust the gear until everything is up to the fingers
The key is it starts with your fingers and the rest is up to the gear, not the other way around.
(Yes, I do understand the point you were trying to make... but I don’t think it is possible to truly separate the two because in the end, you only can hear the final product. B.B. King or Hendrix’s sound cannot be separated from their fingers.)

P.S. sorry for starting the oldest guitar debate on the beta thread. It was an accident!
 
Does anyone know if the Das Metall has been updated? Because of the changeover from listing amps that are done to listing the ones yet to be done, and listing them as the actual amp names, I'm not sure if it's done or included with the Silver VH4 on the current to do list
 
It may have been mentioned earlier but I can not remember having seen it in this thread with the very interesting discussion regarding "fingers VS signal chain" (guitar, cable, AXe FX III and outboard gear).
Have you tried to play with different guitar picks (materials, shapes, "angle of attac" (i.e. how you hold the pick) etc.)? My experience is that the pick I use have a large effect on my tone => same hands, same guitar, same signal chain. I mostly use a stone pick and switching to a plastic (or nylon) pick with roughly the same shape create a noticeable difference in the tone (motsly to the worse according to my taste).
 
It may have been mentioned earlier but I can not remember having seen it in this thread with the very interesting discussion regarding "fingers VS signal chain" (guitar, cable, AXe FX III and outboard gear).
Have you tried to play with different guitar picks (materials, shapes, "angle of attac" (i.e. how you hold the pick) etc.)? My experience is that the pick I use have a large effect on my tone => same hands, same guitar, same signal chain. I mostly use a stone pick and switching to a plastic (or nylon) pick with roughly the same shape create a noticeable difference in the tone (motsly to the worse according to my taste).
Yep. I've narrowed my use down to 5 or so different types: Dunlop T3 in .73 and .88, Dunlop tortex in .88, Dunlop carbon fiber jazz 3, and Pickboy carbon in .88. Even just between thr T3 (which is tortex, but with a jazz 3 point) and tortex at the same gauge I can hear a difference when I'm just sitting and noodling. In a band setting... Not so much.

With this stuff it's all just a matter of "what percentage of the overall tone is it responsible for?" And we might be able to notice the 2% thing in some contexts, but probably not others.
 
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So this.

The way you address the strings — with both your picking and your fretting hand — makes a significant contribution to tone.

Tone isn't entirely in your fingers, but your fingers do make a meaningful contribution to tone.

Exactly. I think that we are all at the same page. The issue is with the categorical sentence "The tone is at your fingers", because that is incorrect. Fingers just contribute to a percentage of the tone. A percentage that is more accused in some players with peculiar execution styles than in others with more standard execution.

Sometimes it is not easy to perceive these nuances that are product of the execution, so we complain when our presets or gear do not sound like what we expect. But the more we tweak the Axe-FX doing accurate A/B comparisons, the more our ear is trained. e.g.: I've spent many years pursuing specific Gilmour and Blackmore tones, and the closer I get to the "gear-based" tone, the more I learn about how to imitate their style on a more refined level, to get the "fingers-based" tone. We are privileged to be users of the Axe-FX
 
The SONG is in the fingers .
first you need to learn the song as good as possible, whatever the guitar and amp . The gear is the final step.
a easy example is smells like teen spirit . See how many people buy a mustang or whatever cobainish type guitar and play the intro riff badly
my main quest first was to play nirvana songs as close as possible to the original, and everything is in the fingers, the strum .
same for every band . If a guy is specialize in Hendrix and plays his song very well, gives him whatever guitar and he will be forever more close than any other guy who just buy his gear . Everything is in the practice . Yes the gears help, but not that much in the end . Like people saying you cannot do artificial harmonics if you don’t have a lot of gain and big humbuckers . That’s wrong . You can do artificial harmonics with a squier bullet in clean sound . You cannot buy guitar technique 🙃
 
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