Cover Band: Do you match the guitar tones?

Morbid

Morbid

Inspired
Just a quick question for the guitar players here who are in cover bands (not Tribute bands, but bands that cover multiple artists).

Do you go through the trouble of trying to match the guitar tones used by the band you're covering at that moment, or do you just stick with one general tone?

I would think trying to match the tone of each band would be chaos for the FOH engineer (if you're fortunate enough to have one), but I'm looking to start a new cover project for fun and wanted to get some input from those who are more experienced.
 
Somewhere in the middle. We cover a lot of territory and one general setup just wouldn't cut it. I use a mid-gain Vox or Morgan for close to half of the songs, but that won't really work for heavy stuff like Green Day or Pearl Jam, or conversely for cleaner tones or R&B/funk.

I'm not trying to "match" each tone per se, just get something in the ballpark and be somewhat consistent so the FOH doesn't go too crazy. (I hope ;-)
 
I try to get as close as I can on some tracks - others I have a "basic" tone - which is the Solo 100 ...
As long as all the patches are leveled the same, a sound guy shouldn't go too crazy with the different tones..:)
 
I try to find a happy middle ground.

The way I look at it is that if I'm not playing in a tribute band, I want my own "personality" to come through and the band to have a unified sound throughout the show. A big part of that is having a consistent tone, set of effects, etc.. If you're in a typical Top 40 cover band, you're doing the same songs that everyone out there is doing so having something that differentiates is nice.

On the other hand, there are certain songs where the gain level, tone, effects, etc. are pretty fundamental so I do have a few special presets just for those. A pretty typical example would be trying to do a U2 song without the right delay settings. I usually start off with copying one of my standard presets and then tweaking that to match the song requirements.

From a practical standpoint, I really don't want to bother with maintaining 50+ different presets and trying to make sure the levels all match perfectly not to mention that watching guitarists hunt for the right preset between songs is not fun for the audience.

Most of this stuff, 99% of the audience won't know the difference but I do feel like this stuff comes through at least somewhat subliminally even for the casual audience.

I think of this the same way as "should I play the original solo or make up my own?" Depends on the song. Nothing is worse than seeing a band covering some song with an iconic solo and the guitarist just lazily plays some generic pentatonic thing. Audiences do notice stuff like that. I try to weigh how important the original part, tone, etc. are to the song versus how much of my own personality I want to come through along with how much time I actually want to spend on this.
 
I tried that and it didn't really translate. I discovered the reason it wasn't working was because I was the only one changing. Just having one guitar match the record, and the other guitar/bass/keys/drums remain the same made my tones stick out or disappear. A guitarist who was filling in as soundman for us one night pointed it out, and said it was near impossible to get me into the mix because there was such a wide swing in my tones. That made sense to me, so I tried using just a few similar amps and got a lot closer to a cohesive sound.

I've landed about 85% in that one each clean/gritty/crunch/lead on all songs thing, with 3 or 4 presets I use for songs that are so distinct on the guitar tone it would make a big difference to not match. Everyone seems happy with the compromise.
 
No we use our own arrangements / tones and don't copy the record.

I like to woodshed on the key riffs and motifs of certain songs and might even learn some solos note-for-note if I feel they are iconic to me.

E.g. Black Magic Woman, The ABB version of Stormy Monday, Purple Haze, Neil Young Powderfinger...
 
Awesome. Thanks for the wonderful input fellas. I feel a lot more confident in sticking primarily with one sound now.
 
Matching everything would be a monumental effort if you want to get a good result, IMO. First, what do you match it with? Records? But that sound won’t necessarily translate well to live. Second, if you keep changing sounds during the gig, the sound guys will go crazy very fast. So ideally you need to work with them while creating those patches. And, chances are, they will change a lot. And when they do, what’s the point?

My opinion - unless you are some kind of a tribute band, avoid spending time on this.
 
vangrieg said:
Matching everything would be a monumental effort if you want to get a good result, IMO. First, what do you match it with? Records? But that sound won’t necessarily translate well to live. Second, if you keep changing sounds during the gig, the sound guys will go crazy very fast. So ideally you need to work with them while creating those patches. And, chances are, they will change a lot. And when they do, what’s the point?

My opinion - unless you are some kind of a tribute band, avoid spending time on this.
Click to expand...

I second this, also I feel like reporting this post because it makes too much sense.
 
This is a rabbit hole I have gone down many times in the past in my covers band – we have always tried to get an ‘authentic’ sound as this kind of added to the job satisfaction of churning out the hits, but always added our own twist to the arrangements / style.

20 off years ago life was simple JCM800 combo and a couple of pedals. This evolved into a surfboard covered in pedals. Then all the Line 6 stuff came along, then the Roland VG88, etc etc complexity and temptation in droves

Conclusion of this part of the tale is I spent more time mucking around with settings than learning songs – and playing live was tapdancing over pedals and kind of missing the ‘moment’ of playing live. Also you could argue that the audience, who are generally three sheets to the wind (drunk) at our shows cared not for the sound.

Then the bloody Kemper came along, and I get all caught up again – vicious loop as I could buy packs of the actual amps used to play these songs.

2 years later I’ve ditched it and gone to the AX8 which, if you strip it down, gives me a great sounding amp and pedal combo that covers what I need which in a busy covers band is a selection of Marshall, Fender, Vox and Mesa amps – with a sprinkling of effects to taste.

Reading back – what’s the actual conclusion to this brain dump – I can’t see the audience really cares but there is a sense of pride from a musicians’ perspective to do these great songs justice; and the Fractal suite of products does that in an easy to use package.

Rock on
 
Yes. Anytime I want a song to stand out and capture the attitude and vibe the audience remembers, I'll dedicate a rig and preset to that song. People love that, sounds great in the mix. 90% of my songs are done that way.
 
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