Other People's Presets

Let me tell you a story as well. When I was about 13 or so I got a new guitar teacher and until that point I had been kind of a "shy" guitar player picking pretty lightly and so on. The new guitar teacher is a known blues guitarist in my town with an ego and he essentially laughed at me and said "you won't break the guitar with those tiny muscles, what are you afraid of? play it like you mean it. do you think anyone will want to listen to you play if you're playing that apologetically?". Now at that time I was a bit young to understand how important that feedback was but that was a huge turning point. That's when I started realizing that I could imitate other guitar players depending on how I play my guitar and in a way we're all imitating our favorite guitar players just like singers do.

Why am I telling this story? "Shy" playing or let's just call it what it is "wimpy hands" is a sickness some guitars have that can't be rescued by even the best presets or IRs on this planet. You can place a compressor block in your first slot to try and fool some people but the problem is, you'll know that it's there and you'll be living a lie.
 
brettllingle said:
I am a bit curious as to why there seems to be a huge difference in sound from other presets I have tried from Axe-Exchange and on the forums here. Listening to others play via videos or sound examples they sound killer. However when I try them they are thin, fizzy, no bottom end etc. ect. I understand that everybody has their own way of using them either frfr, or through a real guitar cab. I also understand that what sounds good to you in your bedroom may not necessarily translate well to a band mix. I have experienced this myself. When I play with the band obviously it is much louder so you have the Fletcher-Munson effect and I wind up having to turn down bass and mids and boost the high end a bit. I hate that ice pick to the ear sound with lots of high end and even though I play in a heavy band I prefer a warmer tone with more mids and bottom end. But should it be such a huge difference in sound? Someone posted a preset for the Dream Theater Fatal Tragedy solo and it sounded dead on however when I tried it, it sounded as stated before thin, fizzy, no bottom end. I use two Xitone cabs btw and Majesty Guitars. I love Mark Day's videos and the sounds he gets also Leon Todd's. But it is the same thing with those presets.
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Possibly input levels. Either due to pickups or input gain in settings. I experienced this when re-amping the same di into the same patch and I under-drove the input.

EDIT: anyone else notice that editing on iOS isn't working? The text doesn't scroll and you end up typing off screen and can't see what is going on...
 
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There are some people who just seem to dial in more usable presets. For example, I would say that I like the majority of Leon Todd's patches. Whereas, others I have tried to use tend to sound kind of boomy or whatever. Maybe we just have the same taste in tones.
 
Cliff and I were recently listening critically to a tone in the presence of another expert listener. Cliff was playing. He handed the same guitar to me. The tone changed dramatically. The low end was entirely different. The place where the kids sat felt very different. It was quite an interesting moment for us both.

I was reminded of the advice given by one of my favorite producers: before you mess with different mics, before you change the cab or amp, before you change the guitar... change the PLAYER.
 
chris said:
We can disagree.

Tone is in the fingers. Yes tone. For very simple playing, like basic chords, there may be no difference.

Yet, I hand my acoustic guitar to my partner on stage through my rig, and his pick and his playing style including left hand technique makes a completely different tone. Acoustic. No effects. Different tone. It just is. *shrug*
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*shrug* - what the heck is - *shrug* ?! An acoustic sounds completely different when played by someone else? Anyway, sounds like we have completely different definitions for tone then. I'll stay blissfully un-enlightened and won't waste your time any further. *frown*
 
Interesting. @Admin M@ade me think of an old memory.
I remember an instance where my band was playing , and I realized the other guitar players tone was awful. What the heck is wrong with your guitar. I took it from him , played a few riffs , and it sounded amazing. Best tone ever. Then I proceeded to hand him back the guitar ( a slightly awkward moment ) . and change the subject.
I think it’s usually guitar / pickups / monitors though.
 
JoKeR III said:
*shrug* - what the heck is - *shrug* ?! An acoustic sounds completely different when played by someone else? Anyway, sounds like we have completely different definitions for tone then. I'll stay blissfully un-enlightened and won't waste your time any further. *frown*
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I’m not the only one saying it in this thread. Frown all you want. But please frown at the other people too, not just me.

As I mentioned, we are probably defining tone differently.
 
hussamd said:
I downloaded Mark Day's latest preset last week and had to make some adjustments to the bass and EQ before it was usable on my setup. To my ears the Bass is always too high on most downloaded presets. What I get from these presets is interesting ways of using the effects. They are a starting point at best and very helpful.
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That's the exact opposite of my issue. I always feel the low end is lacking.
 
Agree on the picks. I was working on really picking up my tremolo picking technique. Started working on making smaller pick strokes to get more speed, control, and responsiveness. I started seeing results and realized the attack was now weak because I was not imparting as much energy with the pick strokes. I was using Dunlop Jazz IIIs. I auditioned a bunch of different picks and when I got to the Dunlop Prime Tone Jazz IIIs, that was it. Got back to a very nice, aggressive attack again.

As for the frethand. Not sure what @ML SOUND LAB meant by “wimpy hands”, but I find that by fretting with a light touch, I get several benefits: my playing sounds better overall, legato is more fluid, fast playing is much easier, minimizing fretting finger movements is easier (what I think of as economy fretting), and pieces just feel easier to play.

I do not see using a light touch as playing “wimpy”. You can have a light touch and still play very aggressive phrasings and passages. I think of it as a difference between being aggressive toward the guitar and being aggressive in your playing.

I find that the more aggressive I get with the guitar (pressing down hard when fretting, gripping tightly) the worse I both sound and play.

Now playing tentatively and without confidence? That sounds horrible in my opinion. Was at a GC the other day, there was a teenage kid playing and he was new. You could see he was not confident and was very tentative. You could tell he knew what he was playing, but he was not selling it and you could hear how nervous he was. I talked to him and found out he has been playing for 6 months. I told him he was doing well for six months of playing and when he started playing again, his posture was more confident and he sounded better. True. Story.

TL;DR: +1 for the player is part of the tone chain.
 
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Capt Nasty said:
As for the frethand. Not sure what @ML SOUND LAB meant by “wimpy hands”, but I find that by fretting with a light touch, I get several benefits: my playing sounds better overall, legato is more fluid, fast playing is much easier, minimizing fretting finger movements is easier (what I think of as economy fretting), and pieces just feel easier to play.

I do not see using a light touch as playing “wimpy”. You can have a light touch and still play very aggressive phrasings and passages. I think of it as a difference between being aggressive toward the guitar and being aggressive in your playing.
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I think he was referring more to the picking than to the fretting.
 
I got it in a variety pack I ordered from them just to try it out. I was initially really skeptical of its usefulness but it works *really* well for certain things, especially tremolo picking with even dynamics. I was recently using it on a cover of Misirlou I was recording.
 
Kamil Kisiel said:
I got it in a variety pack I ordered from them just to try it out. I was initially really skeptical of its usefulness but it works *really* well for certain things, especially tremolo picking with even dynamics. I was recently using it on a cover of Misirlou I was recording.
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Right on. I was just just joshing. I have a variety of metal picks that are pretty thick and certainly quite stiff.

Another dimension? They are brass, copper and stainless steel.
 
I think how hard you pick, pickup type, and pickup height change how it sounds. My friend plays though my rig and it sounds like less gain because he picks significantly softer than me. When he plays through his Les Paul it sounds even lower gain still. He has vintage sounding pickups and they're pretty low whereas I have hot pickups and they're closer to the strings.

I also think there's something to be said about listening vs playing, and liking something something vs liking it for you. I like my friend's tone when I listen to him play, but I dont like playing through his setup.
 
Kamil Kisiel said:
I think he was referring more to the picking than to the fretting.
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I was referring to both but mainly the picking hand. Also having power and determination in your fretting hand is important and MUTING. Some people absolutely need a noise gate, reverb and a dark/scooped guitar sound for reasons that should be IMO fixed by changing your technique.

1) You can use both hands to mute the strings when you're not supposed to play them - no need for a noise gate in most cases if you master this technique.

2) Playing with a relaxed confidence can sometimes be one of the most difficult things to do. If you're nervous you'll sound clammy and sloppy and some people use delay and reverb to try and cover this up. I know it's a lame sentence but "it's rock'n'roll" so if you don't have "that attitude" when playing then it's limiting your tone. "A cool tone" starts at how you strum the instruments.

3) Being aware how much you control the sound of your guitar by playing in a dynamic way takes years of practice. Make the sound work by playing lighter if it's too bright or if it's too dark you'll have to pick harder. This is why setting things in balance is super important so you have the maximum amount of dynamic control with your picking hand but this is exactly what leads to the "wimpy hands" problem. If you're always picking lightly or in a clammy sloppy way, there's no preset that can fix that. So usually when I see people with really dark tones and especially overly scooped guitar tones it's a guitarist that has a very light picking technique.
 
sprint said:
OMG!
I have wimpy hands!

I'm doomed!
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I know your joking of course, but, I think it’s worth pointing out that no one is really doomed. Lots of famous guitarist have created some unique and successful styles around their physical limitations. When you can’t play like other people, you play like yourself, and sometimes that sets one’s riffs apart. Would Sabbath of had that same classic tone and riffs if Tommy didn’t have that accident back in the day, or did working around that help shape their sound ?
 
There are a lot of different mechanics/techniques. There is not one universal truth IMO.

I see EVH’ tremolo picking technique and could never do it. I can use the mechanic that I have developed and get the same effect, but my technique is still totally different.

In identifying something negative in my technique (a lack of attack) I was able to find a way to compensate for the negative by finding a pick that provided the attack I was looking for.

So I guess that I too have “wimpy hands”, but I have ensured that they do not negatively impact my playing.
 
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