What are your favorite guitar tones ever?

MattBowman

FAS Social Media Advocate
What are your absolute favorite guitar tones ever and have you tried to recreate them in your Axe-Fx III?
I've done a bunch of tone matches of some songs, but other's I haven't found isolated guitar tracks of and haven't attempted recreate. Here's some of my favorites:

Rhythm- Dream Theater "About to Crash Reprise", Extreme "He-Man Woman Hater"
Lead- Shawn Lane, Steve Vai anything off of Passion and Warfare, anything Eric Johnson or Andy Timmons, and as much as it may have been cheesy, I love old Paul Gilbert and 80s shred tones from the Shrapnel era
Clean- Eric Johnson "Manhattan"

So what about you guys?
 
Anything of David Gilmour would be my absolute favorite. There are always plenty of presets floating around which usually only need minor tweaking. Just bought a new one from Marco Fanton (member here on forum).
 
Anything of David Gilmour would be my absolute favorite. There are always plenty of presets floating around which usually only need minor tweaking. Just bought a new one from Marco Fanton (member here on forum).
I was just listening to Marco's gilmour preset, sounded incredible!
 
Eric Johnson
Robben Ford
Derek Trucks
Alan Holdsworth
Joe Robinson
Guthrie Govan
Sonny Landreth
Mark Lettieri
Ian Thornley

Those are the ones that come to mind first, in no particular order.

Guthrie is probably my favorite guitarist, and Big Wreck is quite possibly the most underrated band on the planet! Ian is just so incredibly amazing, I saw them on the last show of their 20th Anniversary Tour last year(funny as I saw them open up for Dream Theater in 97), and Ian was using an Axe-Fx II for all his effects, sounded so good!
 
Guthrie is probably my favorite guitarist, and Big Wreck is quite possibly the most underrated band on the planet! Ian is just so incredibly amazing, I saw them on the last show of their 20th Anniversary Tour last year(funny as I saw them open up for Dream Theater in 97), and Ian was using an Axe-Fx II for all his effects, sounded so good!
Yeah... Guthrie is probably my favorite, too.

I'm fairly new to Big Wreck and Ian, but the guy is immensely talented. I think he's got one of the best rock voices of all time, and he crafts excellent and interesting tones. And on top of that, he's a beast on guitar.

I should also add Mateus Asato... I only know him from YouTube videos, but he ticks all the boxes for me!

Joe Robinson has got great chops, great songwriting, a fantastic voice and a distinctive style. He's not very well known but he's probably my current favorite "artist".
 
...anything on Karnivool 'Sound Awake'
(5150 block though a 1960A, PRS CE 24 w/SD JB)

...anything on Eve 6 'Horoscope'
(Marshall 4x12 + Mesa 4x12, Guild SG)

...anything on Incubus 'Make Yourself'
(Mesa Tremoverb 2x12, PRS Hollowbody McCarty)
 
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George Lynch-Under Lock and Key,Back for the Attack era
Alex Skolnick- The Legacy, Return to Serenity Leads
Paul Gilbert Leads on Street Lethal album
John Sykes on the self titled Whitesnake album
Steve Clark and Phil Collen on Hysteria album
Dave Murray and Adrian Smith-Somewhere in Time album
 
I have a different approach to the question. Since I play in a cover band that spans from 60’s to grunge, I have to cover a lot of tones in an evening. So rather than specific artist tones, I have the following general tones:
60’s clean/slightly dirty tone with reverb - Fender double verb - Vox AC-30
70’s basic crunch/plexi tone - Solo 100 crunch, Plexi
80’s rock tones for metal (various Marshall’s - 34, JCM 800, etc)
80’s clean tones with chorus and delay - Roland Jazz Chorus and Delux Verb
90’s hard rock tone - Vintage Rectifier
90’s clean tone - triaxis clean tone - various effects
Modern rock sounds - Orange and Modern Rectifier
I also bought a few presets from @Moke for specific tunes: Boston foreplay/long time, journey/any way you want it and Tom Petty/American Girl. These are killer. With some minor EQ tweaks they are perfect.
There’s a few I missed but these get me through an evening pretty well. The beauty is that the Axe allows me to achieve really convincing vintage tones which really adds to the performance.
 
Vai's tone on Slip Of The Tongue
Ronnie LeTekro's tone on TNT's Intuition album
Vito Bratta's lead tone from Little Fighter
Mustaine's rhythm sound from Holy Wars

I'm not quite there with creating or re-creating tones yet. Watching Carter's AF3 class now so I can better operate the unit.
 
Andy Timmons
Kenny Greenberg
Joe Bonamassa when he was long haired and overweight
Joel Stroetzel and Adam Dutkiewicz For metal tones
Dimebag far beyond driven

Just to name a few
 
Santana hot leads where he uses a Boogie and a Dumble! Just THE tone I’d love to cop.

In addition
Matthias Jabs - Scorpions
Joe Perry - Aerosmith

And no, I’ve not really hit any of these tones dead, square on the head. But I’d love to do so!

Lee
 
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