Whose tone do you want?

[Stratoblaster]

Ritchie Blackmore's tone on the live studio video for "No, No, No." Such a brutal, yet expressive tone that sounds rude and punchy. A large (biggest?) part of that is the volume he is playing at with the amp coupling with the guitar I'm sure....

 

[jimbop]

Blackmores studio tones.
Weiss heim....Son of alerik...anybody there

 

[Sorenspete]

There's a video of Journey playing "Lights" that segues into "Stay Awhile" and Neal Schon's tone is absolutely incredible. Edge of breakup perfection - what I believe is his Les Paul Supreme (?) into what I could only guess is a 100w Marshall Plexi.



There's also Steve Lukather's tone on Kingdom of Desire (1992). I imagine he was using the CAE 3+ SE but he probably cut tracks with a variety of amps.

And just a reminder that the 80's was an insane time:

 

[AlbertA]

If you could dial in anyone's guitar tone, whose would it be?

I'll start:

Andy Timmons - clean and lead tones. ...

Yes!

 

[USMC_Trev]

I like 80’s-90’s wet guitars. When I grow up (I’m 50) I wanna sound like EVH/Satch/Vai/EJ/Schon and I’m always going back to August/Behind The Sun/Journeyman era EC.

 

[Brian Dean-O]

James Murphy - e.g. Since Forgotten (Convergence album)

 

[ruso]

Andy Timmons - clean and lead tones. I think Andy takes the best elements of Eric Johnson and makes them fit into more contexts.

Definitely these two.

 

[Brian Dean-O]

I considered asking what guitarists do you love but don't think they have a great tone.

I was specifically thinking about Randy

I also do love his guitar tone, but I don't think it's great.

Tony Iommi and Randy Rhoads both do and don’t fall into this category for me in that I love both of them but as far as their tone goes they both have songs that I absolutely love their tone but others where I’m really not crazy about it at all.
Just a couple of examples each where I love the tone:
Iommi - older stuff … Children of the Sea, A National Acrobat
newer stuff … God is Dead? and Bible Black
Rhoads - Revelation (Mother Earth), Diary of a Madman

 

[Brian Dean-O]

Phil Keaggy -
My Guitar’s In Love
When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God
Animal

 

[ruso]

I like the Andy Timmons stuff also! I burned on the Resolution album pretty hard but really like what he came up with. I feel a lot of what he does is in his playing technique.

He likes to use a lot of finger nail when picking. Watching his live performances, it adds a lot to his pick attack.

 

[Jon Kaneshiro]

Damn... I forgot Ian - Totally agree!

I love early Ty Tabor stuff, too. Although unless I was playing Kings X, I'm not sure if I'd use it... But his rhythm tones in particular are very nice.

Scott McKeon, massive and thick tone!

@Smeier_ch working on a tone match preset for this right now!

 

[Sixstring]

Another good one to try and cop is Brian May! Aside from the hands, unless you're really good with EQ you really do need the guitar. Just like Ty's early sounds, if you don't have the guitar you are missing a good part of it.

 

[DUC]

Garcia late 80s with a mutron

 

[LUKE D MILLER]

If you could dial in anyone's guitar tone, whose would it be?

I'll start:

Andy Timmons - clean and lead tones. I think Andy takes the best elements of Eric Johnson and makes them fit into more contexts. I love EJ tones but they only work well in specific scenarios. Seeing Andy live in an intimate setting at Vai Academy really showed me the bar for guitar tones.

Robben Ford - I love his lead tones from Talk to Your Daughter and Blue Line era.

Sonny Landreth - his solo sounds are amazing. If you've never listened to his instrumental album Elemental Journey, do it now!

Ariel Posen - a recent discovery for me. All his tones are great and full of character. Lead tones are outstanding. Headway and How Long are great examples of not only his great guitar but his writing and singing.

Joe Robinson - his tones are different from most and all of them are great: clean, edge of breakup, lead, acoustic. The Gemini Vol 1 and Vol 2 EPs are favorites. Excellent singer and songwriter, too.

Mark Lettieri - his clean sounds are probably my favorite these days and I also really dig his solo tones. Spark and Echo showcases a lot of great sounds.

Funny that I suck at slide but 2 of the guys I listed are primarily slide players.

I love Vinnie Moore's tone on his first 2 albums.......I read somewhere where he blended Marshalls & Rockman together....I have tried to reproduce that sound on the Axe Fx II & Axe Fx III together.....and it sounds pretty close.....lol ;-)

 

[paranoid]

I wish I could dial in my tone, so many choices I am always changing it.

 

[rcm78]

Ty Tabor has used different amps over the years but there’s always one commonality in his tones. To me it sounds like the mics on the speakers are out of phase or there’s a lot of room mixed in. Whatever it is it’s fantastic and I haven’t been able to get it out of the axe.

 

[duzie]

Is this a stellar lead tone or is the magic in the hands ?

 

[Old_Soul]

I'll chime in here...

SRV: Lenny or Tin Pan Alley... If I could play either of those, with his style and feeling, half as good as he did then I could die a happy man.

 

[bleujazz3]

In the real world, the FM9 can dial in most anything I'd need.
In my fantasy world, I've tried recreating David Grissom's DG30 amp tone via utilizing a 2 amp 2 cab setup. I think although the result is nowhere near how DG actually sounds live, it's warm, wooly, and complements my DGT SE well. The preset gets loud, just like DG plays, but I'm reminded the DG uses his volume knob so that he's playing mostly full on during leads, and only backs off on his volume for dynamics and cleans.

In a totally separate fantasy, I've got Eric Johnson's tone pulled up with dual amps and cabs with a limited number of effects. The key is to get the sparkling cleans of a VibroVerb, and that gutsy saturation of a modded Plexi 100W, tube driver and/or Fuzz Face included.

In between these two fantasies, I've got lab experiments with lots of questions, theories and test kits.

I'd need to revisit John Nathan Cordy's YT vids and search for his RF mention with the FM3, if two fantasies weren't enough.

When someone can include a Ritchie Blackmore patch (say, for Lazy), I think I'd just about found the ideal tones of my attainable heroes.

Well, that and toss in Pete Townshend's Live at Leeds tone somewhere so I can reminisce about the good old days.

 

[Jon Kaneshiro]

In the real world, the FM9 can dial in most anything I'd need.
In my fantasy world, I've tried recreating David Grissom's DG30 amp tone via utilizing a 2 amp 2 cab setup. I think although the result is nowhere near how DG actually sounds live, it's warm, wooly, and complements my DGT SE well. The preset gets loud, just like DG plays, but I'm reminded the DG uses his volume knob so that he's playing mostly full on during leads, and only backs off on his volume for dynamics and cleans.

In a totally separate fantasy, I've got Eric Johnson's tone pulled up with dual amps and cabs with a limited number of effects. The key is to get the sparkling cleans of a VibroVerb, and that gutsy saturation of a modded Plexi 100W, tube driver and/or Fuzz Face included.

In between these two fantasies, I've got lab experiments with lots of questions, theories and test kits.

I'd need to revisit John Nathan Cordy's YT vids and search for his RF mention with the FM3, if two fantasies weren't enough.

When someone can include a Ritchie Blackmore patch (say, for Lazy), I think I'd just about found the ideal tones of my attainable heroes.

Well, that and toss in Pete Townshend's Live at Leeds tone somewhere so I can reminisce about the good old days.

@bleujazz3 heres my Grissom preset!

I’m going to get a DG30 on loan soon to Tone Match!