Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:45 am Post subject: Okay, Let's Talk About Guthrie's TONE
What do you like about Guthrie's tone compared to some other players (no need to mention their names)? What are the characteristics, in your opinion, that gives his tone an identity that we can say are uniquely his own? It's not really not about the gear here although the gear certainly helps him get his sound, but I would not go as far as to say he's "dependent" on it. If Guthrie played a Fender Strat through a Marshall, I think we can all agree that he'll still sound like Guthrie.
The thing I probably dig the most is that his tone sounds organic, woody, natural, and uncompressed. I also like the emphasis on the high-mids. Personally, I'm not a fan of a guitar tone that emphasizes the low-mids or a sound that's too round. And I definitely don't like that thin processed 80's tone - active pickups going through a huge rack of high-end processors. Man, that kind of stuff makes me cringe. And I've come to see that stereo or W/D/W (wet-dry-wet) rigs are overkill and simply not necessary for live applications.
I see Guthrie, Landau and Scott Henderson these days and they're all playing stripped-down mono rigs with a few pedals and maybe one processor in the effects loop for the time delay kinds of stuff. Now, it's about squeezing the cool sounds out of the guitar and the amp with your hands. Effects should just embellish what you're doing in judicious amounts except for the occasional wacky stuff. I think that when you get better and better, you realize that you don't need all that fancy stuff. It's about what your hands can do.
When I owned and ran Tone Merchants, I had virtually unlimited access to the best gear possible and even set up some monster W/D/W rigs just for the sake of doing so. It was kind of fun but you quickly get tired of it. Then you see what Guthrie can do with just a guitar, a cord and an amp and you go, "That seems so much more rewarding!" There is nothing quite like plugging directly into the amp or with a minimal effects rig. Your attack is so much more immediate and responsive. You start hearing the woods and the steel block of your bridge and glowing tubes, not FET's, DSP's and ADA converters.
And another thing I really like about Guthrie's tone is that there seems to be a nice balance between preamp gain and the power section being pushed a good deal. It seems that's why Guthrie normally prefers amps in the 30~50w range. Unless you're playing really large venues, it's tough to push a 100w power section without blowing everyone else off the stage and annoying the hell out of the sound guy. Guthrie's tone isn't just preamp gain being amplified louder. There's a good interaction between the preamp and power amp stages. I'm telling you guys; from a gear/amp standpoint, that's the secret to a natural sounding guitar tone, even when you use a liberal amount of preamp gain, which Guthrie does as well.
Ultimately, it's in the hands, of course. Besides Guthrie, I've had the chance to see the likes of Landau, Henderson, Holdsworth, Verheyen, Garsed and many other great players setting up gear, doing the soundcheck, practicing alone, or testing gear, etc., and I've really come to the conclusion that at least 70%, perhaps as much as 80~90% of one's tone is in the hands or - more precisely - the player's approach and mindset to getting a particular sound. The tone they envision is in their heads and they know how to produce it. _________________ Ed Yoon
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Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 128 Location: da hood, Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:45 am Post subject:
I like Guthries tone because its relatively simple sounding, there's no excessive studio style delay or any shadings of modulation, its mostly just him into the amp with a few pedals in front. His sound has a definate Vintage vibe to it and its never over saturated with gain and compression.
Henderson and Landau? Simple rigs? No! Hendrix had a simple rig. Those guys have those switching boards and their racks and all that stuff, that is by no means simple! _________________ i'm going to rip off your beard nail it to a frisbie and throw it over a rainbow...
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Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 570 Location: gothenburg, sweden
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:20 am Post subject:
some quick refelctions.
ed, you're right about the upper mids and low on bass, as basic eq-features of his sound (i.e. not the same as tone . . .?).
but to me gg's one VERY identifiable feature, apart from his phrasing in general, is something that is both an aspect of his tone AND his phrasing. namely the attack produced by left hand technique. he has a very snappy, muscular way of playing legato, that gives his phrases a very identifiable attack. it's not at all the smooth, light touch sound of post holdsworth players (darryl gabel, or our own rick graham). he really plucks the pull-offs, even when playing at blistering speeds.
the quality of the tone has a lot to do with this, and this is also perhaps why gg is not playing with a too compressed tone, or relies on preamp gain exclusively.
bends and vibrato are also crucial to how an amp actually behaves, or at least to how the notes pop out, and gg's trademark quick vibrato and way of sustaining notes through bends really plays a huge part in his tone! more so than much of the hardware i guess. that at least explains what "tone in hands" mean, and gg definitely has tone in his hands.
tone and touch are not separate aspects of how a player sounds. brett garsed had a horrible sound in the early 90s, and now, with lower gain and a pushed power section he still gets the smooth legato he always had, but with a greater sound -- i.e. garsed's basic tone is very much in his touch, while most of us couldn't pull-off (pun intended) that kind of legato playing unless the amp was very forgiving.
interesting and just nerdy enough topic. but i must run away with my daughter to the nearby espresso bar, via a diaper change, so i'll wait for others to chime in.
a suggestion for a crude but pragmatic terminology:
sound: hardware
touch: hands
tone: what comes out, i.e. sound+touch
Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 570 Location: gothenburg, sweden
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:49 am Post subject:
loiking wrote:
Henderson and Landau? Simple rigs? No! Hendrix had a simple rig. Those guys have those switching boards and their racks and all that stuff, that is by no means simple!
landau has a bunch of rigs. from more elaborate w/d to a simple small pedal board before his amp.
scott henderson has a really simple rig these days. a few pedals in front, and a simple boss processor in the loop for mainly delays. even when he used the cae switching rig, it was still pretty simple if you look at what was actually in his chain at every given point/preset.
first time i saw scott live was in 92 when he toured with a HUGE fridge. he sounds SOOO much better now. in europe he has only used an od-100 and a pedalboard for a decade.
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: Re: Okay, Let's Talk About Guthrie's TONE
alexkhan wrote:
.
The thing I probably dig the most is that his tone sounds organic, woody, natural, and uncompressed.
I see Guthrie, Landau and Scott Henderson these days and they're all playing stripped-down mono rigs with a few pedals and maybe one processor in the effects loop for the time delay kinds of stuff. Now, it's about squeezing the cool sounds out of the guitar and the amp with your hands.
Ultimately, it's in the hands, of course.
I think that just about sums up why I admire Guthrie so much (besides the music). Before Guthrie, I was really into John Petrucci, and while I still admire his playing and musicianship, I can't stand all that gain and compression being pushed into a guitar's sound. Everytime I see or hear a guitarist with that much gain/over-compression, I cringe at it!
Players like Landau, Guthrie, Scott Henderson and (to me) Jeff Beck, only further the theory that tone really is all in your hands. Anything else besides the guitar and amp should be treated as an add-on to your basic sound. Letting the guitar's natural organic qualities react to your hands playing them, plus the sound of the amp is enough for me any day.
It's interesting to read opinions on the 'EQ' side of Guthrie's tone. I love the fact that it has alot of snap, bite and bounce, something obviously with his accentuation of higher mids.
Cool topic for discussion! _________________ "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him a spinal cord would fully suffice." - Albert Einstein
This is an intriguing thread for me because when I first heard Guthrie, his tone forced me to go back and rethink my rig for the same reasons that Ed mentioned.
Here are the things I hear:
1. A dry, mid-emphasis tone that cuts through the mix. If it was wet, it wouldn't cut through. If it was flat, it wouldn't cut through. A friend of mine compared Guthrie's tone to a chain saw (the pleasing attributes ) that just grinds and cuts through.
2. I think there's something essential about a properly-voiced EL84 amp that makes Guthrie unique. At the risk of being somewhat of a reductionist, it seems like most high gain players gravitate toward EL34s and 6L6s. And the reason I say "properly-voiced" is that most EL84 amps I've heard sound a bit different from what Guthrie gets out of the Cornfords...same general tone, but just different in minor yet distinctive ways.
3. Guthrie's picking technique is definitely a major part of his tone. A lot of guys who play in his speed range just have a very snappy, percussive pick attack, but Guthrie's is more rounded.
Before Guthrie, I felt that just taking a combo amp and gigging really cheapened things, but now it is rather satisfying.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:37 am Post subject:
You guys all bring up good observations regarding this subject. After all, a player's "tone" or "sound" is like a singer's voice. Besides Guthrie's style and his command of the instrument and music in general, his tone is something we find attractive or we wouldn't be here. There are many singers I admire but if I don't really personally like his/her voice, I most likely won't listen to that particular singer.
That Tone Merchants clinic on Jan 24, '04 was obviously the eye-and-ear-opener for me. It changed my perspective on guitar playing, guitar music and guitar tone in general. Until I saw Guthrie doing that clinic, I used to have somewhat of that "more is more" mentality when it came to guitar sounds and gear: big powerful and versatile multi-channel amps, Eventide and TC Electronic processors, W/D/W rigs, sophisticated switching systems, MIDI programming, etc. And here comes Guthrie plugging his old PRS directly into a typical half-stack and pulling out more cool sounds with his hands than anyone I've ever seen pull out of a monster W/D/W rig.
Yeah, it is a dry sound. It's tough and almost abrasive around the edges but that can be tamed by how you attack the strings with your picking attack and how you hammer and pull off with your fretting fingers. Cornford amps make you work hard to get the tone, but it's very rewarding when you're accurate with your technique and you understand the subtleties of your instrument and the responsive characteristics of the amp. As Guthrie stated in the alloutguitar.com interview, he doesn't like amps or a sound that flatters you or makes you sound faster than you really are. And haven't we all played through those kinds of amps before?
I kind of liken what Guthrie does to a skilled jockey controlling a wild and temperamental yet a studly thoroughbred horse. You have to really work that horse to do what you want it to do and you have to really know what you're doing, but when you do, the horse is extremely responsive and you thoroughly enjoy the ride. I've plugged into Guthrie's rigs and, let me tell you, it isn't an easy rig to play through. When I hop on that horse, it would throw me right off. I can say the same about Landau's rig. They both like the challenge of fighting their rigs and controlling it, kind of like a circus master controlling a lion or a bear. There's some rawness there and it's up to them to wring out that refined sound that we love to hear. It all actually makes what Guthrie does that much more impressive and inspiring. He really works for every note. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:59 am Post subject:
sumis wrote:
some quick refelctions.
ed, you're right about the upper mids and low on bass, as basic eq-features of his sound (i.e. not the same as tone . . .?).
but to me gg's one VERY identifiable feature, apart from his phrasing in general, is something that is both an aspect of his tone AND his phrasing. namely the attack produced by left hand technique. he has a very snappy, muscular way of playing legato, that gives his phrases a very identifiable attack. it's not at all the smooth, light touch sound of post holdsworth players (darryl gabel, or our own rick graham). he really plucks the pull-offs, even when playing at blistering speeds.
the quality of the tone has a lot to do with this, and this is also perhaps why gg is not playing with a too compressed tone, or relies on preamp gain exclusively.
bends and vibrato are also crucial to how an amp actually behaves, or at least to how the notes pop out, and gg's trademark quick vibrato and way of sustaining notes through bends really plays a huge part in his tone! more so than much of the hardware i guess. that at least explains what "tone in hands" mean, and gg definitely has tone in his hands.
tone and touch are not separate aspects of how a player sounds. brett garsed had a horrible sound in the early 90s, and now, with lower gain and a pushed power section he still gets the smooth legato he always had, but with a greater sound -- i.e. garsed's basic tone is very much in his touch, while most of us couldn't pull-off (pun intended) that kind of legato playing unless the amp was very forgiving.
interesting and just nerdy enough topic. but i must run away with my daughter to the nearby espresso bar, via a diaper change, so i'll wait for others to chime in.
a suggestion for a crude but pragmatic terminology:
sound: hardware
touch: hands
tone: what comes out, i.e. sound+touch
.
You bring up very good points. Let's try to break it down in the manner you described to analyze Guthrie's (or that of any other player) tone.
I think Guthrie consciously tries to blur the line between his legato playing (hammer-ons and pull-offs and tapping) and his staccato playing (alternate picking, sweeps, and pick-and-fingers technique, etc.) to the point where he could use either ways of playing to get virtually any sort of sonic result that he's aiming to achieve. Like you said, his legato playing often sounds snappier than most. His picking technique sounds smoother than most although he's clearly picking every note with authority. It seems that such an approach gives him a wider palette of sounds at his fingertips without having to adjust the volume pot on the guitar or changing the pickups or stomping on pedals or switching channels on the amp. He really does make you think more about your own approach to the guitar. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:47 pm Post subject:
sumis wrote:
loiking wrote:
Henderson and Landau? Simple rigs? No! Hendrix had a simple rig. Those guys have those switching boards and their racks and all that stuff, that is by no means simple!
landau has a bunch of rigs. from more elaborate w/d to a simple small pedal board before his amp.
scott henderson has a really simple rig these days. a few pedals in front, and a simple boss processor in the loop for mainly delays. even when he used the cae switching rig, it was still pretty simple if you look at what was actually in his chain at every given point/preset.
first time i saw scott live was in 92 when he toured with a HUGE fridge. he sounds SOOO much better now. in europe he has only used an od-100 and a pedalboard for a decade.
.
Here's Scott's rig these days - just updated on his site:
It really is a pretty simple rig. You can click on the photos for a blow-up. The pedalboard consists of mainly some boost/OD/fuzz pedals and the cheap but great sounding Arion chorus pedal. The Boss RC-2 Loop Station is only used for sound check before the gigs. Scott plays some stuff through it and plays the loop through the rig. He then goes to the house board to tweak the EQ and the mix while the loop plays so he knows exactly how his sound is coming through the house PA.
The Boss SE-70 on top of the Suhr SH100 handwired 100w head is the only thing in the effects loop - mainly for delays, pitch-shifting and some wacky stuff. A line mixer is used so that the SE-70's wet signal travels parallel with the amp's dry signal. So, basically, the the line mixer converts the loop into parallel.
As for Landau, here's a photo of him tweaking his very simple rig before a Baked Potato gig last week.
All he's got on the pedalboard are: A Boss volume pedal, the red RMC Wizard wah, Roger Mayer Voodoo-Vibe, Roger Mayer Voodoo-1 distortion (used mainly for clean boost), a Maxon SD-9 Sonic Distortion (which he'll swap with the Fulltone OCD every now and then) and the Arion chorus.
In the rack for the W/D/W set-up, he seems to have some sort of a compressor to smoothen out the signal going to the Lexicon MPX-1, which does the post-distortion delays and reverb. The Marshall Valvestate power amp is amplifying the wet signal going to the two side cabs. In a real small venue like that where you mainly hear his rig (not the house PA) it does make sense to have the W/D/W for more ambiance. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
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Guitar Center Inc.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 2783 Location: Chino, CA
Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 6:33 am Post subject:
Well, getting back to Guthrie, I want to comment on Guthrie's sound and tone (two distinctive things) at the clinic/shows he did at Tone Merchants during NAMM with the new Cornford Roadhouse 30 amp. I stood directly in front of the cab just to hear him better and he sounded fabulous. There were no effects whatsoever and he had commented before the gigs that he enjoys the challenge of playing plugged direct into the amp. Ah, yes, Guthrie the guitar warrior - totally fearless! Seriously, how many of us are willing to do that in front of a Tone Merchants crowd during NAMM?
Guthrie's sound was big, fat and organic. It was actually the biggest and the fattest I've heard of him yet. It was smoother around the edges but still had that distinctive high-midrange cut. That Roadhouse 30 is a winner. It sounded full and really let the character of the guitar come through. There was more juiciness in the midrange. It wasn't as dry as I had heard of Guthrie in the past. And the funny thing is that there were no effects at all; just Guthrie plugging straight into the amp. He did have the Boomerang plugged into the loop but that was rarely used.
What I mean by "juiciness" is that bounciness of his sound, especially during the sustained notes of certain passages. It still tracked his hyper speed passages remarkably well, but when Guthrie slowed down for some tasty phrasing, there was this pleasant bouncy character in how the amp responded that sounded really, really good. I've seen enough of Guthrie live now to know that he does sound somewhat different depending on what amp he's playing through, whether it's the Hellcat, the MK50 II, RK100, or the new Roadhouse 30. They all sound good, but I do think these different amps make Guthrie play a little differently too.
Last year at TM during NAMM, Guthrie played a trio gig with Seth on bass and Joel Taylor on drums through the MK50 II. Besides having Joel drive him in a different manner than normal, the MK50 II made him play with a really aggressive and veering-off-the-edge type of kinetic energy. The sound was in-your-face and notes were tight and shooting out of the cabinet like a laser beam. It was reminiscent of early McLaughlin in terms of energy and aggressiveness. This year, the sound was greasier and bouncy in comparison but you still knew it was Guthrie. I can't say that I really like one over the other...
Guthrie's tone has been improving in the same manner his overall playing and musicianship have improved over the past several years. His tone now has more body and more low-end but still clear and defined. It's hard to get a thicker tone while maintaining the clarity and the tracking for the really fast stuff, but I think Guthrie is finding that happy balance now. Some people who are fans and tone snobs have said in the past that they think Guthrie's tone is a little on the thin side, but those people who saw Guthrie this year at NAMM didn't say that this time around. And they were even more impressed because Guthrie didn't rely on any effects at all. Yes, believe it or not, Guthrie will continue to get better and sound better as well... It's good to be alive. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
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Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 128 Location: da hood, Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:58 am Post subject:
I spose me and you have a different idea of simple. To me simple is Guitar-less than 4 or 5 pedals-Amp
Last time i saw Hendersons rig it was guitar-some wierd shit-pedals-amp _________________ i'm going to rip off your beard nail it to a frisbie and throw it over a rainbow...
www.myspace.com/thephantomagents
Compared to rigs like these, the rigs that Scott H and Landau are using these days are primitive and something any relatively experienced player could put together by oneself without any "expert" help. _________________ Ed Yoon
Certified Guthrie Fan-atic
BOING Music LLC - Managing Partner
.strandberg* Guitars USA
Ed Yoon Consulting & Management
Guitar Center Inc.
Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 570 Location: gothenburg, sweden
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 8:02 am Post subject:
loiking wrote:
I spose me and you have a different idea of simple. To me simple is Guitar-less than 4 or 5 pedals-Amp
Last time i saw Hendersons rig it was guitar-some wierd shit-pedals-amp
still a bit ot, but when was the last time you saw scott on stage? up until mid 90s he had a big rig w/ preamp/poweramp and a huge rack.
but for at least the last ten years, his SIGNAL CHAIN has been very simple. even if he up until last year still used his bradshaw switching system, it was still a simple system, and more importantly, only there for efficient switching -- the signal chain was always simple: simple pedals and the boss unit in the loop for mainly delays.
Joined: 23 Aug 2005 Posts: 128 Location: da hood, Melbourne, Australia
Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:52 am Post subject:
Simple sounding yes. Simple to wire up or whatever, probably not. Im just commenting on the last thing i've seen, which were those vids Scott did for the RC Booster and whatever. And Michael Landau has got a really nice tone, and ive seen one rig of his which was fairly simple, and a few other rigs which were gi-normous. Compared to some other John Petrucci esque rigs there simple, but compared to most rigs i.e SRV,Cream era Clapton, Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi its fairly complex. I use these players as an example because there very Mainstream and very famous and they have very famous and recognisable tone. _________________ i'm going to rip off your beard nail it to a frisbie and throw it over a rainbow...
www.myspace.com/thephantomagents
Man, what a great thread this is... I'm soakin' everything up and you've all put so eloquently. I replaced my thin-ish Bill Lawrence L500 in my alder N4 with the Aldrich pup and the lessons just keep on coming. My tastes in tone are evolving as I get older (now 3 and after hearing Greg Howe using Cornfords to get his dark jazzy fusion sound w/o pedals in front, I'm really excited to try out the 30W Roadhouse head...big time. Petrucci is a great writer but his tone these days is flat...lacking that 'greasiness and bounce' that Alex put so well.
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There is nothing quite like plugging directly into the amp or with a minimal effects rig. Your attack is so much more immediate and responsive. You start hearing the woods and the steel block of your bridge and glowing tubes, not FET's, DSP's and ADA converters.
) that just grinds and cuts through.
and after hearing Greg Howe using Cornfords to get his dark jazzy fusion sound w/o pedals in front, I'm really excited to try out the 30W Roadhouse head...big time. Petrucci is a great writer but his tone these days is flat...lacking that 'greasiness and bounce' that Alex put so well.