Anyone wanna chat guitar tone?

[jc30]

I am trying to find the right tone for my Les Paul. Ive been sitting here for hours messing with different amps and settings you name it. Please feel free to private message me. Thanks

[albee1952]

What tone are you shooting for? Give an example or two, like Eddie van Halen, Jimmy Page, Back in Black.....If we know the goal, someone can probably point you in the right direction, but it starts with the guitar and the player with something pros call "hand tone"

Also, if you are using a plugin amp sim, things can be very affected by the input signal, so let us know what your setup includes.

[pi-town]

I bought a 2008-2012 era Les Paul standard years ago. Sold the guitar pretty much immediately on account of the burst buckers. Impossible to get any sort of clean tone. Those pick ups always had a hairy/ratty quality.

Firstly, what tone are you going for and what amp do you have?

Gibson/Epiphone guitars sound great through old fender amps. Just saying.

[hurdy gurdy]

Yes, all of the above. Tweakhead is so right about string gauge.. It's fun noodling with fast light strings but a lot of big tone comes from heavy gauge (and of course the player). If not mentioned already, doubling your guitar parts/tracks and mixed right can create a big nice guitar.

Cheers and seasons greetings!

lb

[Darryl Ramm]

Uh guys lots of things affect guitar tone. But heavy gauge strings for heavy tone is a pretty sad old trope, Moore, SRV and Cobain and all that. There was certainly a fashion at a point in time. From folks who had glorious tone. And the swing away and back to that and away again in the gauge fashions. It's almost like carbon dating guitar players, tell me what they think about string gauges and I'll tell you when they started playing guitar.

As for Les Pauls, Gibbons with Pearly Gates and his other Les Pauls cranks out fantastic fat tones (my subjective opinion of his tone) with light strings. One of the neat things about Gibbons is he likes to mess with folk heads about setups and secrets of tone etc. because I don't think he believes all this type of crap. Practice, do what you want, learn. It's not copying somebody else's gear or some secret recipe that somebody else tells you. (and having a bad back like him, I like all his light very chambered guitars with fat glorious tone... fun for folks who hate chambered guitar "tone".).

This topic has been flogged to death in the past by guitarist, Gibbons has talked about it a lot, think Jake Kiszka has as well (He's playing a "'61 Les Paul" aka SG a lot) and getting great fat tones with 0.10" I think (so middleweight not light or fat). Frampton's light string era on his Les Paul Custom in Humble Pie sure sounded good. And on and on and on. Give an example of a thick gauge player with great tone and I'll give you another example of a thin gauge player with great tone. But so what, it does not matter. Do what you want, experiment.

And there is this fun shootout that Rick Beato did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGXj_NQONYM

The guitarist, amps, pedals, pickups, cabs etc. sure can matter a lot, scale length to some extent, fresh strings, string weight maybe, but solid/partial solid body guitar shape e.g. "les paul" vs other body shape, wood type, color of underwear, mother's maiden name, lots of those more minor details don't matter. But guitarist love to think they do. Don't focus on minor impact things if you trying to roughly dial in stuff. Somebody who is taking like they think their tone is way off, uh guitar string gauge is the last thing I'd be mentioning.

Now on a Les Paul.. what I do expect is if you want to tune down a Gibson scale guitar, sure heavier strings might help. Less buzz, easier to tune, practical things. And oh drop tuned fat tones can sound great. But say lets pick Neil Young on Cinnamon Girl. Damn I love that song. But ah not so fast. Is he using heavy strings on that or the 9's that he uses a lot? Was it a Les Paul or a White Falcon? Gibson Humbuckers or Filter'Tron pickups. Betcha his guitar amp mattered a way lot more. All stuff that might be fun to know but ultimately it does not matter. What matters is say if you want that a tone like that how can you get close to it, you don't need to copy stuff exactly or follow recipes.

But even more fundamentally this is a silly thread. What the hell does "right tone" or "right tone for my Les Paul" mean? I suspect the OP was not intending a DUC thread but more hoping for a live or online conversation with somebody. probably a rarity for DUC. But here "right tone" is a totally subjective call and a meaningless question to ask. Dave was the only person to ask for some clue what the OP was after and that was never answered. Starting where you think your tone is (even better give a sample) and asking for ideas about how to get it to change in some direction, especially to be more like... (give some examples...) then it might be possible to give answers that even make sense. Until then this is all really a waste of time.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Uh guys lots of things affect guitar tone. But heavy gauge strings for heavy tone is a pretty sad old trope, Moore, SRV and Cobain and all that. There was certainly a fashion at a point in time. From folks who had glorious tone. And the swing away and back to that and away again in the gauge fashions. It's almost like carbon dating guitar players, tell me what they think about string gauges and I'll tell you when they started playing guitar.

As for Les Pauls, Gibbons with Pearly Gates and his other Les Pauls cranks out fantastic fat tones (my subjective opinion of his tone) with light strings. One of the neat things about Gibbons is he likes to mess with folk heads about setups and secrets of tone etc. because I don't think he believes all this type of crap. Practice, do what you want, learn. It's not copying somebody else's gear or some secret recipe that somebody else tells you. (and having a bad back like him, I like all his light very chambered guitars with fat glorious tone... fun for folks who hate chambered guitar "tone".).

This topic has been flogged to death in the past by guitarist, Gibbons has talked about it a lot, think Jake Kiszka has as well (He's playing a "'61 Les Paul" aka SG a lot) and getting great fat tones with 0.10" I think (so middleweight not light or fat). Frampton's light string era on his Les Paul Custom in Humble Pie sure sounded good. And on and on and on. Give an example of a thick gauge player with great tone and I'll give you another example of a thin gauge player with great tone. But so what, it does not matter. Do what you want, experiment.

Thanks Darryl - this is what I was trying to get across when I got blasted for it by Tweakhead and deleted my posts here. Like BB King said to BG and the heavy gauge strings: 'why you workin so hard? in that video I linked to earlier. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al3tRlzOREg go to around 5:50

[albee1952]

Indeed, I would still like my questions answered. I have a friend that has much more money than talent and he is forever buying new amps and guitars(and not cheap stuff), chasing tone that he'll never find as it starts with his hands(every time I play his rig, he scratches his head on why it sounds so different). Re string gauges, maybe I'm an oddball(okay, its true) but I run 9's on my Gibson and Ibanez stuff and 10's on Fenders because I like to fight a little with a Strat or Tele as they just sound better(to me) that way. I kind of don't want a Tele to play as easily as my LP

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Indeed, I would still like my questions answered. I have a friend that has much more money than talent and he is forever buying new amps and guitars(and not cheap stuff), chasing tone that he'll never find as it starts with his hands(every time I play his rig, he scratches his head on why it sounds so different). Re string gauges, maybe I'm an oddball(okay, its true) but I run 9's on my Gibson and Ibanez stuff and 10's on Fenders because I like to fight a little with a Strat or Tele as they just sound better(to me) that way. I kind of don't want a Tele to play as easily as my LP

If I have to fight a guitar to get a good sound (aka the sound I want) I don't buy or use said guitar. That's why everytime I go into a music store and sit down to play a guitar I don't plug it in for quite a while. It needs to fit my hand and feel right elsewise plugging it in will be a waste of time. Just like happened when trying PRS axes back in the 90's - just couldn't get on with their necks.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by albee1952

... chasing tone that he'll never find as it starts with his hands...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwEsjN6BEaE

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by musicman691

If I have to fight a guitar to get a good sound (aka the sound I want) I don't buy or use said guitar. That's why everytime I go into a music store and sit down to play a guitar I don't plug it in for quite a while. It needs to fit my hand and feel right elsewise plugging it in will be a waste of time. Just like happened when trying PRS axes back in the 90's - just couldn't get on with their necks.

Heh, maybe "fight" is not the right word, but most every great Tele or Strat I have played has required a bit more effort than my Les Pauls and Ibanez(all upper end) guitars. I adore my Tele that takes some extra effort as the sound is worth it. I also will always spend time without plugging in. If a guitar rings well unplugged, its going to be good and if it doesn't, then it goes back on the wall My favorite LP is one I had no intention of buying. I was in a local shop to try an amp and just grabbed the first thing with humbuckers. After 30 minutes, I realized I couldn't put the guitar down, so it had to come home with me The crowning glory to that guitar came from a chat with a friend that was teching for Neal Schon and I mentioned I was thinking about trying some other pickups. He goes into his work box and flips thru a drawer and hands me a pair and says, "This is what Neal has in his guitars. Let me know what you think". Back to the Tele as I recently changed the wiring to have stacked volume pots. Being able to back the neck off(to 6 or 7) completely changed what its capable of in the middle position