Ultimate Tone ?!?

[cminor9]

Yeah, but then what would you build nights & weekends?

Here's another one: Spoon. Pretty much all their records have Grade A guitar tones.

+1 on spoon.

I believe that just because you like a tone, doesn't mean you want to sound that way. Of all the people I mentioned, while I like their tone, I personally don't strive for that. Maybe certain bits and pieces, but you've gotta find your own voice.

[yunger]

jimi hendrix - bleeding heart at royal albert hall. something about that show was untouchable...acoustics, cranked amp, i don't know. gotta mention machine gun at the fillmore as well.

kenny burrell playing clean in midnight blue and girl talk. of course this guy could make any amp sound good.

zztop - blue jean blues

roy buchanan - almost everything but particularly five string blues.

these are the first that come to mind anyway.

[Robert M. Martinelli]

I just realized I forgot Eric Johnson's clean Strat sound on "Manhattan".

Cheers

Bob

[sportster4eva]

I'm going to mention a couple of my faves just for grins.
REM's Monster album.. I don't know why but I just love it.
James Gang's Rides Again album. The intro to "The Bomber" is just scary good.

[kleptocracy]

I may not be after the same kinds of sounds that a lot of you are. But there's a lot of tones I love that I'm not interested in recreating myself, and you guys have hit a ton of 'em here: Hendrix on Red House for sure, Dick Dale in general, Mark Knopfler in general, etc.

BUT...may favorite tone of all time is some seriously slick sludge courtesy of a little three piece called Floor: YouTube - Floor-Scimitar Give that clip 30 seconds, and then realize that's all guitars. No bass. No studio wizardly. That's just two guitars. That tone slays me.

I'm not sure this qualifies as a "clean" sound, though it's surely not a hi-gain sound, but check out the guitar that comes in at 5:41 in this clip: YouTube - Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Moya

[Chuck H]

Wow... I'm STUNNED by all the entries. There's sooo much diversity.

Hasserl get's kudo's for choosing all live clips. If you can do it live...

Everything is killer in it's own way. Vive la differance to those outside the "box". But some entries I have to scrounge around for. I had hoped to keep this within the range of "air play" so EVERYONE could get the mental image... "Oh yeh, that IS a great tone"...

But at this point I'm loving all the entries. So if you have an obscure one, try to include a link so we can hear it without too much effort.

I'm not trying to set any rules or anything. I'm just trying to keep this thread interesting for all viewers so it doesn't die out. I'm sure anyone reading this wants more just like I do.

Chuck

[PremiumPlus]

Can I play twice?

Jeff Beck, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.

I heard it this morning as I left for work and can't get the TONE out of my head. What a sound...

[anthillrich]

i want to add two more sounds.
Andy Summers tones are incredible. use any police album as a reference.

and then there's a sound from the 80's that i cant help but love. it's that real thin/percussive sounding clean strat/tele tone. ultra clean plinkity plinkity rhythm guitar sound. uh, think "Holiday" from Madonna. yes, a guilty pleasure. feel free to poke fun.

[Loogie]

Anything that comes out of Bill Frisell or Mark Knopfler.

[R.G.]

Wow... I'm STUNNED by all the entries. There's sooo much diversity.
...
I'm just trying to keep this thread interesting for all viewers so it doesn't die out. I'm sure anyone reading this wants more just like I do.

(a) I'm not sure everyone wants more.
(b) Why are you stunned?

The perception of tone is much like, um, noses, I guess. Everybody has one (or more!) and they're all different. Just as importantly, what they think of someone else's doesn't have much to do with what a third party thinks of the same nose. Being stunned at the diversity seems ingenuous to me. Basically, every musical tone ever recorded *was* recorded because someone thought it was great tone at the time.

At a more academic level, it may well be impossible to ever share the perception of tone. Not only can there never be any disagreement about matters of taste, it may be impossible to ever know what someone else hears a tone as. For an example, read a bit on the paradoxes of musical pitch. Start here: Diana Deutsch's Audio Illusions : Musical Illusions and Paradoxes : Deutsch's Tritone Paradox.
When people can't agree on whether two notes are ascending or descending, it starts looking bleak for thinking they hear the same thing, doesn't it?

So IMHO the only purpose of prolonging a thread of "hey, list what you think is great tone" is prolonging the thread for some reason.

[Steve Conner]

Anything that comes out of Bill Frisell or Mark Knopfler.

Woot, another Bill Frisell fan

But yeah, what RG said. This isn't an "ultimate tone" thread, it's a "My favourite tone" thread, and the distinction is subtle but important. It's the kind of distinction that starts flamewars, if not world wars.

[theunrulychef]

It's the kind of distinction that starts flamewars, if not world wars.

[Chuck H]

Hey, Take it easy R.G. Who pissed in your Cheerios. I just posted supporting you on another thread too. And I'm now getting "ingenuous" back. Don't be a needle at the baloon party. Sure it's kinda bubble headed, but we're having a little fun.

And as for "stunned", it's true enough for many of the entries. It's fun for me to hear how each tone has specific properties that the players exploit. The marriage of the tone and the player creating something greater than the sum of it's parts and all. Makes me think as a builder and a player about how to approach the whole picture.

I'm sorry you don't want more. But why would you bother with an inflamitory post? It's something I have considered. Mabe you will too.

Steve, your right about the title not representing the thread. I'd change it if I could. But this isn't a really meaty or serious thread anyhow.

Peace

Chuck

[Steve Conner]

Oh well, in the spirit of the thing, I'll offer several tones that I think deserve to be called "ultimate" in one way or another.

James Hetfield's rhythm guitar on older Metallica stuff, before they cut their hair and started hanging out with Bob Rock and playing through Leslie speakers. It's not pretty or boutique, but for sheer brutality, I give it a cookie.

Eric Clapton on the Beano album. Bridge pickup on a Les Paul, tone knob all the way down, treble boost pedal, cranked JTM45, say no more.

Wes Montgomery on anything. He had a unique tone to start with because he used his thumb and fingers instead of a pick. I once heard a recording of his on a radio jazz show where he was playing live through some old broken-down amp that was distorting quite a lot. The result was possibly the fattest, greasiest jazz tone I've ever heard, that still stands in my mind as a benchmark for what I'd like to sound like myself. The radio DJ just thought it was "great in spite of the distortion."

[defaced]

This is one of those guitar tones you don't make an album out of unless you're a drone band, but for one song of a certain emotion, this is ace:

YouTube - SOUNDGARDEN 95 LIVE - 4th July - Stockholm