The value of "Tone", as it applies to electronic musical instuments

[big_teee]

I have yet to see a plausible argument supporting the premise that tone sells records. Covers sell more reliably than new recordings, if tone was the reason for sales, covers with different arrangements, different instruments, in a different key etc should be out of luck. It is safe to say that those who think it is the be all and end all of music probably are not the ones paying for the industry now with record purchases.
For example "Yesterday" by the Beatles has been covered more than 3,000 times, including by Joan Baez, Liberace, Sinatra, Elvis, Daffy Duck, En Vogue and Boyz II Men and all sold better than any song recorded by the people who say tone sell records. Can someone identify the "tone" that sold those versions?
How about "Cry Me a River" by Julie London from 1955? Covered successfully by Barbra Streisand, Joe Cocker, Aerosmith, Rick Astley, Bjork, Merle Haggard, and Olivia Newton John. Still no tone similarity I can find.
What "tone" between mastery do Willie Nelson, Patti LaBelle, Eva Cassidy, Eric Clapton, Chet Atkins, Tori Amos and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole have that made all successful covers of Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow".

Songs sell records.

Rap sells good!
But, I sure as hell don't listen to, or buy any of it!
Sales IMO is a terrible comparison for music and tone!
T

[Chuck H]

Thank you BT!!! I'm not sure where this whole thing got lost. Stan's point is that tone isn't important because it doesn't sell records. If you tell him that it's important for other reasons he'll simply reword, lengthen and retell how tone isn't important because it doesn't sell records... It's like being in crazy town!?! And I think this record is busted! It keeps skipping and repeating the same thing over and over.

Bottom line is that tone is very important. Every artist is entitled to their own subjective evaluation but it's important.

Stan? Instead of telling us why it's not important for selling something maybe you could tell us what it IS important for.?. I'll start...

Take away all the guitars and amps and pedals except for the Teisco Del Ray and the F51 Champ. Songs would certainly continue, but not in all genre. And guitar tone would suffer such as to be noted by many, many players and some listeners. No big box jazz, no metal, etc... Artisans all around the world try to make the best sounding instruments they can and musicians buy them. How is this explained if there is no value in an instruments tonality?

[Leo_Gnardo]

Bottom line is that tone is very important. Every artist is entitled to their own subjective evaluation but it's important.

Stan? Instead of telling us why it's not important for selling something maybe you could tell us what it IS important for.?. I'll start...

Tone IS important! The hazard is in thinking GOOD tone is important. What sells records? Now downloads?

What bothers the parents, that's what! Over 50 years of rock & roll, you'd think tone choices span 3 generations and are in general agreement. Nope, it's "what bothers the old folks" that sells. Goes for the riddim, too. The more herky-jerky the ip-p-ho-p the better the kids, AKA buyers, like it. Of course, there are exceptions.

[dmartn149]

Could we all agree that tone is important to musicians, and sells instruments, while songs are important to the general public, and sell records?

[Diablo]

If tone wasn't very important, Stairway to Heaven could have been recorded by Led Zeppelin playing accordions and saxophones.
The whole point of the electric guitar is that it doesn't sound like those other instruments.
If you like music with no consideration to instruments or tone, then you must love elevator music.

[Chuck H]

If you like music with no consideration to instruments or tone, then you must love elevator music.

It should be noted that this would be OK... But weird.

Actually that statement flips the considerations. Which is equally obtuse. It negates the craft of song which is Stan's point. To play devils advocate on his behalf, I think what Stan is saying is that the most important aspects of music are skill and passion. And I would agree wholly with this. But people aren't so simple as to operate with only one directive. The artists certainly have their priorities and the prime directive is music. Tonal considerations come next. Saying tone doesn't matter because it's not the FIRST priority implies there are NO other priorities. Which is a little absurd.

[km6xz]

The comment was that Tone does not sell records. It doesn't, but nowhere was there a reference to what is good, which is totally subjective and culturally based. I did not claim sales was a criteria for good music, but it is the basis of the music industry which supports the less popular artists that you might like better.

My only claim was that Tone did not sell records, and still with all the red herrings, twisting of words and strawman arguments, not one person has addressed that simple comment. Lack of tone is a crutch wannabes cite for the world not beating a path to their door or their bank account. It is fine if someone wants to have a hobby of nerding out about NOS tubes or such but they have no right to expect anyone to care about their "career" or craft if they are not more concerned about communicating something of value to the audience.

You are making really weak arguments by restating incorrectly the comments, you will have to admit you are just grasping at straws if you have to restate, with a twist to change the meaning.

[big_teee]

The comment was that Tone does not sell records. It doesn't, but nowhere was there a reference to what is good, which is totally subjective and culturally based. I did not claim sales was a criteria for good music, but it is the basis of the music industry which supports the less popular artists that you might like better.

My only claim was that Tone did not sell records, and still with all the red herrings, twisting of words and strawman arguments, not one person has addressed that simple comment. Lack of tone is a crutch wannabes cite for the world not beating a path to their door or their bank account. It is fine if someone wants to have a hobby of nerding out about NOS tubes or such but they have no right to expect anyone to care about their "career" or craft if they are not more concerned about communicating something of value to the audience.

You are making really weak arguments by restating incorrectly the comments, you will have to admit you are just grasping at straws if you have to restate, with a twist to change the meaning.

You're the one that got off track.
If you read the OP?
There was nothing in the OP that said anything about what sells records.
This was about tone, and I Presume what most of us amp and pickup guys thinks is good tone.
Tone is what sells a lot of amps, and Pickups, whether tone is subjective or not.
When someone wants to get me to make them a set of pickups, it always involves tone.
It never revolves around selling records.
They might refer to a band or guitar players tone, not the records they sell.
Example: Slash, Jimmy Page, SRV, or maybe J. Bonamassa Tone.
T

[km6xz]

Diablo, I will compare my background in predicting and influencing record sales based on wide audience appeal any day with yours. I am not idly guessing, having done it.
Elevator music has appeal because it keys into the emotional attachment riders have for the original song and it makes little difference if it was done with accordions or guitars, the same response is measured. The criteria that triggers the brain chemistry and electrical responses occur either way. The melody is the operative stimulus because everything can be changed, from instruments, key, tempo and with or without vocals and the very long term memory of melody has the same responses.

What songs have you performed with your superior tone that has been covered and featured in elevators and dogfood commercials?
By the way Stairway has been covered by many artists and groups with sales success using very different arrangements, and tempo and, yes, Tone.

And yes, I love all types of music if performed well and is written to mean something to me, regardless of genre, but I dislike most music because no matter what Tone is has, if is not a good song. Song writing is hard and has much more unrewarded effort than rewarded which explains why so few hobbyists put much effort into learning the craft and why no one but drunks at the local beer dive or their mothers would bother listening to them. People send me recordings all the time, several times a week to evaluate. 1 in a thousand will ever appeal to anyone not related to the writer. Who cares what the tone is or the instruments are if the song is crap?
I tell people about their songs and sometimes they are offended but not once in 40 years has someone come back and said, "you were wrong, here is my gold record" or "this is our most requested song". The first people understand if it is a crap song is the audience, the writer never seems to know. Producers make their living by weeding through an artists crap songs to find something usable. When the collection is weeded out from the 300 songs in their book, the producer's next task is to find at least one good song from independent song writers, a song that could, with work, be appropriate for the artist.

[Diablo]

Diablo, I will compare my background in predicting and influencing record sales based on wide audience appeal any day with yours. I am not idly guessing, having done it.

I'll counter you with an example of a tone that sold a million records - Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.
The fuzz tone!
Do you believe it sold because of the catchy melody?

My theory on "good" rocknroll is that there has to be something unique about the song, something new and creative.
One element of this can include a unique tone of a particular instrument or blending of the band instruments - what I call the overall sound.
Let's take Purple Haze by Jimmy Hendrix. Again, what melody? No, it's more about the novel sound of the band.

[Chuck H]

I strongly agree that a good song can carry over and translate to different instrumentations and even lilts in style or genre. I'll also say again that I believe a true artist will make music on just about anything good or bad sounding (subjectively and relatively speaking) simply by virtue of their skill and particular sensibilities. Ergo, a particular tone does not make for a good song and does not sell records.

The OP asked very specifically "Who thinks "Tone" is overrated as a "Quality" of electronic musical instruments and their accessories, and why?" I think the statement that any specific evaluation of tone is unimportant to the creation of music in a general sense and that it doesn't popularize songs is a valid observation and true enough to be a relevant addition to the OP's inquiry.

The discussion has become more finite, as they often do. And there are most certainly circumstances where tone is quite important and it's actually never not at all important. You're average death metal fanatic, player or not, is certain to notice objectionably if their favorite guitar player gave up their crunchy, high gain tone in favor of a clean jazz tone. And bizarrely continued to write and work in the death metal genre using this tone. I'll even predict that sales for that artist would fall regardless of the quality of the sheet music. Because it is genre specific the quality of the music suffers with the use of an inappropriate tone. Which results in poor record sales. So a bad tone (for an application) can detriment record sales. Ergo, a good tone (for an application) absolutely is important for record sales. So of course an artist in a specific genre is going to use an appropriate tone. And once an appropriate tone is sought it isn't much of a stretch to imagine evaluation of specific qualities of that tone. This is one step removed from what's necessary to the audience. An appropriate tone would be sufficient and of no detriment to an artists popularity. But it's important to the artist and I can't imagine how that doesn't seem related to you.

For what it's worth, no one has tried to evaluate what the qualities of good tone are because it's so diverse and subjective. Using the right sound to emphasize an artistic statement is provocative. And I absolutely do think this applies to the audience as well as the artist. There are a lot of different types of guitars and amps out there. If tone, or even only it's finite qualities really didn't matter there would only be one type of each.

[eschertron]

My theory on "good" rocknroll is that there has to be something unique about the song, something new and creative.
One element of this can include a unique tone...

I believe a true artist will make music on just about anything good or bad sounding (subjectively and relatively speaking) simply by virtue of their skill and particular sensibilities.

What I'm reading throughout this thread is a discussion of the quality of hookmanship that artists use to craft their music. For some it's the words or melody. This [Stan's main argument] has been the cornerstone of songwriting ever since there's been vocal music. Tone has been on the back burner as far as qualities that make a talent great, but I assert that Paganini would not have been a famous performer - stage presence and flashy playing notwithstanding - if he could not get a good tone out his instrument. I say an artist can make their mark on a piece of music by using a killer riff or the proverbial tone to die for. It doesn't have to be lyrics or melody. Whatever works, for the artist, is a tool the artist can use to hook the listener.

And please let my point out that in modern (at the very least) pop music, novelty is one of the main ingredients of the hook that captures attention. So novelty drives the need to create not only 'catchier' songs, but songs that are catchy in new ways. Effects boxes did that. Using conventional equipment in unconventional ways did that. New styles of music and new timbres were a byproduct of these and other changes in the way we make music.

The development of an appreciation of tone is one of the ways to identify and differentiate songs; the listener has yet another way to get pleasure from the experience. It takes cognitive training for the casual listener or the novice player to internalize and gain familiarity with these timbres [tones]. With recordings, we don't have to study with Jimi [or a disciple of Jimi] to appreciate and use Jimi's tone. We have the sounds recorded and preserved to use as absolute references, benchmark tones. With these benchmarks available to all of us, the individual then can make choices and rank by preference what they like and what they don't. Learning to appreciate tone and categorize it is not new - violinists (just to use one instrument as an example) learn to play well and sound good by listening to other violinists who's tone is respected. No one is born knowing good violin tone from bad.

I agree with Stan the tone is not important, IF it's not an essential ingredient in the created music. But I would counter that tone - here I think I mean conforming to a stylistic benchmark, ie, good tone for surf music, or good tone for death metal - is just as easily a very important part of the musical realization. Tone is just a part of the musical experience, and perhaps becoming obsessed with tone can diminish the overall effectiveness [read: marketability?] of the musical output.