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

[guitician]

Who thinks "Tone" is overrated as a "Quality" of electronic musical instruments and their accessories, and why?
Some discussion has been started in another thread here...http://music-electronics-forum.com/t35753-2/

[guitician]

Chuck H Wrote...
"What denotes "quality" if it can't be recognized by characteristics? Expense? I had a little Casio once. It had a bad switch that could be jostled to an in between position that gave a very cello like tone. I used it for some recordings because of that. It got the job done."

If you hear the tone and you prefer it over another then it sounds better, which means it has, to you, a quality tone. It may not have any characteristic about it you can accurately convey to others, like "Cello like".

[daz]

You know what "the zone" is? people used to use that phrase to describe those moments where you play effortlessly and your note choice and phrasing comes from no thought, just emotions, and it's as good as you have ever played in your life. Those are the moments we guitar players strive for. To many like myself, as a player it's THE goal. I assure you that in many player's case that is very dependent on getting great tone, and lets not forget that while it's rarely mention in tone threads, FEEL, the DYNAMICS your gear give you are of huge importance. In fact, so much so that i have had amps with lesser tone quality but great dynamics which i preferred over the better sounding amp. I've SOLD amps that sounded better than my main amp because my main had that touch. But touch/dynamics is part of tone and when we talk about tone we mean both what you hear and the feel. But that gets lost to some because not everyone is an experienced enough player to understand the benefits of a touch sensitive tone. Thats where a lot of the misunderstandings stem from. You get people saying "the audience can't hear that resistor swap you made today". And they'd be right. But they'd be dead wrong if they thing something that subtle can't send a guitarist's playing thru the roof. It can and it does with certain changes in amps, amp circuitry, guitar action, it's tone and feel, you name it. Everything that affects a player's ability to play his best IS VERY IMPORTANT regardless of who can or can't hear it. Thats what it's all about. I've spent 1000's of dollars over my 40+ years of playing on things i knew even I MYSELF could not hear if i listened to someone else play my rig. Bridges, tubes, etc etc.

So to ME, the importance of tone is no different than asking if the earth is flat or not. There is no question. Not to me or others like me. To some people, yes. Those who are new to playing or at least not a lot of years under thier belt, or a few older players who just can't tell for any one of a 100 reasons. But to those that understand and feel/hear great tone and play better because of it theres no question. Literally none. It's invalid to us. On a side note, i had a hand issue that happened about 15 years ago and led to my quitting playing out. It destroyed my playing about 80%. So for me it's even more important than others because it's become a mental block too due to the worry about whats happened to my playing./ So today part of the crippling effect is mental. And when my amp sounds and feels killer, you would not believe i'm the same player as when it's not. THATS how much tone matters to me.

[soundguruman]

Who thinks "Tone" is overrated as a "Quality" of electronic musical instruments and their accessories, and why?
Some discussion has been started in another thread here...http://music-electronics-forum.com/t35753-2/

There's basically two ways to go:

1. Musicians can hear a difference in tone. so they go for sound quality...studio engineer, record producers, audio hi fi audiophile...That's why there is Fender Amp...

2. Many people are tone deaf - and will never hear the difference. That's why there's Casio.

So you see, to some it's worthwhile. To others, it makes no difference.

Many technicians believe that the "sound quality" is ALL on the oscilloscope. AND, that there is nothing else...

AND there is musician who KNOWS there is much more to it than "specifications." They HEAR the difference that TECH never hears.
(because many techs ARE tone-deaf, and most techs are not musically trained.)

So, you will always get the tech who "declares" that there is no difference in sound quality....because the tech CAN'T hear it.
OR because the TECH knows nothing about playing guitar...etc...

Of course there are huge differences in sound quality. AND differences are recognized by musically trained ears. (not tone deaf technicians)...

What about a "Good Tech" who fixes sound equipment?
They can fix it, but many of them can't "hear it."

And that's why I say: "listening is half the job." It's the "other" 50%...that is so often ignored.

[guitician]

Yeah, I'm all about the "Zone" as far as my guitar amp is concerned and it has made me play better guitar over the last few years than the previous 20. And I wished I could have been playing such a tone machine then, but I lacked the knowledge, or experience. I started playing guitar when everything was going digital and amps were all SS and pedals/racks were what people were using. Yeah I knew about Marshall and Fender but those were "Old", and I was stupid.

[Mick Bailey]

Tone deafness is something of a myth, but is taken as the inability to distinguish between note intervals. The standard test is to play a note and then play it slightly sharp and then slightly flat. Someone who's 'tone deaf' won't hear the difference. It isn't directly related to the timbre of the instrument, which is largely what we mean when we say 'tone'. When I began classical orchestral training one of the drills was to identify notes and keys. Initially, many of my class (including myself) who were otherwise reasonable instrumentalists had difficulty with this, but it comes down to repetition and training.

It's a clinical fact that as we age our high frequency acuity falls off. A young musician will hear tonality that an older person is physically incapable of.

[JoeM]

Can't recall ever seeing a photo of Jimi with a soldering iron in his hand.

[guitician]

Yeah, Jimi didn't know tone at all. I'm just glad he wasn't debuting in the mid 1980's.

[JoeM]

With his skill as a PLAYER, it wouldn't have mattered if he debuted in the 80s, 90s etc.

[Dano]

I recently installed an amp system in a restaurant/bar that has 3 zones of 4 ceiling speakers each.
1 zone entails a high ceiling with metal and brick walls. The tone is very harsh and high pitched
due to the sound bouncing off the walls.

Zone 2 is around the bar and dining area, nice sound, works for the area.

Zone 3 is a room in the back, the sound is very warm with a natural bass tone to it.
I mentioned this to the owner and he asked me how he could get rid of it.
The walls are all wood and one of the speakers is located in an entrance hallway with an open
doorway leading into the room. The hallway seems to accentuate the bass with the doorway
acting as a port. The lower ceiling and wood walls help create wonderful mid tones and the 8”
ceiling speakers provide just enough high end to create a great sound environment.

I told the owner that people would pay hundreds of dollars getting a room to sound as good
as that. I think he understands now.

Yes I repair music electronics and am a musician, I perform on many musical instruments, yet my favorite is the piano.
I prefer a Gibson Les Paul with a Marshall tube amp for sound.
The electronic sounds from the past decade just don’t match up to the raw sound of a good
tube amplifier.

I read that the engineers at Fender tried to redesign the Rhodes piano to make it lighter
using plastic and eliminating as much wood as possible. Their prototypes were dismal, losing
that rich sound that Rhodes are noted for, and never went into production.

It seems in my lifetime, all the musical electronic repair persons I have been associated with
are all musicians. Maybe it's just this area of the world.

Sound and tone, to me is very subjective, which is why I refuse to do any modifications. A
musician has their own idea of what sound they want. They will read about a mod somewhere,
have it performed on their amp, then realize that the mod isn’t exactly what they thought they
read.

Just for kicks, I’ll learn to play Free Bird with my solder pen instead of the slide.
I already use my cordless drill for a section in Panama.

One last thought, if you want to perform music forever, learn some unplugged songs,
I don’t think there’s any wall outlets in heaven.

[guitician]

The electronic sounds from the past decade just don’t match up to the raw sound of a good
tube amplifier.

I think the good tube amps of the last decade can't match up to a great old tube amp.
Interesting story about that room. It's those "Happy accidents" that are responsible for a lot of what is great tone.

[Tooboob]

I dial in my rig, go to bed, get up, and it's not right. In either case, you probably wouldn't like it. The tone in your head isn't really there, and your preference is highly subjective.

I hear lots of Chinese speakers. I don't find the sound musical generally, and some Chinese women are very hard to listen to. I bumped into a Chinese news channel on TV, and a woman with a voice like that was a co-anchor. Apparently the sound I find so grating is at least pretty good if you're Chinese. I wish that Portuguese woman would use another language. The same thing goes for French men. I can imagine that the French and Portuguese find English rather rough (well, maybe not the Portuguese). My ear likes Spanish for speaking by either sex, and it's great for song.

The tones we value are idioms. Minors make us sad. Sevenths want to resolve to the root. Does a dog hear that? The scales we use, that have been perfected several times, are quite different from those used in other cultures. I understand that there are physiological responses at work, but I don't think they dominate.

The "great old tube amps", as they are frequently used today, are run way too loud. They are distorting, and the designer only let the volume knob go that far so that the amp would work with a low-output instrument. He thought you'd turn it down. Fender and Marshall were trying to make an amp affordable, almost above all else. They succeeded in hitting the price point, the amps became ubiquitous, and folks started turning them up. The fact that that tone became the target wasn't luck or amazing skill on the part of the designers, though they had quite a bit. What are the odds that the first try among many would be the best?

If Marshall hadn't faced import duties on 6L6s, the kids might not love EL34s.

It became an idiom. Part of the language. The tone speaks. A pipe organ makes you think of church or vampire movies.

So you get people that want to sound like player X trying to clone player X's rig, almost disregarding the fact that what speaks is fingers, strings, and wood.

An oboe sounds like it belongs in an orchestra only because it too has established itself as an icon. It takes an experienced player to make listenable sound from even a very good violin.

I'm a tone freak, but I understand that it is a very personal quest. I keep dialing in the same few tones, and my playing style varies directly with them.

They're generally only good for solo playing, with limited distortion, and lots of time-based effects. There's no concern for how they "sit in the mix". It's a good thing that there's no "mix", because I'd walk all over everybody. I am finding that most of the effects and amp compression are crutches. I tend to turn them off to practice, or even pick up an acoustic guitar for a real technique workout. I might play some smooth high-gain a little since the compression and sustain change the instrument so dramatically, and sends me in another direction. Then I switch on a proven tone, and I'm playing even better.

Tone is good. Tone has value, but it's not music until it expresses emotion, using whatever musical idiom is appropriate.

I actually have several amps, each for specific tones, but a few years ago, I argued here for amp versatoolatility. Someone commented that "It sounds like you haven't found your sound yet." I remember it, and took it to heart, but I remain a tone freak, first and foremost.

[km6xz]

I think you are one of the few on the forum who understands the subjective, cultural basis for sound preferences. You can tell the players who just play for themselves and not in a group, since the members of ensembles have to remain focused how their contribution to the total mix of sound out 20-50 feet away and usually that means not optimum for their personal preference hearing the local feedback. Jazz players are usually used to that, as are big band and orchestra members, who hear very strange acoustic mixes as their ear level.
I have made the point before, but refuted 100% by amateurs, that "tone" is a sonic character that only becomes appealing when associated with the song or material they heard that really touched them, and that character is sought as a reminder of emotional response to the song that also just happened to have that tone element, in addition to being a compelling song. If the message was conveyed by a kazoo or French horn, it would have not diminished the impact of the song.
When listening to recordings, you can think of many variations of arrangements, instruments, key and tempo for most songs, primarily because they mean nothing to us. But songs that do mean a lot, suddenly become a definition of how a song should be played, in what key, with what instrumentation etc and it becomes hard to think of what to change it asked to. Someone who did not get the same emotional connection to the song is also not so reluctant to change anything. That also explains why rehearsal halls reverberate with the exact same songs being practiced by similar aged players from years ago when they were becoming acculturated into music. An awful lot of 18 year old's can't see what the big deal is of much of the old rock, they grew up in an era where they learned from songs with different sonic, and musical features, and the same for the parents and grandparents who learned music tastes from big band and other cultural experiences that bound a community together. One of the reasons for the utter disunity of western society now can be argued to be due to the infinite number of isolated learning experiences, that the common cultural experiences that defined cultures do not have a critical mass of people who experienced them. Ask anyone growing up or living in a family in the 50s and early 60s what the name "Hoss" represents as an example of 1/2 to 2/3rds of people having the same experience at the same time every week. It was not an accident that Top 40 covered all musical genres, (Mrs Miller competed directly with the Beatles, Louis Armstrong, PP&M and nonsense songs on the very same radio stations) which now are fragmented into hundreds of non-overlapping genres and fans. Going to other countries if not saturated by Hollywood movies and celebrity music, one would see, and hear a very different common cultural preference for music tone...even scales.
I have also said, again the amateurs 100% in disagreement, that great song writers and performers are no where as concerned with "tone" the way dabblers are. They would be surprised how few had large racks of effects if playing guitar, or had a style tied to a specific amp or mod. Many musicians have large collections of exotic and rare amps and guitars, but none rely on those for their appeal. They collect them because they are collectors with a lot of spare money. But that universal assumption that the equipment makes the difference is what drives the marketing of new models and new features. It is the basis of the entire industry, appeal and encourage the notion that the gear makes the difference, when it does not, in reality, many any difference. It is almost a fact that those searching endlessly for the perfect rig, are doing so because they have nothing compelling to offer listeners, nothing to say worth hearing. If they spent 1/10th as much time on improving their song writing, they would have an audience. It has always been and will likely be, the most difficult and most ignored part of music, writing songs that means something to strangers.

[Chuck H]

I just want to iterate here, as I've done regarding this subject before, my own highly subjective opinion on the matter.

Artists tend to find some useful, musical quality in almost any tone. They are often intrigued or inspired by something a little different too. Something that may catch the attention of a listener is likely to catch the attention of the artist. Good artistry makes good tone.

On the other end of it I also believe that certain cultural ideals and perceptions develop regarding what is a good sound and what is a bad sound. To this end the attempt to make a perceptively and quantitatively "good" sounding amplifier is entirely justified. And by "good" I don't mean accurate. The inference specifically suggests that a guitar amplifier is a signal processor and distinctly NOT a reference amplifier (it's actually somewhere in between or both, but never mind that).

Here's the thing that either sides proponents refuse to accept... BOTH IDIOMS ARE HAPPENING AT THE SAME TIME

To one extreme the implication is that there is no tone until an artist makes it that way. That a good artist could just as easily break your heart with a Kazoo as with a guitar. And that the quest for refinements in tone creating tools is irrelevant. This, of course fly's in the face of reality when you consider how much of so many cultures has been dedicated to exactly that effort.

On the other extreme the implication is that some quantifiably good tone will equate to good music. This is obviously false as anyone whose seen a bad bar band guitarist honking away with expensive gear can testify. It assumes that a lack of good artistry can be countered with the quality of the actual sound.

In the end the juxtaposition is only worth considering for the individual. Obviously the best sculptor can't carve "David" from mud. He/she needs quality marble and chisels. And the quality of a canvas piece done by a bad artist could just as poorly be done with Crayons as fine oil paints.

The whole thing makes for a silly argument.

[guitician]

If the message was conveyed by a kazoo or French horn, it would have not diminished the impact of the song.

What we have is a case of "Chicken or the Egg". Tone came before the song, or did a song search for a tone? Classical music uses a orchestra full of refined tone machines for some reason. Couldn't they have just used a bunch of shells to blow through, and various kazoos? No, they knew tone and what impact it would have on it's listeners. After all they were higher socially...so why not musically.

Tone exists without music or songs. Tone is conveyed to me by hearing a single note played.