I fully believe that there is such a thing as objectively great tone. You hear it in an amplified electric guitar’s great clarity and depth, a harmonic content that is sweet, compelling and exciting to the ear without ever being harsh or shrill, and excellent dynamics with an expressive blend of attack and compression.
This is not to say that there’s only one type of great guitar tone. You can achieve it with near infinite variety. It’s also not to say that a tone which we might rightly assess as stellar makes it appropriate for all music.
Consider Larry Carlton replacing Dan Auerbach’s guitar parts on the Black Keys’s “Tighten Up,” or Eric Johnson overdubbing Kurt Cobain’s solo on Nirvana’s “In Bloom.” Not what we want to hear, right?
That being said, we do tend to equate “classic performance” with “great tone.” However, I’ve often found that, through the rose-colored fog of hindsight, we frequently misremember the actual quality or character of many of the seminal guitar recordings of the 1960s and ’70s.
Which is to say that plenty of classic recorded guitar tracks and other performances from legendary guitarists exhibit awful tone… but no one notices because the playing is so good. We remember the achievement of the performance – its artistry, its creativity, its originality – and without regular reference to the actual recording, our mind’s ear assigns stellar tone to the work, too.
Don’t Shoot The Messenger
Please note that this is not intended as a critique of the players in the following examples. This exploration intends primarily to examine our preconceptions about “great tone,” and how we might form those preconceptions from certain subjective distortions of aural recollection.
Along the way, though, it also intends to honor the talents of the artists mentioned by declaring that an outstanding performance can rise above the objectively cringeworthy tone with which it is presented.
Despite this disclaimer, I still expect some outrage, of course, so lay it on in the comments section. Part of the fun here is stirring the hornets’ nest. I’ll admit that right up front.
But please do go back and listen to the examples given along the way. And try to really listen to the bare guitar tone out of the context of the performance before deciding whether that sound is something you’d actually like to emulate in your own playing. Or, perhaps, is it an undeniably dire tone that has been elevated by truly outstanding playing?
With that, let’s do some listening. We’ll reconvene for a debriefing after.
Getting Down to Business
Eric Clapton with Derek and the Dominos: “Layla”
This was a huge hit. From the guitarist once referred to simply as “God,” it’s a song that still commands major airtime on classic rock radio. The original recording captures an outstanding performance of a great, energetic, and compelling song laced with infectious riffs and great playing.
Outstanding tone, though? Listen objectively to Clapton’s opening riffs, and it’s hard not to hear a buzzy harshness in the upper frequencies, paired with a certain lack of body in the rest of the tone. All of which lends a character to the guitar overall that most of us would consider unpleasant if we’d heard it out of context. In context, it works, sure. But it’s not objectively “great tone” by any stretch of the imagination.
Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”
More tilting at sacred cows. This is a great, great song. One of the all-time most powerful rock songs ever recorded. Absolutely seminal stuff, I’d say. Yet, really listen to Page’s guitar tone at the opening, and more or less throughout. It’s cringeworthy, right?
Be honest. Those opening phrases (and I bet they loomed large in your mind’s ear before you actually hit the link to listen again) are fizzy and flabby and very light of girth. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much better throughout.
Kudos for the guitar sound in the solo, which is fired up and unhinged. But I’m willing to bet that if you could play like Page, you’d achieve something equally exciting with any decent and small, single-ended tube “practice amp” and a good booster pedal. Regardless, this is a legendary tune, and for good reason.
Jeff Beck: “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” (Live)
This example is from a live performance, so it bends the premise just a little. But I wanted one cut to illustrate the timeless nature of cringeworthy tone. There’s no denying the guy’s artistry, and the expressiveness of his technique. Jeff Beck is one of our most respected upper echelon rock guitarists, and rightly so.
As heard throughout the single-note opening segments, though, his tone is unnecessarily fuzzy, muddy and indistinct. And those chords at the 3-minute mark? As artistic expression, great. But please, don’t even try to defend that as decent tone when even “mediocre” would be doing it a kindness.
Keith Richards with the Rolling Stones “Sympathy for the Devil”
Here’s one selected by the readers of Guitar World for their list of the “50 Greatest Guitar Solos Ever,” and they weren’t wrong. His solo is inventive, frenetic, wiry - a driver of the song’s edgy energy.
However, if Keith Richards stepped up on stage in a small club and played you this exact thing on the exact rig with which he recorded the original all on his own with no accompaniment, you’d have your fingers in your ears by the end of the first lick. Harsh, thin, obnoxious, but still the stuff of legend.
Peter Green with Fleetwood Mac on “Black Magic Woman”
I have much respect for Peter Green’s tone on many cuts and for his playing in general, but consider what he lays down on this undeniable classic. If the guitarist in a local cover band gave you this kind of shrill and piercing tone, you’d be out the door pronto, asking for your money back on the way. You probably wouldn’t even tip your waitress.
Again, don’t get me wrong. This is great, emotive playing. I’ll admit that the chords and lead fills are tolerable and actually sound quite decent in places. But that intro note to the solo at 1:20. Ouch! It’s thin, hollow (yeah, we all know about his famed out-of-phase setting), and utterly girthless.
It’s something very different, I’m willing to wager, from what your mind’s ear conjures up when “Peter Green’s tone” is mentioned in conversation. That said, it does its job well in a song about a spooky woman – but great tone, it is not.
Play It, Don’t Spray It
Ultimately, I hope you’ll see this as an affirmation of the wonderful potential of the guitar, for one thing. For another, it’s even more an affirmation of the creative potential of a great guitarist.
For all of the tone chasing that many of us do on the net – all of the discussions regarding how to reach the final nuance of sounding like this or that legendary artist – when you critically listen back to the original playing, it’s the actual playing that wins the day. Not some elusive magic in the supposedly hallowed tone.
Part of the point here, too, is that back in the day when the archetypes of classic-rock and blues-rock were being laid down, guys were reaching for emotion and expression and a sound that was at least distinctive, something that would help their playing stand out. But they were doing so at a time when there was really very little refinement at work in the field. These guys were grasping at inspirational chimera, squeezing out sparks, and just hoping to catch your attention in the process. And they did, right?
These days, we’ve all scoured the online gear demos for the most pure and elegant tones imaginable that have been laid down on vintage Les Pauls and Stratocasters through Dumbles and Trainwrecks and Komets and vintage Marshall Plexis and tweed Bassmans. As a result, “great tone” is now a high art, even an end in itself.
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At the End of the Day…
So here’s my final point, and what I’ve really been getting at all along. I imagine we’re all capable of producing tones that are either similar to, or possibly superior to, the ones we’ve heard here. So why continually chase that side of the equation?
Ultimately, doesn’t this little exploration tell us that we all might want to concentrate a little more on our playing and a little less on perfecting some nebulous concept of “the perfect tone?” I, for one, intend to.
Or, at least, I will once I find that new amp that finally makes me sound like…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dave Hunter
Dave Hunter is a writer and musician who has worked extensively in the USA and the UK. The author of The Guitar Amp Handbook, Guitar Effects Pedals, Guitar Amps & Effects For Dummies, The Gibson Les Paul and several other books. Dave is also a regular contributor to Guitar Player and Vintage Guitar magazines.