Strat/LP Sound Influence Your Preference in Bands?
 

I put this up on another forum, but got no love, so I thought I'd try it out here...

Imagine David Gilmour belting the outro of Comfortably Numb on a Les Paul. And imagine Slash rockin' the solos of Sweet Child O' Mine on a Stratocaster. The difference is subtle, but definitive of those two bands' sounds. Does a band's choice of an LP or Strat make you more or less inclined to listen to them?

i'm not more or less inclined to listen to someone based on their gear but you're right that it would be odd to see gilmour with a gibson. although i've seen him playing one on a dvd about dark side of the moon. i believe he uses a LP jr. for the solo on money.

either way it seems pretty ridiculous to consider the brand of gear musicians use as a determining factor as to whether or not they're worth listening to.

Not so much the brand, but the sound.

Tone is in the fingers. By that I mean those two playerrs would sound like those two players regardless of what they played. Same with many others.



Although if you realyl want your question answered: No. For a number of reasons.

1 - Most guitarists have no idea what they're playing, be it LP or Strat style.
2 - Even fewer can make what they're playing sound to its full potential.
3 - Most bands would sound just as crap whether they played millions of pounds worth of gear or not. A case in point is the user 'Imperium' on the megadeth forums. He owns a half stack and 6 guitars, all but 2 of which kick ass. Yet when I recorded my Viper 400 through a computer michrophone that cost me £5, it kicked the absolute **** out of his tone using proper studio mics, because I was using it better.


4 - The few bands that really do kick ass will always find a way to sound good even with terrible gear.


A good example of #4 is Mattias Eklundh. For live tours and so on he uses a Caparison Horus through a 100 Watt Laney Stack. For small clinics I've seen him use an 8 Watt 'Badger' amp, with a distortion pedal made in the USSR he bought for 15 dollars.

In both situations he sounds absolutely fantastic, if a little different.

it's still a ridiculous point of contention. if you took away the visual aspect of the music would you honestly be able to tell the difference?

musicians will use whatever gear that gives them the sound they're looking for in the studio. whether it's their own personal instrument, a rental, the producer's, or some piece of junk in the corner of the studio lobby. it doesn't matter, if it sounds right for the part it's used. when it comes to playing live the most significant aspect to their sound is their hands.

if you want to have a stratocaster vs. les paul thread make a poll.

Dude, chill. I can see this is making you upset.

And for what it's worth, yes, I can. Some listeners look for a sound the same way musicians/bands look for a sound and certain types of guitars make certain types of sounds. Some you prefer, and some you don't.

Perhaps I could have stated this question a little differently, i.e. single coil vs. humbucker sound. My bad.

so you can tell the difference?

led zeppelin - dazed and confused - what kind of guitar?

cream - crossroads - guitar?

Dude, you're missing the f*cking point...

But to answer you're questions, I don't know. I'm guessing this is a trick, so Strat and LP, respectively. Good job.

actually it was a tele and ES-335 and i still can't tell what the point i'm missing is.

that first led zep album was pretty much all done on a tele but it doesn't exactly scream 'country twang' like the traditional tele sound right? sounds mean and meaty like the les paul page is normally photographed with no?

as for the difference in sounds between single coil and humbuckers. it's still absurd and there's actually a technical reason for that.... a single coil running on its own creates significant buzz. in 1957 a gibson employee discovered a way to get rid of the hum, bucking it if you will, by wiring two single coil pickups together.

by the time the 60s rolled around guitar players were sticking matchsticks in their fenders to jam the toggle switch between two pickup settings to emulate the reduced buzz that humbuckers offered. to the point that fender redesigned their electronics to offer 5 way switches on strats.

like GB said, tone comes from the fingers.

while i don't doubt that you can pinpoint your favourite guitar players from their tone i really don't think anyone can pick out the gear they're using without seeing it.

The VAST, the INSANELY VAST differences between the rigs of two guitar players playing the SAME GUITAR, make your point completely fruitless. Steve Vai plays a humbucker equipped guitar. So did hendrix at some points, so does satriani, eklundh, michael angelo, michael romeo, even some of the legendary single coil heroes like SRV and Buddy guy used humbuckers on some studio recordings!

The differences between amp, strings, pickups in specific rather than just types, strings, body wood, playing style and touch make VASTLY more difference than you would implicate.

I guess I did ask, didn't I. Thanks guys, that was fun. Yeah, I know how humbuckers work. I've read about the matchsticks too. It was simple F*cking light-hearted question and you guys crapped all over it. Good job. Really.

I'd rather crap all over a thread and give out CORRECT, DETAILED information, than contribute to the already seething pools of old wives tales and snake oil there already is out there when it comes to the subject of guitar tone.

This thread began with you asking a question to which the only definite answer comes from the idea of 'I like this players tone and he usually uses this so I choose option A'

But as myself and Mr Dave pointed out, often production on a record isnt USING that guitar. Page might play an LP in the public eye but on record he could have been and frequently did use anything he wanted to at the time. Same with many many artists.

Not to mention that with the factors of studio magic, the poor quality of most peoples Hi-Fi systems, the reasonably low bitrates of CD, amp settings, double tracking, compression, mastering, mixing, etc etc etc.

Those things I just mentioned, coupled with many more, mean that anyone who can claim to say definitively 'This type of guitar was used on this recording' is lying through their teeth or has been otherwise informed somewhere. The amount of post processing and the differences in players rigs and settings and fingers, make it impossible.



Many people in a thread like this, will come in, and in a blind personal preferences stupor, will answer the question based ONLY on what they think is 'better', which is in turn their opinion because they've been told so by their favourite guitar hero that 'this that and the other are the best tonewise'

And of course because people are ****ing sheep, no-one except people like me and Dave, is actually well informed enough or has the guts to go against the established 'country wisdom' and actually DO THEIR ****ING RESEARCH.

What a silly, petty, and esoteric example.

Thank you for your courage, sir. Your examplary actions in the dense digital jungle have given us all something to which we can aspire. The medal of honor should soon arrive in your inbox.

well, just what is it you're trying to find out?

first it was about whether or not the kind of guitar made a difference in the bands we listened to, then it was about the difference between single coil and humbuckers in other people's music.

or were you trying to ask - do you find yourselves listening to guitarists who use strats more than les pauls or vice versa?

I was using a VOX AD30VT with a £5 microphone I bought from a computer shop. He was using a Behringer 4x12 half stack with a Firewire interface and a Shure mic, the model of which I forget. I was playing a Viper 400, he was playing either a DV8 or his RR5. He had better equipment than me on every level but his tone was terrible. Just nothing but buzzy, tinny distortion.

We both played over the same backing track. His tone was bluntly awful. I am well aware of how arrogant I sound without the sound clip to back it up I even understand what you mean about it being an obscure example, but it was the first thing that came to mind where i could make a direct comparison. I could post my recording no problem but it would prove nothing to you about his tone being bad. If its worth anything to you, he placed 2nd from bottom in that competition while I placed joint 5th of roughly 20/25 people.


And as for your second post...man grow up and quit nitpicking. I was making the point that in the world of guitar equipment theres a lot more people throwing around 'what they heard from this guy once' than there are people who've read up on things and know what they're talking about. An example is Gibson guitars. By reputation, they're nigh on perfect guitars with no flaws whatsoever in the world ever. By actuality, you can just go and look at the thread I made on the matter concerning their current quality control.

I'm not accusing you of lying about besting some anonymous person on a random metal forum. I just found it kind of funny that you used such a random example with which, most likely, no one would be, in the least, familiar.

As for growing up, I may someday, but for now I prefer directing snarky comments toward people who say things on the internet that I find silly.

GUTS!!!

Are you a stoner?

No, but people do ask me that question a lot.

Do me a favour. Never, EVER get stoned off your face. I don't think the world can handle that much fail.

I will. I'll do you that favor as a reward for the bravery you displayed by talking about guitars on the internet and we'll call it even. Cool?

*shrug* works for me.

Swell. I do think you make a good point about guitar tone on recordings being processed beyond recognition, by the way. I just like bustin' chops and whatnot.

i like smoking dope

post #333 - halfway to satan hahaha

I believe sentence one explained more about sentence 2 than you originally intended dave.

that's entirely possible hahaha although i'm a firm believer that it's all a matter of perception.

but does that really change the knowledge i have about the instruments i use? or just the way that i choose to use them? hehehe

What brand of guitar a member of a rock band uses has never affected my opinion of their music.

Kind of a strange question.

Hey, "Mr. Dave," check out Gilmour with the vintage LP w/ P90s:

Search "David Gilmour Island Jam" on youtube (Sorry. Can't post URLs, yet.)

I agree it shouldn't matter what gear a player uses but I can't stand the majority of guitar sounds created by Eric Clapton. I wish somebody would have just turned the mids up a bit and cut the treble down when he would solo on those records.

also, my $99 Rondo strat sounds pretty ****ing sweet... really can't hear a difference between that and the $2000 Fender Custom Classic I once owned. It's all a matter of how you treat the sound being amplified and how well you play... the rest is just cosmetic.

Gibson 335


The guitarist in my band has both a Strat and a Les Paul, He's also got a Patrick Eggle that wipes the floor with both of them, both tonally and sustain wise.
He prefers the Les Paul for most stuff, I think the Eggle is light years better.


Gibson 335

Amazing how a nice fat endorsement check can make you chasnge guitars!

do you notice a significant difference in your guitar player's tone when he switches instruments? (assuming they're all setup the same way and run through the same effect / amp chain). i know that when i'm playing with my friends when i switch spots with the bass player he still gets his own unique tone through my guitar rig.


is the eggle really that different from a PRS guitar? they look remarkably similar from what i can tell. harmony central reviews are saying that the only good ones are pre 1994 and that Patrick Eggle isn't involved in making guitars bearing his name anymore, then there's the fact that the PE forums are down due to legal issues...

Yeah, a massive difference between them all.

Don't get me wrong, they're all great guitars, which he doesn't change any settings for. The Strat is massively versatile, and has a few unique sounds, especially in the "in Between" positions on the selector switch.

The Les Paul has a bit more "Grunt" and sustain, but to my ears,the Eggle, (Yeah, I think it's a "proper" one), has a more "rounded and finished" tone, and beats the Les Paul hands down on sustain.Plus it has the coil taps, etc, which make it a more versatile instrument than both the others.

When he bought the Eggle he compared it side-by-side with a PRS in the shop - same amp, same settings, and the PRS lost the race "by a clear amount".

We spent a few years in a band with just Drums / Bass / Guitar, and it wasn't until he bought the Eggle that our sound was truly complete - my opinion, and that of some of our regular "Punters".

I guess in the end it's about individual ears and tastes.

it's all good and i'm i completely agree that it's all about individual taste.

i was mostly curious about the Eggle / PRS deal. hadn't heard about them before your prior post.

I don't really care, but I find I like more bands who use Gibsons.

i dont think it matters...you really should use both excluding a sound is dumb. if you have real tone it'll come through you're fingers

^ this is true. I remember back when I was in college, I was playing my fender electric in the lunch area (not plugged in) and a fellow student was at the next table. He said "you've always had great tone"... I said thanks, but I was kinda confused since I wasn't plugged in and then I realized he meant the sound of how I hit the notes. He was awesome so I think back at that moment when I feel like I suck :)