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Lessons I’ve Learned

April 25, 2019 by GoofyDawg

I’ve been playing guitar for almost 50 years and have been performing publicly for over 40 years. In that time, I’ve learned some valuable lessons that I thought I’d share.

There’s always someone who’s better

This is the ego check I give myself to ensure that I never get complacent and always stay humble. It’s not that I spend time comparing my skills to other guitarists’ skills, but if I found that if I let my ego get in the way, I stop learning. Simple as that.

You will never sound like the original artist

And that’s a good thing. The sound of your voice and the sound of your instrument come from YOU. I get that in some cases you want to at least get an approximation of the original artist’s performance for context’s sake. But your sound is yours. And especially with guitar, your hands are different, your strings are different, your gear is different. So own it!

Learn to get the most out of what you have first

Having gone the route of buying tons and tons of gear and eventually selling off 90% of it (though I’ve kept most of my pedals because I still like them), only to realize that I had everything I needed in the first place, I’ve learned to take a much more measured approach to gear. I now spend countless hours trying to discover different ways to eke out all the different sounds I can get with what I have. If there’s a sound that I just can’t get, then and only then do I look to new gear. By doing this, I discovered sounds I never thought possible with my existing gear, and all it took was learning techniques to achieve those sounds.

I give this advice a lot, especially to young players. For instance, one of the kids in my church band has been buying up gear at an alarming rate. He has the means, and most of the time, I’d just say que sera, sera. But this kid has the potential to be a GREAT guitarist one day, so I was honest and told him to take the time to discover the sounds he can get from his current set of gear before he moves on.

Never play in an altered state of mind

I was in a cover band a couple of years ago and we did a gig where I got drunk off my ass on half a bottle of bourbon. I thought I was ripping it until I heard the recording at our next rehearsal. I was SO embarrassed. My bandmates laughed and were very gracious, but I sounded like a hack! I vowed then and there that I’d never perform in an altered state of mind again.

And even if I don’t play drunk, I spend about 15 minutes before a performance getting myself emotionally centered. Extreme emotions can affect your performance in a bad way, especially negative emotions like anger.

Your gear is what YOU make of it

This is related to the section above about getting familiar with your gear. But this takes a different tack: Don’t ever be embarrassed by what you have. You will encounter several gear snobs – especially on the gear forums – in your life who will tell you to get such and such guitar, or as soon as you get a new guitar, swap out the pickups, etcetera, etcetera. Just remember that “truth” is purely subjective. We all look through the lens of our own experience and while it’s not wrong to listen to what other people volunteer, it’s their truth, and in the end, you’re the one who has to play your gear and more importantly, you’re the one who made the investment in the first place. Free advice costs nothing for the giver so be careful on the value you place on it.

So just remember this: If what you have inspires you to make music, then that’s all that matters! Anyone who tells you different is just a frickin’ wanker!

If it sounds good, it is good!

Yeah, I’m copping Duke Ellington, and I’ve written entire articles around this phrase, but it’s important so I’ll keep on repeating it. This phrase especially applies to the tube vs. digital/solid-state amp debate but can be applied to just about anything such as boutique pedals vs. mainstream pedals. Doesn’t matter. If it sounds good to you, and like I mentioned above, if it inspires you to make music, then that’s all that matters.

Especially with the tube solid state vs. digital/solid-state amp debate, bear in mind that some guitar greats such as Joe Satriani and Buddy Guy have used solid state amps. You’re not going to tell them their tone sucks. So please, don’t get pulled into that kind of thinking. Keep an open heart and mind, and you’ll open yourself up to a big, wide world great gear!

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In Memory of Preston Thompson

April 15, 2019 by GoofyDawg

At noon today, I received an email from Preston Thompson Guitars. I always look forward to these emails because they usually contain news on their latest builds or cool stuff they’re working on. Plus, having met Preston Thompson at his shop in Sisters, Oregon a couple of years ago, I have always fondly remembered the time my youngest son and I spent in the shop learning about the guitars he and his team had built.

But this email was sad; announcing that he had passed away on April 11th. While I only met him in passing, and even though we didn’t have a long conversation, what I took with me when I left his shop was this sense of awe of the instruments that were being built in his shop.

I had the privilege to play one of his “Shipwreck” Brazilian rosewood guitars that was slated to go out to a customer. Based on the 1937 Herringbone Dreadnought, the deep lows and crisp highs, combined with an enormous projection was just about the most amazing acoustic tone I had ever heard. I couldn’t afford the $10k he was asking for it, but to be able to just play one of those fine instruments was simply inspirational.

They even had a custom-made ukelele for my son to pluck at, and we had a little father-son jam in the shop! Needless to say, we both left with big smiles on our faces.

Preson Thompson’s legacy will live on through his family and the wonderful team working at his shop. I wish them all the best!

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Cleaning Your Guitar

April 5, 2019 by GoofyDawg

If you spend much time on forums, you’ll see threads occasionally popping up about cleaning and maintaining your guitar. Based on the threads, it seems that there are some folks who are absolutely obsessive about cleaning and oiling their fretboards, like every couple of weeks. But having spoken to my guitar tech and a couple of luthiers about this very subject, they all seem to be in agreement that people tend to clean and oil their guitars way too much.

My guitar tech put it this way: “Think about it. Your guitar is like a nice piece of furniture. In fact, the wood used for making a guitar – especially the fretboard – is almost always a higher quality than used in furniture. But even if you have a furniture piece that’s made of high-quality wood, how often do you clean and polish it? Generally, you just wipe it down with a soft cloth to remove the lint and fingerprints and what-not. The same applies to a guitar. Wiping it down regularly with a soft cloth will prevent gunk building up. Oh, and please remove pick and skin dust from your playing area.” He directed the last statement specifically at me because I’m notorious for not cleaning that area. 🙂

I got that lecture a decade ago. And since then, I followed his advice on some simple things to do to clean and maintain my guitars.

  1. First off, if you don’t see any gunk buildup, don’t be tempted to do a cleaning. Most likely the guitar’s clean, but it’s always a good idea to wipe it down with a soft cloth.
  2. If you do see some gunk buildup, before you do anything, see if you can scrape it off with some soft plastic, like a credit card. Chances are that it’s just on the surface. Then finish that off with wiping it down with a soft cloth (seeing the pattern here? Have a soft cloth always handy).
  3. There are times where even a scrape won’t do the job. But for cleaning, DON’T USE OIL! For your fretboard, use a 50-50 mixture ratio of water to white distilled vinegar (a little stronger if you have a fairly nasty buildup). Dip a cloth into the mixture – you don’t want to pour it on – and work the cloth into the gunky area. If you have a particularly pesky area, use a super-fine steel wool with the mixture. Once you’re done cleaning, thoroughly dry the wood, then use oil. Personally, I use linseed oil, though many people say to use lemon oil. Martin guitars recommends against using lemon oil because the acids in the oil can break down the fretboard wire. Hmm… In any case, use it sparingly, applying a small bit on a cloth, then wiping and working it into the wood. And by the way, you should only need to do this once or twice a year – at most.
  4. As for the body, regularly wiping it down with a soft cloth should suffice most of the time. But if you have to clean it, use a highly diluted soap and water and use circular motions to clean. There are also various cleaners compatible with nitro or poly finishes. These can be picked up at either a guitar store or even a hardware store (but you’ll have to do your research on the types of finishes they can be used on).

These are really simple things to do. And you shouldn’t have to do more than wiping your guitar down very often.

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Jamstack…

April 4, 2019 by GoofyDawg

I purposely made the title hanging like I did because I’ve made a name for myself by not panning products. But there are some products that really don’t make a lot of sense to me. Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot of ads pop up on my social media for the Jamstack portable amp; you know, the one that attaches to the body of your computer. It’s a novel idea, and the demo videos certainly do the product justice, BUT…

  1. I’m not sure where I would personally find this device useful. Now I realize that it’s really not meant to be a performance amp. And I can see some real usefulness for jamming at home. But if I’m just jamming and practicing, it’s just as easy for me to plug my guitar into one of my amps, or attach my iRig to my guitar and mess around with AmpliTube on my computer.
  2. At $249, it’s a pretty hefty price to pay for something that will never leave my house. Yeah, I suppose I could take it to friends’ houses to play. But when I’ve done jam sessions in the past, there’s usually some kind of drum kit. No way could this keep up with a drummer, even if he or she played really softly.
  3. I searched long and hard and couldn’t find a single review from one of the major guitar gear magazines. Maybe I missed them, but the only reviews I’ve seen on this are mostly from tech gadget sites that aren’t guitar focused. And the reviews that are on general musical instrument sites seem suspiciously like paid advertisements disguised as reviews. And more than anything else, the absence of a review from a major trade rag despite all the money that’s being spent advertising this gives me pause.

If the cost was more in line with some of the micro amps that are out there, I’d probably take a more serious look. But at more than twice the price of a micro amp, it’s a tough proposition to get me to even consider equipment like this.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that Jamstack works great for what it does. But there aren’t enough compelling features to get me to buy one.

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Does A Guitar Cable’s Capacitance Make A Difference?

March 29, 2019 by GoofyDawg

If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you’ve probably seen that I have a fairly sensitive bullshit radar. It’s not that I’m a natural skeptic, but I’ve been around gear for so long that when I see something that has a super high price and claiming all sorts of improvements to my tone, I become quite a bit wary. And especially when it comes to cords and wires, I tend to be quite a bit of a skeptic. But the exception to that is instrument cords.

Now this is not going to be a comparison article where I say one particular cord is the best, blah, blah blah… When I see articles like that, that’s when my BS alarm goes off. But by the same token, I’m also not of the belief that you can just use any old cable and you’ll sound great.

On Low Capacitance

Since the ’90’s, cable manufacturers have been touting their low capacitance cables, and how a low capacitance cable opens up your sound. The argument is that with a lower capacitance, less electricity will be stored in the cable, allowing more signal to pass through. Amazingly enough, I actually agree with this. The effect of capacitance in a cable is that it acts like a low pass filter, essentially rolling off the highs. By lowering the capacitance, more highs pass through the cable, thus allowing much more of the signal to get to your amp.

BUT… Low Cap Doesn’t Mean It’s Better for YOU

Manufacturers of low cap cables will make you think they are simply better because they allow more signal to pass through to the amp. In general, that’s a good thing, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for you. You see, more of something doesn’t mean it’s better. Sometimes, it’s just more.

I have a couple of low capacitance cables, but I only use those for certain guitars, like my acoustic, where I want the full range of signal to pass to my acoustic amp or a board. But I actually tend to use a cable that has a higher capacitance for my electric guitars because my entire chain is set up to be pretty bright. I actually like to have some of the highs rolled off.

And since I started using my Godin Artisan ST-V, I’m actually in search of an even higher capacitance cable for that guitar. It’s bright, Bright, BRIGHT! And though I roll off the highs on my amp when I use it, I want a little help prior to my amp. That way, I can effectively set up my amp one way to serve a couple of guitars during a gig. It’s a kind of a convenience thing.

Does Low Cap = Better Quality?

Yes and no. I say this because in general, it seems that higher quality materials need to be used to achieve lower capacitance.

But as we all know, build quality varies from manufacturer. For instance, hands down, Mogami makes about the best cables in the business, at least as far as build quality goes. They use really high-quality materials and have all sorts of features built into them. But you pay for that quality and those features; on the order of at least twice as much as a similar cable.

I use Mogami XLR cables for vocals. Even my cheapo Sennheiser e835 and my Sennheiser e609 instrument mic sound much better with my Mogami XLRs. And with a great mic, it’s like removing a blanket from the mic. Admittedly though, the sound difference is subtle – the “blanket” is thin as it were – but it counts. But I cherish those (read: I don’t want to “f” them up), so I rarely take them to gigs. For gigs, and frankly because the audience won’t be able to tell the difference, I just use some generic brand cables like Monster or whatever the house may have.

Back to instrument cables, I generally get cables whose quality is good enough, so I tend to go with middle-of-the-road Hosa cables. Their build quality is solid, though nowhere near on par with Mogami. But I’m also a real stickler for treating cables well, so my instrument cables tend to last a long time.

And by the way, Hosa makes a line of low cap cables that are very affordable and work just fine; no hiss, no crackle when the tips move. That’s all you need right? You can get a 10-foot cable for around $20.00.

The point to this is that yes, you can get the ultimate build quality with something like a Mogami or some boutique cable maker. But low cap can be had at a decent build quality and you won’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get it.

So… Does It REALLY Make a Difference?

Yes. But you have to look at it from the perspective of how the cable fits in with the rest of your rig. I know I took some time to get this conclusion, but I wanted to take some time illustrate this very important point: Low cap cables will give you more of your signal, but you may just find that you don’t like getting everything.

ROCK ON

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The Problem with Dogma

March 8, 2019 by GoofyDawg

I’m a cradle Catholic, so Catholicism – and its associated dogma – are a large part of my life. But while I fully accept and believe in my religious dogma (for instance, Jesus is the Son of God and there is only one God), what I have always had a problem with is how that dogma has often gotten translated into rigidity in the practice of said dogma, or used as a way to demean, destroy and take advantage of others who either may not be aware or fully versed in the knowledge of the dogma.

So what does this have to do with guitar gear?

Lots, actually. I’ve been playing guitar for close to 50 years now and one thing that has always annoyed me is the dogmatic perspectives I’ve encountered during that time. You’ve all heard them:

A modeling or solid state amp could never be as good as a tube amp.

You pay more for a piece of gear because it’s better.

Gibsons and Fenders and other brands have a signature sound.

People say this stuff all the time. And they believe it so fully that they become demeaning and dismissive of anyone who may disagree with them. The way these people interact with others is with something akin to religious zealotry.

In the past, my more confrontational self would love to engage with these people. But I have to admit that my reaction was just as militant and dismissive. Now I just roll my eyes and say, “Whatever, dude…”

The problem with rigidity or fundamentalism in general is that it prevents people from seeing or even accepting; much less tolerate, alternative viewpoints. And from the perspective of gear, there’s so much fantastic gear out there that often gets overlooked because people can’t see past their personal dogma.

I’m writing this because I too can be accused of having been dogmatic. But especially since I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve had to be much more open to the different ways people approach gear.

For instance, I used to be of the belief that I had to have a big pedal board with lots of effects to create great sound. As a result, I have lots and lots of pedals, especially overdrive pedals. Now, I just use three, maybe four pedals to get my sound. Admittedly, part of that is that I’m older and don’t want to lug around a lot of gear, but a large part of it is that I’ve found my sound, and only need a few pedals to enhance my sound as opposed to define my sound.

But I also know that others will differ with my approach. I have a friend who plays with no pedals whatsoever. He plugs directly into a 50 Watt Marshal Plexi and lets his fingers do the talking. On the other hand, I have another friend who has 20 pedals on his board and stacks overdrives and distortion boxes and has three different delays.

Look, we all have our personal truths, and they’re all valid. For me, I have a very “you do you, I’ll do me” attitude about gear. Where I have a problem is when those truths are used to exalt over others. I’m a firm believer in ecumenicism – there are many paths to God. So too with gear. There are many ways to make music.

Rock on!

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New Gear: Fender Powercaster

March 8, 2019 by GoofyDawg

I have to admit that I haven’t been too impressed with Fender’s offerings for quite awhile. I have three Strats and a Tele, but I haven’t seen anything coming out of Fender that got me really excited; that is, until now.

When I checked my email this morning, I saw one from Fender entitled, “Alternate Reality | The Powercaster.” At first, I rolled my eyes, but when I went to read the email, I was immediately intrigued by the body shape. I thought that it looked like a Jazzmaster or Jaguar. Then on closer inspection of the picture, I saw that it has a P90 in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge. The very first thing that came to my mind was: Rock Machine. So I decided to take a closer look.

So I went to the Powercaster product page. Maybe I shouldn’t have because now I want one of these!

Before I go on, here are the basic specs:

  • Alder body
  • Roasted maple neck (wood is roasted to remove all moisture)
  • Pau ferro fingerboard
  • Synthetic bone nut
  • 24.75″ scale length
  • 9.5″ neck radius
  • Modern “C” neck shape
  • Adjusto-matic bridge with hardtail
  • Comes in 3-color Sunburst, Surf Green and White Opal (it’s like a translucent grey)
  • Made in Mexico
  • Street price (so far): $899.00

One of the first things I noticed was the scale length and neck radius. Look familiar? It should because those are Les Paul neck specs. When I saw the scale length, I started salivating because the feel would be like a Les Paul. And being a Les Paul guy, I imagined that I would be right at home with this guitar.

After reviewing the Powercaster site, I went to the forums and gear blogs to see what others thought. The reviews were mixed. One person didn’t like the Tune-O-Matic style bridge (I actually would’ve preferred a more modern bridge like a Gotoh 510). Another didn’t like the thought that Powercaster didn’t have a “Fender” sound based on demos he saw. Another didn’t like the Gibson scale length.

Others like me, love the features. But the person who didn’t like the scale length also brought up a couple of valid points. First, they didn’t quite know who the target consumer of this guitar would be. He also pointed out that considering the price and where it’s made, the price point sits just below American-made prices. These are very valid points that I’m sure will need to be sussed out a bit more.

Personally, I think that this guitar is aimed at someone like me who doesn’t have a dogmatic perspective of brands; for instance, if something is branded Fender, then it has to have a Fender sound – whatever that is. I tend to judge gear based on their own merits, and I LOVE that P90/Humbucker combination! I also love that roasted maple neck because dry wood is very resonant. And as far as the price is concerned, while it’s about $150 more than other MIM guitars, I don’t think it’s really all that out of line.

Of course, while I’m excited by the features and possibilities this guitar has on offer, I need to get my hands on one and play it. But it sure shows a LOT of promise!

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Playing Guitar: The Journey

March 2, 2019 by GoofyDawg

As with anything we learn over time, playing guitar is a journey replete with ups and downs, feasts and famines, motivations and let-downs. It’s a never-ending, circuitous path that always guarantees that there’s something else around the next bend to discover and explore.

As guitarists, we’re seekers. We’re explorers. We’re trailblazers into a wilderness that is simultaneously both familiar and new; familiar in the sense that we can see the paths that others have taken, and new in that while we may tread the same ground as others, the tracks we make are ours and ours alone.

There is no wrong journey. Some journeys have several stops along the way. Some go at a snail’s pace. Others, like my own, meander all over the landscape. Others take a straight path and reach higher and higher pinnacles of skill and technique quickly. But no way is better than the other.

Along the way, we may pick up things from other sojourners. But we make the choices in how to apply and use those things in our own journey.

The gear we use is also a reflection of the nature of our journey. Some travel light with only a single guitar. Others need a wagon or large transport to get them along. Others use the latest in high-tech gadgetry while others go unplugged. And still, it’s all good, no way is better.

And the nature of our journey will change over time. Sometimes, we may just need a guitar and an amp and perhaps one or two pedals if any. There will be times when we’ll be lugging a stack and two full-size pedalboards and three backup guitars. At other times, we may go digital or may go completely analog. And still, it’s all good, no way is better.

Along with our journey, we may experience doubt about our equipment. We can see what others have and wonder if our own equipment is good enough. Furthermore, we will encounter people on our journey who are passionate about the right way to travel. They’ll tell us to follow their path and to provision ourselves with the same things they’ve provisioned for themselves.

Sometimes it’ll make sense. Other times it won’t. Just remember that those who give out the free advice are speaking from what they see through the lens of their own experience. We have to live with our own choices and the choices others have made well, they have to own.

As a humorous aside, here’s a video clip from “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.”

As the dude said: Remember, no matter where you go, there you are… In other words, if we translate that to our own journey, wherever we’re at, we have what we have, we know what we know, we play what we play. And the cool thing with that is that what we have, know or play can be in flux depending on wherever we’re at. Chew on that for a bit!

You see, the journey of playing and learning guitar is intensely personal. Even if your primary motivation is to emulate a guitar hero or someone whom you idolize, you still have to make your own choices and YOU have to be the one who learns. It’s fine to seek advice and mentorship from others; in fact, I’d say that one of the beauties of being on a guitar journey is that there is a large, global community with which to interact and from which to learn.

So Sojourner, JOURNEY ON!

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Let Me Say This One More Time…

February 24, 2019 by GoofyDawg

More expensive doesn’t mean better.

I was having a conversation with a fellow guitarist and gear slut who shared a story of how he first bought an Epiphone Les Paul then later purchased a Gibson Les Paul. He said to me that the difference in sound was like night and day. “I agree,” I replied, “But not for the reason you might think.”

I went on to explain that I’ve played a number of Epiphone Les Pauls over the years that were actually really killer. But even though they were named “Les Paul,” at least to me, they had a different sound than a Gibson Les Paul which, frankly, is the standard. But different, at least in this case, doesn’t mean bad. I went on to say that I’ve known several players who actually prefer an Epiphone Les Paul over a Gibson Les Paul and not because of price. They actually prefer the sound.

He chided me in owning a Custom Shop Les Paul and played devil’s advocate with me suggesting that I might think it sounds better because I paid so much for it. 🙂 But I said I didn’t pay full market value for it at the time, and I wanted the standard Les Paul sound.

Then recently, someone I know said he suggested to another that he check out the BOSS Katana 50. But that person said that he’d rather get a tube amp because the Katana was so cheap and it couldn’t be that high of quality. Of course, I laughed at that statement and immediately reminded me of a scene from Men in Black when Will Smith puts on the “last suit he’ll ever need.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOery2pF0NA

An experienced player can make anything sound decent; that is unless that thing really does suck and no one could ever hope to salvage a good tone out of it.

But here’s the thing: The Katana simply ROCKS! I’m continually blown away by the sound this amp produces. Sure, it’s an inexpensive amp. But it’s not cheap-sounding. I just used it this morning at an annual event that I play at a local high school. I used my acoustic through it, and just adored the sound!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve been extolling the Katana’s virtues for quite a while, but it is the epitome of “quality rules.” With any gear, the sound that it produces trumps the price every time. And quality can be had at ANY price; so can shite… I’ve played amps that cost thousands of dollars and have come away scratching my head after giving them a thorough – and fair – rundown, asking myself, Why the hell does this cost so much?

On the flip side, I’ve paid LOTS for some gear that I think is much better than everything else to which I compared it. Case in point, my hand-wired Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay. I paid $325 for it at the time, and it has never left my board. People have suggested lots of different analog delays and I’ve tried many. But I haven’t found anything to date that floats my boat like that pedal does.

So the point to all this is to get the gear that inspires you. Sometimes you might pay a lot for it; sometimes, you may not. And if you think I’m full of it, here’s my attitude (from Forgetting Sarah Marshall):

So… Les Paul, Stratocaster, Flying V, Explorer, Telecaster, Mustang, huma-huma nuka-nuka a’poo’a’a – Ye-a Bitch!

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Your Tone Sucks, Just Sayin’

February 21, 2019 by GoofyDawg

No, not really.

But since I returned to participating in online guitar forums, as I experienced in the past, there’s always that one in the crowd that let’s just say is much less conciliatory with their evaluation of others’ tone. On the one hand, lots of people enjoy the audaciousness of people who do this and use it as their entrance into the discussion to pile on; on the other hand, it makes me and, perhaps, others like me, cringe at the rudeness.

Personally, my first thought when I read comments like this is what makes this person think they know what’s good tone and what’s not? And if the comment is particularly rude, I’ll look at that person’s profile or do a search on them to see if they’ve got the stones to back up their audacity. What I find is a mixed bag. Some are skilled and active musicians; others are just “bedroom” players. But they do have one thing in common: To me at least, they come off as real a-holes.

But personality evaluations aside, the title of the article points to the spurious nature of “good tone.” You see, the problem with tone is that its measure is purely subjective. What sounds good to one may sound terrible to others. It’s also such a nebulous subject that it’s virtually impossible to provide a definitive list of what the characteristics of good tone actually are.

You’ll read or hear people mention terms like musical or lush or three-dimensional. Most people are implicitly aware of what those terms mean, but those adjectives are just as ambiguous as tone. I’m not here to tell you what good tone is but after years and years of playing I’ve come to an understanding that could help clarify things.

The Two Sides of Tone

There are in fact, two sides to this tone thing. The first is what we as the musicians consider to be good tone and the second is what others think of it.

Fundamentally, the most important judges of our tone are ourselves. In chasing that unicorn of good tone, what we’re searching for is what pleases us. So we pore over magazines, both physical and virtual; participate in online forums; watch and listen to countless demos of gear in our quest to find our sound. After all, at least for many, our sound inspires us to make music.

Note that I wasn’t all-inclusive by saying “at least for many” above. This is because I’ve known many gear sluts who just buy gear because it sounds cool or has some nostalgia or whatever attached to it and don’t pay much attention to the context in which they apply it. I have a good friend who used to play with me who put a ProCo Rat in his signal chain. That’s fine, but he would try to use it with an acoustic guitar. It sounded absolutely horrible to me and the rest of the band. And that’s a perfect segue into the other side of the tone equation.

The tricky thing about tone is that while I will stand by what I said that we’re the most important judges of our tone, especially if you gig, you have to realize that it’s important to sound good to your audience. I have to admit that it’s a bit of a pride-swallowing experience to get negative feedback from others on the tone you’ve worked so hard to achieve, but nevertheless, it’s important to listen.

Years ago, I was playing in a band, and during a break, a bandmate told me during a break, “Dude, I’m sure you’re ripping it up, but I can barely hear you.” I told him I was plenty loud and the amp I was playing had a fairly deep voicing. But he persisted and said, “Yeah, maybe so, but I can’t hear you and you’re the lead guitarist.”

At first, I was a little miffed because I had worked out and dialed in my tone for the gig. But I realized that if my bandmate was standing 15 feet away from me, and he couldn’t make out my tone, I was probably getting lost in the mix. So I went back to my amp at the back of the stage, added more mids and highs without turning up my volume, then suddenly, I was cutting through!

That brighter and slightly biting tone did not really please me at first; not that it was a bad tone. It’s just that I was so conditioned to playing with a smoother and deeper tone that I wasn’t really used to it. But from then on, when it was time for me to solo, I just hit my booster for a few dB of gain, and my sound punched right through the mix! That made everyone smile – including me. For goodness sake! I was playing a Les Paul through a Marshall! It was supposed to be midrange punchy, and I dialed it back! 🙂

Since then, I’ve come to love that tone, but it took getting, and more importantly, accepting that feedback that helped me break through. And after that gig, a fellow guitarist I knew who was attending the event approached me and said, “I don’t know what you did to your rig in your second set, but you sounded killer!” So… lesson learned.

So in light of all that was discussed, remember that first and foremost, develop the tone that pleases YOU. But be open to what others might have to say. It’s that compromise that will get you on your way to good tone.

The fallout of this is that for most people, it will slow the rate of their gear acquisitions. At least for me, once I found my sound and got some positive feedback on it, I’ve been extremely careful in my gear choices. Anything I get now has to be able to strike the balance between what I like and how it may sound to my audience.

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