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Having a small collection of different guitars and effects based around my favorite tones I figure Im trying to put together little pieces of other artists into my sound ...

Peter Green cleans
David Gilmour delay
Adam Jones crunch
Stevie Ray Vaughan overdrive
Jeff Martin (The Tea Party) distortion
Billy Corgan fuzz

What about your ideal sounds?

Brian May's 'bloom' - That continuum from clean to massive overdrive with swell and sag, and all from no more than the energy put into the strings. If that makes sense. Not necessarily his tone but the whole dynamic nature of it.

David Gilmour is my go to guy, followed closely by John Frusciante, both heavy effects users, I like walls of awesome.

Scorpions don’t believe her drive sound
BC fuzz (lol)
Knopfler cleans (making movies, love over gold)
The churn of whatever gavin rossdale was playing in the mid 90s (razorblade suitcase)
That howling high gain whatever on pixies debaser
Manic street preachers slash and burn
Camel Les Paul sounds (1973-76)
... basically anyone with a thick, woody les paul sound. Even that 4 non blondes song is a good example.
Also, anyone with a decent sounding acoustic on record.

Bonus round: television - marquee moon clean sound

Steve Rothery - lead & cleans
BB King - Fatness/sustain/clarity
Mike Bloomfield - his clean-ish lead tone
Brian May - certain elements of his solo tone
Robben Ford/Matt Schofield - the 'organic-ness' of their lead tones

Mini Forklift Ⓥ wrote: BB King - Fatness

I've got this down.

Adam Jones crunch is an interesting one. In teh studio he multiple mics mulitple amps and cabs and crams it all down into one 'tone'
Triple rec, Knucklehead, Diezel and a Super lead in the past
100 watts of course, for that punch and massive transients.

MakoGat wrote:David Gilmour phaser

Fixed!

How about BIlly Gibbons and his tone? Would that be considered a reference tone?

AiRdAd wrote:How about BIlly Gibbons and his tone? Would that be considered a reference tone?

Yes but only for certain decades

I don't often actually play U2 songs but one of my ideal tones is The Edge's strat tone with massive delay, but retaining clarity of the original notes. It's the original tone as well as the dynamic delay - and I can never get it.

Also agree on the David Gilmour and Mark Knopfler tones.

SRV is an interesting one, I guess I appreciate his playing but it's a tone I never want to have myself.

Malmsteen has a great thick strat tone imo
Eddie Van Halen has a good bridge pick up sound.

Molly wrote:Brian May's 'bloom' - That continuum from clean to massive overdrive with swell and sag, and all from no more than the energy put into the strings. If that makes sense. Not necessarily his tone but the whole dynamic nature of it.

So, so true. I listen to queen and honestly can't work out how he does it. Whisper to absolute roar with tons of variations in tone as well. Sounds like he's got a whole pedalboard of different overdrives and fuzzes - but better!

For me it would be:

Johnny Marr clean jangle
The Edge Echoes
Keith Scott's dirty rhythm
and once in a blue moon
the light fuzz-sublime-touch--glass slide-lead sound from the one and only Derek Trucks.

Delayman wrote:I don't often actually play U2 songs but one of my ideal tones is The Edge's strat tone with massive delay, but retaining clarity of the original notes. It's the original tone as well as the dynamic delay - and I can never get it.

Key to this is: plenty of compression on the (bright) clean guitar sound with a slow attack. This lets the transients through and the delay therefore is repeating a bit more transients than it is sustain, which stops the echo getting muddy.

And the second key (IMO) is to run the delay in front of the amp, with the amp loud, so the amp adds another layer of compression which sort of merges the whole thing into one glorious sounds. Don't add reverb either, and the delay should only be about 3 repeats. God I love the edge!

Johnny marr clean jangle is the stuff of dreams
It’s like knopfler with a pedalboard