Tone PursuitBy Dave MacLeod
Like many others I have been on a decades long quest for tone nirvana. I seem to have bought into every product that promised improved tone, improved sustain and improved playability. My Telecaster has had saddles made of steel, stainless steel, brass and aluminium. Nuts made from bone, ivory, fossilised bone, brass and two different types of modern composites. Tone capacitors from every decade from the 60s onwards, made from almost every of dialectric ever discovered. Each individial one of these promised to improve my tone by a significant margin. So how come, when I get to the end of all this tinkering, it still sounds like the Tele I started with?
No more. I've had enough. I call BS on all those peddlars of sonic silver bullets. The worm might not exactly have turned - but it is certainly twisting slightly. In future, if you want to sell me some product that is going to revolutionise the tone of my guitar I'm going to insist on a couple of things...
1) Stop using the word "improvement". Guitar tone is a subjective thing. My idea of a good tone is different to your idea of a good tone. You can say that your product will CHANGE my guitars tone, I'll decide whether it is an improvement or not.
2) If your product makes such a seismic change to tone as you say then give me some examples to listen to. I want A/B samples - same guitar into the same amp, played the same way, with all settings consistent between the two. I might trust that you did this honestly but it would be better if you showed me. You can try to explain to me that current encoding technology is not up to capturing the subtleties of the difference but do you know what? Yep, you're talking crap. If I can't hear the difference on an mp3 encoded at a reasonable bitrate then your product is not revolutionary or orders of magnitude better than competitors.
3) One aspect of guitar tone that is not subjective is sustain. Strike a string at a given velocity and the time it takes the note to decay is something you can measure. If you're claiming an improvement in sustain I want measurements. Numbers. With your methods clearly explained too. I would add that more sustain is a change and not necessarily an improvement; #1 still applies.
All is not lost for suppliers of fancy accessories and enhancements. Tell me how cool it looks. Tell me how women will swoon at my feet. Just don't tell me it'll improve my tone without giving me proof.
I would ask all of you readers of this to help me in this quest. Next time you're in touch with a supplier who is promising you some product that will improve your tone, ask them how do they know that you'll like the change, ask them for sound samples, ask them for numbers and proof. The sooner that we consumers start demanding facts, figures and a little bit of integrity, the sooner the peddlars of snakeoil may move on to more fruitful pastures. I hear that hi-fi enthusiasts are particularly gullible...
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7 comments:
Great piece. When I was a younger man, the allure of the not quite rational but believable (when gazed upon at the right angle in the right light) was strong. These days I prefer a good strong dose of science.
P.S. I couldn't find 5th Fret on Google+. Is my Google-fu insufficient or do you not yet have an account there?
I haven't set up an account for the Fifth Fret on G+ yet.
G+ isn't currently allowing accounts for entities that are not a person yet. I know some have done this anyway, but it seems you are likely to get that account deleted.
Back to the topic, I'm not as obsessed with tone as some. I seem to be happy with anything that sounds half decent and have not played around much with different guitar parts, pedals or amps. That must have saved me some money.
On some forums you will see extensive discussions on the merits of various hardware as to what has 'better' tone. I'm sure people enjoy these discussions, but others will just use whatever gear they have and get on with making music. Whatever floats your boat.
Thanks for the feedback Mark.
Google+ currently only allows individuals with real names. I know they are talking about allowing organisations and companies to set up pages but it is not available yet.
from my limited understanding, a tone cap doesn;t come into its own until you turn the tone down and engage the capaciter. I found this out when i hot rodded a guitar and looked round various caps and ended up on a Vitamin Q cap that upon fitting made my guitar sound exactly the same.. but when i turned the tone knob down it made a bit of differnce,- but I never play with the tone on anything but full .
As for the continuous claims made by manufactures they are just fueled by internet forums and chatrooms that get hold of something and suddenly its the next big thing. Until something new is jumped upon.
I know when i was growing up as a guitarist people raved about brass nuts for les pauls now people say bone is best and then theres there graphite debate .
I try stay clear of forum talk on new trends and how something can radically change your guitar tone.. The whole $200 guitar cable debate is the latest craze and thats just gotten stupid.
You're bang on kiwiguitars when you say that the tone only comes into play once you turn the tone down but, even then, there is NO MEASURABLE DIFFERENCE between the different types of capacitors. There's a great article, with data and samples to back it up, at http://www.aqdi.com/tonecap.htm
To summarise their conclusion; "The data and sound clips above show clearly that for tone capacitors of close measured capacitance value there is no difference in tone"
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