Video: "The One Thing Every Influential Guitar Tone...

Duane Reese · Posted 18 Apr 2024 9:12 pm

...Has In Common"

I like this guy's observations. I think the basic idea he's getting at here is that it's an aggregate of many things, and what you hear in person is never what you hear when reproduced. "Send me your favorite unrecorded guitar tone if you disagree..." It kind of goes back to that old debate we've seen on here many, many, many, many times about whether it's the pickups, or the cabinent wood, or the amp, or the mic, or the player, or the bar... It's all of it, and in a way, it ends up being none of it.

I see this guitarist Jim Lill is a forum member. I think he has something well worth hearing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8GiF-GVLgg

John Larson · From: Pennsyltucky, USA

Jim used to have a couple vids on pedal steel on his YouTube channel and the one on E9 basics convinced me I could actually learn the instrument.
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Jim Fogle · From: North Carolina, Winston-Salem, USA

Jim has some of the more interesting videos to watch on YouTube. This one about tone is great.
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Duane Reese · Posted 20 Apr 2024 10:48 am

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

There’s only one problem with what Jim says, and that’s because Jim hasn’t been around very long. I come from from a time when most bands did not mike the instruments. Oh sure, the record and tape sounds were miked, as were the ones heard on radio and TV. But live music was almost always heard right from the amps, with only the vocals miked. I’ve heard some really fantastic live tones, but what’s more important is that I haven’t heard only a few. I’ve heard thousands of fantastic tones, from hundreds of players. I don’t get locked into the “one good tone” mindset that crippled most players, and that makes me very fortunate, I guess. I was lucky enough to see most all the country music greats, live. Ray Price, Kitty Wells, Marty Robbins, Ernest Tubb, Mel Tillis, Carl Smith, Faron Young, Bill Anderson, Del Reeves, and many others. And you know what? ALL of them had band members who knew how to play together and get a good sound and balance without a sound man. They didn’t have to rely on a mixing board and huge PA system, and that’s because (in most all cases), there was none!

I’ve said it before, there is nothing like the sound of an un-miked band that has players who understand sound and dynamics. Every instrument is clear and distinct; every instrument has its own space. In my opinion, when you put a whole bunch of instruments through the same speakers, it’s like you’re getting a stew, not a dinner where everything has its place and space on the plate.

And if you think that Buddy (or any other player) sounded good on such-and-such a record, and that he got this great tone, I can assure you that he sounded far better when you were sitting 6 feet from him, listening to his sound right from his amp. Sadly, only some of us have been that lucky.

Glenn Demichele · From: (20mi N of) Chicago Illinois, USA

Amen Donny: My old country band works that way - vocals only through the PA (and maybe some kick drum). It is so fun. My other bar band is "great" by all accounts, and we play festivals with great gear and sound guy. I've never heard that band because I'm on stage hearing something else. Seems to me like the crowd would just hear a giant stereo.
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Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

With due respect, I largely disagree with a good chunk of what Jim's videos argue. There is, of course, merit in trying to figure out what actually influences the sound coming out of a guitar, an amp, in the room, on the recording, and so on. And I totally agree that 'everything matters'. But, everything does matter, and some of the things that I hear him arguing do not fit my experience.

This statement: "Send me your favorite unrecorded guitar tone if you disagree..." is tautologically impossible. I can't send my experience listening to The Electric Flag live in 1967, the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers live in 1969, The Band in 1969/70, or countless bands in clubs over 5+ decades where the amps dominated whatever PA was there. Or folk/bluegrass/jazz/country/classical/whatever musicians playing strictly acoustically in a room where you can hear them fine like that. Or playing myself in countless small clubs. Like Donny, lots of my experience is listening to live music directly from a bandstand in a small club or playing myself. People still do this, and these types of experiences have strongly influenced many, many musicians, including me. Not everybody got all or even most of their strongest influences from youtube videos, mp3s, CDs, tapes, or even vinyl records. I hear the notes from the records, and some semblance of the tones from listening to a recording. But IMO, if you wanna know what it really sounds like, hear things live with minimal to no processing.

I guess part of this is significantly generational. But I know quite a number of younger musicians (< 30 or 40) who haven't bought into the largely processed music thing. Not everything comes out of extensive audio processing, even today. I guess if you're strictly in the mainstream music world, YMMV, but that's not where I live, for the most part. Never really have.

Of course, I think it's important to understand the whole chain in what produces music. You're sort of stuck analyzing each component separately. One can do this with instrumentation (I am an electrical engineer by training and for a long time, trade), or one can do this by ear. One can, perhaps, superpose these (assumes linearity, which is questionable), but I think all this technical analysis often misses the point. There is a ton of nonlinearity in the music/audio world, and then there is the listener - ears, brains, prior experiences, Fletcher-Munson curves, you name it. It is often hard to get the final actual product by simply summing up the parts.

And I also think it's simply not true to argue, for example, that the sound coming out of an amplifier and the proximity/position of the player relative to this doesn't directly affect the sound coming out of the guitar. Even if the guitar body/neck/etc. doesn't resonate with that sound - and I suppose one can argue that for some solid-body guitars, that type of resonance is probably not very strong, although not necessarily negligible - the pickups and strings certainly react to that sound. Forget about all this with any type of hollow or semi-hollow body guitar, they resonate like crazy. And I'm not just talking about increasing-amplitude feedback, but there are lots of changes in sound from a fairly loud amplifier into an electric guitar. Some subtle, some not subtle at all. And that goes for pedal steel too - I hear substantial differences playing at live volumes on a louder stage vs. playing at lower volumes.

As for the room not affecting the sound that much (maybe I'm reading too much into that part of his discussion), I think the room affects the sound hugely. Listen or record in a dead room vs. record in a live room, I don't care where you put the mics. Mic placement can help reduce the room's effect, but a live room is very different. And what are the particulars of the live room? Did Rudy van Gelder and so many engineers over the decades waste their time hyper-focusing on exactly how the room should be structured, where the various instruments should be positioned, exactly where the mics were placed, and so on? I guess if one does everything direct, that's another world, and there's a lot of that these days.

I just think sweeping statements about any of this are likely to have issues. IMO, the guitars matter. The pickups and electronics matter. The amps matter. The tubes (if there are any) matter. The effects matter. The speakers matter. The position of a guitar relative to the speakers matter. If you're recording, the mics matter. The room matters. Or the DI circuit matters. The recorder matters. And, of course, the players matter. Everything affects everything, and I think it's very hard to impossible to ferret out exactly what's doing what with precision.

Glenn Demichele · From: (20mi N of) Chicago Illinois, USA

Dave; The song matters too - that affects my tone the most.
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Fred Treece · From: California, USA

A wonderfully entertaining and informative presentation, as are all of Mr. Lill’s efforts.

Regarding the “room makes a difference” concept. Yeah, it does. Especially when you compare it with “no room” - as in playing outdoors. All that syrupy clean tone and creamy overdrive that I just spent half a day EQ tweaking in my 12x15 carpeted home studio just went to crap when I set up my rig on a stage in the middle of a soccer field. I wish I could love playing outdoors like some people do, but there is something about it that just drives me nuts. Proximity and perception. I’m sure every stage has a groovy spot, but I have never found it when playing outside.

Ben Lawson · From: Brooksville Florida

After 54 years of playing steel, I learned that, unless you're playing to an audience of extraordinary musicians, they don't know if your tone is good or bad. Obviously there exceptions, but as Jim said, we can't rely on our own opinion, so why do we think the people hearing you at the lodge, club, auditorium or outdoor stage can know?
If you don't please yourself, no one else knows or cares. Who can contol the soundman anyway?

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

More on the player’s proximity to the amp, which was mentioned earlier—
I don’t give a hoot about the effect of a guitar’s resonance on what the player hears from the amp’s speaker…it’s the proximity and angle of the speaker to the player’s ear that will directly influence how he plays. Even if a microphone, or another band member, or someone in the audience is hearing lousy tone, if the player hears good tone, he will play better.

I once took the advice of a sound guy to put my combo amp in front of me and angle it up towards my head. Yeah, okay. I could definitely hear it better without turning up the volume. But it sounded like a Crap Warmed Over sandwich. He tried to tell me that’s what the audience is hearing through the mic. Well, it did not take long to figure out that wasn’t true, after taking a few steps right or left and perceiving a massive improvement.

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