Tone is in the hands

Paul Norman (RIP) · Post by **Paul Norman (RIP)** » 27 Jun 2016 9:09 am

You say that tone is in the hands, but my Steel sounds a lot better through my N1000 W/ 15 in. speaker than it does through my N112 with 12 inch speaker. And I use the same hands.

Larry Carlson · Post by **Larry Carlson** » 27 Jun 2016 11:27 am

Maybe it is in the hands that built the speakers.
I am assuming that the hands that built the 15 inch would have
to be bigger than the hands that built the 12 inch.

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 27 Jun 2016 12:28 pm

Playing with your picking hand close to the pick-up gives a treble-ee tone.
Playing towards the 12th fret gives a Bass-ee-r tone.
Tone is in the hands. You can prove this to yourself by not even plugging in the instrument.

Dave Dube · Post by **Dave Dube** » 27 Jun 2016 3:56 pm

Paul and Pete, it looks like you are both right. If you think about it, you might find a few more places where tone is.

Pete is right. Banjo players know that playing closer to the bridge gives a different tone than close to the neck. All things being equal, the way you use your hands makes a difference.

On the other hand, I bet I could EQ your amp so badly that your hands could not overcome it.

Kind of puts the lie to the old saw "It's *all* in the hands." (emphasis added.)

Mark Wayne · Post by **Mark Wayne** » 28 Jun 2016 7:21 am

What I like about the older Emmons guitars Is the variety of tones I can get compared to other guitars: hand placement very close to the pickups renders the early Tom Brumley and Jerry Garcia's "Teach Your Children" tones. Hitting the lower strings at this location combined with reverb can yield a tone similar to the 60's surf guitar sound.

The usual 22-24 fret hand location is popular. For a early Ray Price tone, I'll place my hand about 2 inches to the right of the bar and play the simpler Jimmy Day-style phrasings. Bar pressure is relative to tone also, for example, inserting more pressure downward can fatten the tone a bit. I tend to play the way Eddie Rivers taught me, by using the index finger to apply downward pressure to the strings via the bar.

I will offset my finger picks so that more surface area of the string is contacted by my picks, compared to just the side of the pick striking the string.

Fred Kelly picks make me "think more."

These ideas may or may not work for you...just some thoughts

Tony Smart · Post by **Tony Smart** » 28 Jun 2016 11:14 am

All this is ridiculous.
Tone is in the ears......

Mark Wayne · Post by **Mark Wayne** » 28 Jun 2016 12:16 pm

Tony Smart wrote:All this is ridiculous.
Tone is in the ears......

You would be wise to take heed to some of these threads of "rediculous-ness"

Dave Dube · Post by **Dave Dube** » 28 Jun 2016 12:43 pm

Tony any communication--and I consider music to be a communication between player and audience--is the sum of the sending and receiving phases and any interference that might be present.

You are correct that the ears process the sound and a perception is formed.

Why do you want to think that this makes the sending portion ridiculous?

The entire sound envelope can be measured and shaped. It is an objective reality, regardless of whether you can hear the sound with 100% fidelity or not. Whatever the listener hears is based on what the player used equipment and technique to send.

Though some people may perceive the sound differently than others, it does not invalidate the player's effort to "fix" the message and be able to reliably reproduce it in the best possible way.

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 28 Jun 2016 2:56 pm

Paul Norman wrote:You say that tone is in the hands, but my Steel sounds a lot better through my N1000 W/ 15 in. speaker than it does through my N112 with 12 inch speaker. And I use the same hands.

That's because the one amp realises more readily the sound you like to make. Also I think that what the "tone" controls on an amp do gets confused with the "tone" that the player extracts from the instrument - we are using one word for two things. And "EQ" is no better a term for those knobs, as we never use them to equalise anything, but quite the opposite.

Georg Sørtun · Post by **Georg Sørtun** » 28 Jun 2016 3:05 pm

I have always wondered what my PSGs would sound like if I didn't use my hands...

Dave Dube · Post by **Dave Dube** » 28 Jun 2016 3:58 pm

Tone

a musical or vocal sound with reference to its pitch, quality, and strength.

--Google

Georg yeah you are right. You need your hands, however you know there are a great many things that can affect the quality of the sound you make with your hands. Think of all those folks who love the "warmth" of tube amps, for instance.

Ian, EQ is common terminology, I don't own the term, nor apologize for it. You'll really have to take that up with someone else.

Changing the frequencies your gear is putting out to be heard is indeed altering the quality of the sound, i.e. "Bass-ee" or "Treble-ee" as per the preceding discussion.

The "knobs" do that to a far greater degree than the hands can.

Tony Smart · Post by **Tony Smart** » 29 Jun 2016 4:42 am

Whoops, looks like I've put my foot in it here .

No, no, I didn't mean it, - tone isn't in the feet......honest.

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 29 Jun 2016 5:43 am

Dave Dube wrote:EQ is common terminology, I don't own the term, nor apologize for it.

You are dead right, Dave - I used to be a sound man and everyone means the same thing by it. But in its original meaning, an "equaliser" was a device used by broadcasters to iron out the bumps in the frequency response of a transmission line, whereas nowadays we use the same technology (or rather the modern version) to put the lumps of our choice into something flat. Just me being pedantic

Georg Sørtun · Post by **Georg Sørtun** » 29 Jun 2016 6:40 am

Dave Dube wrote: Georg yeah you are right. You need your hands, however you know there are a great many things that can affect the quality of the sound you make with your hands. Think of all those folks who love the "warmth" of tube amps, for instance.

I've heard about the "warmth", but I have yet to figure out why anyone needs tubes to achieve it

Oh well ... not my problem

I have over the years tried out more sound-shaping technology than most between the humble PSG and the "audible image" - what I and others can hear. Always fun to play with technical variables for a while, but I tend to end up with minimal equipment and pretty flat settings.

There are so many ways to pick strings, and I don't want any of the resulting tone variations - including noises - that I can produce on-the-fly with my hands, to get lost in the sound-chain.
But, that's just me...

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 29 Jun 2016 8:22 am

Re: Tone is in the hands

Yes, it is.....in the right hand, the left hand, the style and execution, the guitar, the string gauges and alloy, the tuning, the pickup, the amplifier, the speaker, the effects and electronics, your head, your soul....

Every time this comes up, some people try to make it solely about the player, but it's more than that. Otherwise, all those posts from established players concerning the Emmons tone, the Sho-Bud tone, the ZB tone, etc. are completely contradicted. Ths Session 400, 500 sound, the Twin sound, the Little Walter sound, etc.

Plug any steel into any amp. Stand in front of it and rake across the strings. That is the sound the guitar/amp combination makes. Change either and the sound changes...might be a little, might be a lot.

It's more than one thing. The guitar sounds like the guitar sounds, the electronics sound like the electronics sound, and the player sounds like the player sounds.

Dave Dube · Post by **Dave Dube** » 29 Jun 2016 11:32 am

Well Georg could a big cranked-up tube amp keep one warm on a cold Norway evening? Probably would be a better overall solution than setting the amp on fire, 'cause that's just "one and done."

As for your choice of equipment, I respect that. Tastes differ as do applications. Despite your minimalist conclusion, you have gained a lot of knowledge from the experiments, and I'm sure at times over the years you have been pleased to use some of the technology. Isn't that what happens? Times change and tastes change. Applications change.

Ian, I did not know that. So I guess you ended up teaching something. Anyway, I don't post that much, thankfully, otherwise when I burn mine you would probably feel the heat all the way over there in GB.

Jerry, +1. Exactly.

Georg Sørtun · Post by **Georg Sørtun** » 29 Jun 2016 2:07 pm

Dave, a powerful Solid State Class A amp that isn't "turned up", creates more than enough heat for cold evenings. A proper log-fire, backed up by heatpumps, work better though

In live situations most sound-shaping equipment - eq'ing and effects - is to "fixed" or "on/off" for me, so I leave it out. Then I also see no point in connecting it back in while practicing at home.
Only what I can control seamlessly without any interuptions to my playing, gets considered for my sound-chains. It is along the same line as not having to tune the instrument for hours in live situations - unless a string breaks, as minor detunings can be played out by ear.

Joe Rogers · Post by **Joe Rogers** » 3 Jul 2016 4:51 pm

Tone actually lies in the ears of the beer-holder....

Joe Rogers

Stefan Robertson · Post by **Stefan Robertson** » 4 Jul 2016 5:25 am

Hands are tied to ones Heart especially on Lap Steel Guitar.

Don Helms said something like that apparently.

"Head, Hands, Heart"

Amp's are not as crucial as you think. Technique and quality Steel Guitar makes a big difference.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 4 Jul 2016 6:22 am

Paul Norman wrote:You say that tone is in the hands, but my Steel sounds a lot better through my N1000 W/ 15 in. speaker than it does through my N112 with 12 inch speaker. And I use the same hands.

Paul,

I'm with you on amps being a major part of tone. those two amps are pretty different. The size of the cabinet and the amount of headroom they have make a big difference in the sound.

The main problem I have found with amps made for steel these days is many of them get shrill sounding when you push them. Combine that with being a little out of tune and you have a very annoying sound. It can be a real gig killer !

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 4 Jul 2016 6:53 am

The sound from the amp affects the way I play, so in a way the mind interprets the sound and tells the hands how to adjust to get the best possible results from the amp. In that sense, the hands are the tone shapers, much like the way the hands are responsible for directing the knife in wood carving. Each wood has a different density, softness, etc., and the hands adjust and take control.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 4 Jul 2016 7:01 am

Mike, that is a great way of putting it !

G Strout · Post by **G Strout** » 4 Jul 2016 12:11 pm

I have to go with Mike Neer on this. Many years ago I was watching Joe Pass play at a club, (not a steel player for the uninitiated.) His Polytone crapped out and he apologized, he then grabbed a direct box and with his ES175 going directly through the PA, he finished the gig. After two songs and a small amount of fiddling with his tone and volume knobs..... well you guessed it! He had everything set up to match the sound that he had originally achieved through the Polytone. It was a "tad" different, but, between his ears and his hands ..... not noticeably different.
Of course.. Joes' hands and ears were somewhat more skilled than many (LOL

)

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 4 Jul 2016 2:29 pm

Tone is in the hands - once it leaves the brain...

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 4 Jul 2016 7:49 pm

I believe that, your ability with your hands and feet coupled up with your equipment defines your overall tone. It's not just one thing. You can play with the greatest dexterity and have a crappy system and YOUR tone will suffer. And, vice-versa, a great system with bad reflexes and YOUR tone wil suck.
I played two gigs this weekend, one inside, the other outside. The inside gig was perfect in every way. The outside gig started with a fair sound, but, not great. A little later, because of who knows why, MY tone came back. I didn't change at all, my sound system change somewhat because of the weather outside. I've experienced this before on gigs. Sometimes I've been at fault and I appreciate that and other times it's been electronically induced and that I understand too.
So, I believe it's a 50/50 situation. One can enhance the other or let the other down. Most of the time, for me, all is well, but, there are times when MY tone escapes me.