Decoding Tone

Guitar Tone

What is it? Why do so many guitarists talk about it? What does it entail?

The idea of “tone” is quite a mystery; like most things in music, it’s intangible. We can’t hear tone, yet one might point out a tone that is bad or good. Depending on which guitarist you are talking to, you might get different definitions of what it is and where it comes from.

Ask a Jazz, Folk, or Classical guitarist, and they will likely tell you that tone resonates from your touch (in other words, it’s all in the fingertips). A Rock, Metal, Blues, or Alternative guitarist, on the other hand, might tell you tone resonates from your gear (pedals, amps, pickups, etc.).

If we were to get scientific with our definition, we would say that tone is simply a form of musical timbre. Timbre is the texture, character, and color of sound, which defines it and separates it from other sounds around it. Timbre also encompasses elements such as duration, pitch, depth, and loudness.

As guitarists, however, we know that there is more to the pursuit of tone than we can define. With the relaunch of Humbucker Soup, we want to take you on a journey into the depths of tone as we explore what it is in a philosophical sense, as well as the many physical forms it takes.

My Understanding of Guitar Tone

To me, tone is a visceral feeling. It’s mystical, spiritual, and emotional. It’s a never-ending chase that we deal with as guitarists who grow.

As a guitarist of more than 15 years and a professional producer and mix engineer, I’ve worked with all kinds of tones. From the heaviest, most distorted tones giving the middle finger to the idea of “high-fidelity,” to the cleanest, purest tones that would make the world’s toughest man cry.

It wasn’t until I began recording my own music that the idea of “tone” truly struck me. For the first time, I would sit and analyze songs from my favorite artists to try and recreate them with the gear I had available. This referential style of creation forced me to ask questions about tonal nuances that I may never have noticed before.

“What kind of guitar is the artist using?”

“Is the amp dry or is there some kind of room sound?”

“How long is the decay of a particular reverb effect?”

“Is the overall characteristic bright or dark?”

As I continue to evolve as a person and musician, so does my idea of what “good” tone is. Right now, I don’t believe that “good” tone objectively exists. Some musicians will tell you that specific tones are better for certain roles or qualitative ways to measure one tone vs. another.

I disagree.

Tones are simply collections of past experiences. These experiences are the reasons why we wouldn’t expect someone to bust out a Bossa Nova tune with a line of Metal Zones in front of their amp or play hair metal riffs on a classical guitar. Of course, there aren’t any rules saying we shouldn’t do those things. Instead, we have these arbitrary tonal boundaries that we are either taught or subconsciously create.

I’ve always had one golden rule in music: If it sounds good, it is good.

With that said, certain things contribute to our understanding of tone, all of which we can manipulate or alter depending on what we want to hear.

Things That Contribute to Tone

As I said before, recording taught me quite a lot about tone. My first foray into the art form was with an SM57 dynamic microphone and a Fender Blues Jr. Little did I know at the time that these two tools would provide me with a vast range of tonal complexities.

Watching videos of my favorite artists recording at pro studios, I had always felt limited in my capacity to record, as I didn’t have access to unlimited gear options. At 16, going out and throwing down thousands of dollars on pedals, amps, and guitars wasn’t in the cards.

Having those limitations, however, forced me to consider things I did have control over. I knew I had to be clever with the way I recorded my music in order to achieve the sound I had in my head.

I learned about re-amping when I didn’t have two microphones to capture both the amp and the room tone. I began to fiddle with my tone knobs more to fake the sound of different guitars because I couldn’t afford to buy another one. I discovered that heavier picks were better for precise lead electric parts while lighter, flimsier picks helped tame strummed acoustic parts.

Only now do I appreciate these limitations that I had, as they allowed me to explore the nuances of sound in ways I may never have questioned if I had access to everything in the world. While I’m aware that there are thousands of nuances that could contribute to a single sound, here are the elements that I believe are the most impactful.

Fingers or Picks

As I said before, many traditional guitarists would tell you that tone begins in your fingers or picks. The idea here is that you have control over how a string vibrates.

When fingerpicking, how hard do you pluck each string? Do you have a soft or aggressive touch? Do you have long or short fingernails?

For pick players, how tightly do you hold your pick? At what angle do you hold it? What material is your pick made out of? Is it heavy, medium, or light? Are you resting your palm on strings to mute them? If so, how much are you muting them?

As you can see, a fair amount of tone starts with the player. Guitarists could potentially spend years perfecting their touch, arriving at new tonal breakthroughs along the way.

Strings

Most beginner guitarists have no idea how much of an impact strings can have on their tone. Nylon strings are often used in classical or flamenco-style playing and have a far different tonal characteristic than nickel-wound strings. One could even move up the scale in terms of “brightness” to chrome strings or procure longer sustain from stainless steel strings.

Beyond the materials used, one must consider the winding. Round-wound strings, which have a sharper, more articulate tone, are far different from flat-wound strings, which have a warmer vintage tone.

Pickups

The world of pickups is where the beginning of the tonal black hole begins to form. The main pickups we usually hear about are single-coil and humbucker pickups. Single coils are brighter, with a very articulate tone, yet they have far less power than humbuckers and give off a 60 Hz hum.

Humbuckers, otherwise known as double coil pickups, give off a far thicker and hotter tone that distorts nicely.

Beyond the two main categories, guitarists have to decide on passive or active designs, magnet types, covers, windings, pole pieces, and so much more.

Gain

Gain comes in many different forms. You could adjust the gain by playing with the volume knob on your guitar, utilizing an overdrive pedal, or adjusting the knobs on your amp. As you probably expected, none of these gain adjustments sound the same. The tone varies depending on which stage you make a gain adjustment.

The volume knob on your guitar, for instance, could help push more signal into your amp, shaping the envelope of the signal differently. You could also push more gain from your guitar into your pedals to help them react differently, which would, in turn, make your amp react uniquely.

Gain that is set very high introduces overdrive and distortion. A signal with some severe clipping is referred to as “fuzz.”

As you introduce more gain to your signal, you create a serious impact on your tone.

Pedals

Of course, we couldn’t talk about tone without talking about the importance of pedals. Going through the various tonal characteristics of different guitar pedals could produce an entire handbook in itself.

We talked about gain and how it can create distortion. The same method of heating up a signal is found in distortion, overdrive, and fuzz pedals. Beyond these signal-crushing pedals, we have modulation effects, time-based effects, equalization, compression, pitch-shifting, and so much more.

Not only can different pedals affect your tone in different ways individually, but your tone can also change quite drastically depending on how you order your pedals.

Amps

The last thing in the tonal chain (excluding the room or any post-signal rack effects) is the amplifier. One of the beautiful things about guitar amps is that they impart themselves onto the incoming signal. Every amp has unique colors and characteristics depending on how they are manufactured.

Tube amps are probably the most popular, as they provide warmth, coloration, and a natural smoothing effect to help tame high-frequencies while creating pleasant overtones to provide a sense of fullness.

Solid-state amps are the other main choice. They are far more transparent than tube amps, allowing the true sound of the guitar to ring through without creating any distractions.

In my opinion, both have their own places in music.

The Never-Ending Road to Great Tone

When it comes to achieving a great tone, the journey never ends.

Yes, you can find out what your favorite player uses and try to recreate it using a new amp, a specific pedal chain, and particular strings. Eventually, the hunt will continue as you open yourself up to new music and find different tonal characteristics.

Even more so, you’ll likely find that you’ve opened yourself up to a myriad of tones that you enjoy, feeling less associated with one distinct tone. When all is said and done, let your experience guide you. Play the way you play, dial-in sounds that you like, and find comfort in the journey of defining your tone.