What would say would give you better tone?

[fogman]

I had this thought while I was on the treadmill at the gym.
Since I've never really had great music equipment, I personally cannot comment on this thought.

I was wondering which you would think to be more true. Would you achieve better tone/sound by having a really good amplifier with a crappy guitar
or
Having a really good guitar and a not so good amplifier?
Forget about the playability of the guitar for a moment. I am just looking for the general idea of it.
I personally would guess the first to be true!?

 

[mhorse]

In my limited experience the first is more true then the second. Not because good amp can make crappy guitar sound good, but rather because crappy amp can ruin good guitar's sound.
For a couple of months I've had a chance to play around with my roomate's setup - a Peavey Raptor (a $100 guitar) and Fender Bullet Amp (solid state, 10 wattish, 6.5 or 8 inch speaker). I was able to get decent sounds out of Peavey Raptor through my Mesa DC-5 while my SUB was traveling to SLO and back. However, it was very hard to get good sounds out of Fender Bullet with Peavey or SUB or Schecter that I've had before SUB.
Everything I've said is strictly IMO.

 

[bluebullet]

i think the amp makes a bigger tone difference the playability of the guitar is also important but as far as tone i think its probably 70 percent amp

 

[MN246]

The guitar creates the signal, but ultimately what you hear is generated by the speaker. If you have a really crappy amp, no guitar will sound good through it. On the other hand, a crappy guitar can be made to sound decent with a really good amp.

 

[Luiz Gustavo]

A good pre amp can help a lot too.

Even good cables can do they part ....

 

[SteveB]

I think we all agree that the entire signal chain defines the sound, including the hands producing the sound.

But the amp can certainly make or break the whole deal. You can tweak a usable sound out of most amps (especially in conjunction with external effects). I think the guitar's pickups make a large contribution as well. Some pickups just aren't 'hot' enough to produce certain sounds easily. Some pickups are too 'hot' for certain clean sounds.

The good news is that you can get great sounds from not-so-great gear if you're patient.

 

[Luiz Gustavo]

The good news is that you can get great sounds from not-so-great gear if you're patient.

Yes, I agree.

 

[peterd79]

I belive that if you are going to go cheap on one thing... it should be the guitar. If you have a descent overseas (non-USA Made) guitar and a solid amp you can pull of some great tone! Take it from me... I've got an ESP LTD that sounds great through my Line 6 AMP... and I've got an OLP MM1F (NAMM) that sounds even Better. So I can attribute that sound to the workings of the AMP... HOWEVER, with a real nice guitar... like my '56 Les Paul the tone is so amazing. SO... I guess i think it's more important to get the best amp you can afford and go from there!

 

[mhorse]

Agree with peter. And for the price of LTD 400-series or Korean Schecter or you can get a SUB1, and join me and Raz and many other happy SUB1 owners on this board !

 

[tommyindelaware]

I had this thought while I was on the treadmill at the gym.
Since I've never really had great music equipment, I personally cannot comment on this thought.

I was wondering which you would think to be more true. Would you achieve better tone/sound by having a really good amplifier with a crappy guitar
or
Having a really good guitar and a not so good amplifier?
Forget about the playability of the guitar for a moment. I am just looking for the general idea of it.
I personally would guess the first to be true!?

as long as you don't go extreme on a cheap amp ....i'd rather heve a good guitar first.........there are some really good amps out these days for cheap !!!!!
i got a roland micro cube thats just awesome for 125.00 new !!!!!

 

[Supreeth]

Me and my friend (Sundar from this forum) had this exact same discussion over the weekend. We agreed that good tone can be achieved from a not so good guitar depending on your 1. Pickups 2. Amp, and 3. Strings. I truly believe that strings make a really big difference to the tone. I have been experimenting with many different strings on my EBMM Petrucci and each time the difference in sound is remarkable. The pickups make a big dufference too. Some pups can really drive an amp (say the evolutions or the Morse bridge) and others just make the guitar sound so good. Anyone who's tried something like a Bill Lawrence single coil silent pickup knows what I'm talking about. Of course the amp makes a difference too. I don't think the wood of the guitar makes so much of a difference in tone on electric guitars. Just my 0.002

 

[mhorse]

I actually kinda like Tech 21 Trademarks. They have built-in Sans-Amp, so you get great versatility out of them. 10 and 30 watters have 1 channel, 60 watter has 2.
They are solid state and cheaper then virtually any tube amps, and have great tones.

 

[peterd79]

I agree with Supreeth that strings help contribute to the tone of ones guitar. I have gone through just about every brand of strings out on the market today. I've found that the PRS 9.5 strings are pretty solid. I WAS using the EBMM Regular Slinky but found that I was was loosing my tone and I could not afford to loose quality in my sound... I would experiment with different strings and really like the PRS strings...

** please note that it is only my opinion... **

 

[fogman]

You (all) pretty much confirmed what I was thinking.
Thanks!

 

[bluebullet]

as far as good sounding affordable amps go i was really impressed with the vintage series crates i never thought i would recomend a crate but those sound really good and there american made .

 

[peterd79]

as far as good sounding affordable amps go i was really impressed with the vintage series crates i never thought i would recomend a crate but those sound really good and there american made .

I just went to GC this afternoon... I had to exchange my EBMM SKB CASE which is an entire story all in itself. While I was getting the good 'ol GC run-a-round (I only shop there for my Music Man Specific products) and while I was sitting I decided to stroll over to the amps and see what they had. I picked up a nice looking Gretch and plugged into the Classic Crate Series... figuring it would sound really bad. To my surprise it was quite pleasant sounding. I was impressed... it was a whole lot less than my Line 6... and sound pretty good. I was thinking... why not drop my LINE 6 and go with this one... I was really close to buying it.



GC- Sacramento only had EBMM SUB 1 guitars in stock. And they only have two at that!

 

[Philip]

IMO guitar is 30% and amp is 70% (somebody posted that). Unless you have REALLY crappy amp, the guitar makes a lot of difference. For example I've tried once to compare some ibz stuff. I was using that new series of Marshall amps (from which I own one). I compared some cheap RG series with JS series. When I plugged in JS the difference was huge. Sound was better, deeper and warmer to my ears. Ibz from RG series was rather flat-sounding, sloppy. So I think guitar HAS much to do with the sound ( wood , pickups , even frets).

 

[caucajun]

i think i chose my axis for comfort.....hangs right, neck FEELS good in my hand.

i choose my amps by dynamics.......i like the way el84's break up. my peavey bravo has the classic el84 grind, plus a lil' hartley p's miss-ssippi high gain mojo.

consider the old blues masters. they played what they could afford, which was usually, by modern standards .....junk....(this is textbook, 1st year info.......you guys know this...)....but, it was "with this junk" that many of todays "grail tone" standards were set.

when i began recording, 1 piece of advice i got that really stood out was........

" have a buttload of mics.....quality AND crap.......and if you want a variety of guitar tones...............well......don't think you're gonna get that tiesco through a silvertone amp -gutbucket blues vibe w/ a les paul and a super lead..."

i think a fella could find his perfect rig in any ol' piece o' junk......provided HE liked it.........THAT's the important thing...........BUT.......no matter WHAT axe or anchor he choses, he should ALWAYS buy a high quality cord! you can get a reasonable variety of tones from ANY guitar and amp rig............but a badly made cord has only 1 tone...........MUD! use a bad cord, and you will not get a good tone out of ANY rig!


DON'T SKIMP ON THE WIRES! I MEAN IT!

and......if you need to sound like: satch.....and eric.....and Eric.....and david.....AND jimmy....AND jimi......AND steve...AND stevie......AND billy....AND alex.......AND eddie.....etc...etc....on and on and on..................go for it.........spend every dime you make on all the gear you need to do that............no judgement...........

but.......you HAVE the option .....to just sound like you.......with the minimum amount of equipment required to do so. ain't not wrong with singin' wit'cher own voice, now, izzere?

piece out!