Do you think the crowd cares about guitar tone?

[neastguy]

Originally Posted by plexistack

YES they care.

It's a subjective determiner, similar to...

Do non-chefs care about the sauce? Yes.
Can non-makeup artists tell good makeup from bad? Yes.
Can people tell cheap booze from the expensive kind? Yes.
Do people care if the ride in a cab is smooth or bumpy? Yes.

Don't sell these fans short. They showed up, after all. Many of us here were fans long before we were players, and we knew a great sounding guitar from a crappy one.

You don't have to be a chef to know good food, or a bartender to know good booze, or a makeup artist to know good makeup, or a race car driver to know a smooth ride.

Sure, most of them would rather get laid, or get a free drink than hear great guitar tone, but so would I! And I can certainly tell good from lousy guitar tone.

lol.. i disagree with most of this.... and yes, I'm too tired to work at work today..

[Mandoboy]

Once you are musician it's hard, if not impossible, , to hear music the way non-musicians do.

[seiko]

No, but I think they care about fresh and exciting sounds in the context of an original song/s. "Good tone" (whatever that is) only happens after the fact. Most every guitarist that is recognized by the wider public either pioneered or popularized new sounds and techniques or gave an old style a new spin.

[daddyo]

Originally Posted by Snail

How sad....!

Why is it sad? Because the public at large doesn't buy into our neurosis? And that's what it is - when guys start obsessing about the capacitance of their cable or whether or not their tube screamer clone has some NOS transistor from 1983 - that's a neurosis.

[somedude]

Originally Posted by neastguy

lol.. i disagree with most of this.... and yes, I'm too tired to work at work today..

It's really not that hard to understand...

[Loop-Master]

Originally Posted by MudPies

Aside from a few guitarists out in the crowd, I highly doubt anyone out there really cares if the guitar tone is super sweet or not. I've been thinking about that assumption while tinkering with my pedal chain and amp settings wondering if all the trouble is worth it.

Your thoughts?

The band members you play with can be considered an audience too.

I'm not saying they do know a difference but I can't see why they wouldn't.

[somedude]

Originally Posted by daddyo

Why is it sad? Because the public at large doesn't buy into our neurosis? And that's what it is - when guys start obsessing about the capacitance of their cable or whether or not their tube screamer clone has some NOS transistor from 1983 - that's a neurosis.

I don't think most of us are discussing this level of gear obsession.

You can get good tone with a MIM Fat Strat into a Marshall head and cab using guitar store cable and a Bad Monkey OD for your leads.

You can also get bad tone from the exact same setup.

I'm all for a good amp as much as the next guy, but lets face it, aside from some beginners/practice equipment that should've never seen a stage, most of what we're talking about in this thread is the part of the tone that's in the fingers, not the part that's in the actual gear (aside from the too bright/muddy/loud bits that've popped up here and there).

[kludge]

Originally Posted by Loop-Master

The band members you play with can be considered an audience too.

I'm not saying they do know a difference but I can't see why they wouldn't.

True dat. I can always tell when a piece of gear matters because our drummer notices. His technical level is somewhere to the east of banging rocks together. He knows NOTHING about gear. When I got my Boogie Mark I, after the first rehearsal he said "Don't EVER sell that amp". I knew I had something special.

And he definitely hears things differently. For a while, I was using EMGs in my Tele. He voiced his approval when I went back to passive pickups. He said "Those black ones neutered that guitar". He was kind of boggled when he found out that a: the EMGs use batteries, and b: other pickups don't. Me, I liked the EMGs a lot - heck, I'm keeping them until I find another Tele to drop 'em in. But the know-nothing guy... it's not that he can't tell the difference, it's that he cares about different things.

[daddyo]

Originally Posted by somedude

I don't think most of us are discussing this level of gear obsession.

You can get good tone with a MIM Fat Strat into a Marshall head and cab using guitar store cable and a Bad Monkey OD for your leads.

You can also get bad tone from the exact same setup.

I'm all for a good amp as much as the next guy, but lets face it, aside from some beginners/practice equipment that should've never seen a stage, most of what we're talking about in this thread is the part of the tone that's in the fingers, not the part that's in the actual gear (aside from the too bright/muddy/loud bits that've popped up here and there).

Actually
Do a search. Huge threads have been spun from these topics especially the cable one. There was even a thread about people making speaker cable from vacuum cleaner power cord and its directionality.

[Smakutus]

The crowd doesn't care about how your guitar sounds unless you're doing Do You Feel Like We Do without the voice box etc.. Only guitar players care about the guitar sounds. (And I'm right there with you all.. :AOK)

Jeff

[RickNew]

Originally Posted by bkd_guitarist

I don't think most non-guitarists notice the difference between a decent tone and a super-cool tone, but many people, including non-musicians, are turned off by a nasty, irritating tone. If 10 is the most beautiful tone ever and 1 is an annoying screech, anything 4 and above will be fine with non-guitarists.

I agree. If I am comparing two of my better amps who's tone are very different but of high quality and ask my wife which she prefers I usually don't get much from her, but if we are out listening to a decent band and the guitar player has a sub-par tone she will call it every time.

[somedude]

Originally Posted by daddyo

Actually
Do a search. Huge threads have been spun from these topics especially the cable one. There was even a thread about people making speaker cable from vacuum cleaner power cord and its directionality.

There's been big threads discussing the relative merits (or lack thereof) of Kurt Cobain. Do they apply to this thread? No. Why? Because that's not what we're discussing here.

[Rod]

Of course the people care......That connection is what you look for...[At least I always do]...the connection of magic between the people and your music, and your tone and your guitar....That's what it's all about....That's the magic of great music

[banjoze]

sure they do... if Brad Paisley played something that didn't give him his trade-mark tele sound, they would notice.. if Eric Johnson was playing with a B.B. King tone they would notice things didn't sound right...

Nuances, not so much. Wrong tone, yes.

[harryjmic]

Originally Posted by daddyo

Actually
There was even a thread about people making speaker cable from vacuum cleaner power cord and its directionality.

That was me, it depends on what way the electrons were sucked when attached to the machine.