so what exactly is "tone suck"

[rich2k4]

i see it used a lot here. tone is a very broad subject, so what exactly gets "sucked" from the tone?

do you think it's mostly in the player's head? or does it really exist.

[Turnipfarmer]

my names not webster but tone suck to me is when you have a rig and setup that is able to really give you what you want to hear and then you introduce something into that chain, a cable, bypass, tuner, whatever, and your perfect tone goes away, is strangled, mal eq'd, ect.

[Trashbag_Travis]

plug your guitar straight to your amp. now go through about 5 pedals with 15 foot cords before and after. you'll hear a difference.

[steveb]

Okay, I'll bite.

To me, anything that takes away or adds to your fundamental tone in an "unpleasing" way can be considered tone suck. Too many pedals & long cable lengths may decrease treble response or highs. SPDT switches that don't completely remove a pedal's circuitry when "bypassed". Those are forms of tone suck. Even a guitar's volume control can cause tone suck as you turn it down because of the decreased treble response.

Also, some buffers on non-true bypassed pedals try to compensate for the loss & add highs. That's tone suck in my book, too. It just happened to me with a Muza delay/reverb pedal.

Bridge saddles can suck tone, too. I changed some on my Strat, & the brightness was totally changed because the saddles were brass & not steel. I didn't like that at all.

Anyway, lots of things can suck tone, & many people may actually like the things that I consider tone suck. It's not just in my head either, it's real.

[gishlullmoon]

tone suck is horrrible!!!! especially if u are palying through a shitty crate small amp................ get a decent beast and its not AS bad............ but still sucks

[nrvana8775]

Tone suck = attenuated highs, muffled mid/lows, destruction of dynamics

basically...when you lose the spank, sparkle, and balls.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by nrvana8775

Tone suck = attenuated highs, muffled mid/lows, destruction of dynamics

basically...when you lose and the spank, sparkle, and balls.

i'll go with this, and narrow it down even more:

"tone suck" when talking about guitar signal chains is the specific loss of treble signal caused by passive pickups going through poor or overly long cable runs (including too many switched-off true-bypass pedals)

and/or

going into pedals that load down the signal (old-school non-buffered, non-T-B pedals, volume pedals, rack gear that wasn't designed for passive guitar signal), causing an "impedance mismatch" that bleeds away treble.

buffers eliminate tone suck from everything that happens down the line. you may not like the tone of a certain buffer, but that's a tone change, not a tone suck. calling your TU-2 a tone-sucker is a mis-use of the term.

same with saddles or other mechanical parts of the guitar. using the term "tone suck" for that stuff is just muddying the definition.

[phoenix 7]

Tone suck = loss of clarity, loss of "color" (to my ears). Can be easily perceived if you have a true bypass loop switcher that you can use to instantly switch pedals in and out of your chain.

[SBLP]

so what exactly is "tone suck"

I wanna paste an image of this guy getting a blowjob, but can't find one.

[this1smyne]

when my fingers don't do what my mind tells them to do. than my tone sucks.

[SBLP]

Tone suck usually refers to buffers or the bypass mode of a pedal that reduces the high end sparkle of your guitar's normal tone.

As in guitar>amp is "pure". Guitar>pedal(disengaged)>amp: not as pure. Something is missing, or "sucked" out of your true natural tone.

[Classic09]

The term 'tone suck' is as valid as the word 'weed'. By definition, a weed is merely a plant growing where it is not wanted. 'Tone suck' is much the same: something introduced to the guitar -> amp chain that changes the sound in an unacceptable way.

One mans weed is another mans flower
One mans 'tone suck' is another mans sound

Eg. Many of our favourite songs have been played and/or recorded using boss pedals yet around TGP they are frowned upon.

[SBLP]

Well, they don't cost a paycheck, and have icky buffers. How can they possibly be any good?

[hb_nz]

Tone suck mostly = marketing BS.

[amz-fx]

Originally Posted by Classic09

One mans 'tone suck' is another mans sound

I was adding to my 20 Commandments of FX last week, and added this one:

One man's tone suck is another man's warm sound.

Great minds think alike

regards, Jack


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