Will the digital age make chasing a guitarists tone easier or more difficult?

[Mr. Brady]

Most guys know what equipment their favorite guitar players used. It's pretty common knowledge what Angus, EVH, Gilmour, Page, Clapton, or Hendrix used. There may be a new generation of guitarists that will use devices like the Kemper, or Axe for their tone and it may not be something that is conventional at all. If it's the Kemper, they might profile an obscure amp or even a common one that is heavily modded, never upload the profile and that could be their tone.

In interviews they could just say they use a Kemper and no one will ever know the specific amp, making it difficult to get close to their tone right off the bat. Could be the same with the Axe II. They could use a certain model pre, with a different model power amp and tone chasers everywhere would be scrambling to duplicate the tone.

One the other hand, have we become so traditional that all "great" tones are just minor variations anymore and there really aren't any new great tones to be discovered?

 

[stratzrus]

In interviews they could just say they use a Kemper and no one will ever know the specific amp, making it difficult to get close to their tone right off the bat. Could be the same with the Axe II.

People will still be able to get the profile or preset (or a reasonable facsimile) and will be able to more accurately reproduce the tones than by buying the same tube amp and hoping for the best.

 

[Mr. Brady]

People will still be able to get the profile or preset (or a reasonable facsimile) and will be able to more accurately reproduce the tones than by buying the same tube amp and hoping for the best.

Assuming the profile ever gets uploaded. If a certain tone is my signature, I'd never upload it.

 

[prkaye]

I think the technology will eventually evolve to be able to extract profiles of recorded guitar tone from a mix (i.e. a finished song on an album).
Before you say this is impossible, I used to think that Melodyne's DNA technology (pulling apart polyphonic tracks to dissect and allow you to manipulate individual notes inside chords) was impossible - but now it exists. The next evolution of Melodyne's technology (I hope) is to allow for direct note access of all notes and instruments in a polyphonic and multitimberal recording.
For tone profiling, eventually you'll be able to open up a .wav file of your favourite [insert favourite artist here] song, and have some software spit out a patch for [some future amp modeling device/software] that gives you exactly the tone you want.
So - ultimately - easier! This is what technology does for us!

 

[Hoth]

I think it depends on if you mean tone in the strict sense or including the effects, for example like for a brian eno or the edge. If you mean the latter, it could get more difficult to match what you hear exactly as the number of tools increases. It goes back to the question asked on here often as to why guitarists want modellers to nail old amps exactly rather than trailblaze new types of sounds.

 

[Pietro]

My HD 500 makes it easier for me to chase tone than when I had 2 or 3 amps at my disposal, that's all I know...

 

[burningyen]

IMHO we're already there.

 

[Chadley]

I am predicting that over the next few years we will see KPA's make there way into recording sessions to profile player's set ups during the recording process. Then those presets will be available (probably at a cost).

 

[Rena Rune]

There isn't really all that much of a difference between different guitar tones in the first place though, it can be difficult to nail a lot of tones but with stuff like the AxeFX it should be possible to ballpark pretty much anything.

 

[Aydan]

It's hard to decide, people can moan about how you should have patience, and learn to tweak but that to me is more like an excuse to defend their units, it's like people have some emotional attachment to the material item they use, you know its true. I've used digital at home all the time for playing and practicing but as soon as I get in my bands room and plug into my jcm and cab it just sounds so great and doesn't require stupid amounts of tweeking things and messing about. It's plug in, turn up and rock on. No digital interface has replicated it yet. Maybe the Axe2 can? But from what I've heard it still doesnt sound right even running through FRFR and what not.

I'm not hater, hell I'd probably drop tubes for an axe but it's the simple case of getting great tone without sacrificing time to make something sound good. I dunno...

 

[shasha]

I think that its cheaper and makes dialing in something reasonably close more attainable, especially if you are talking about multiple artists.

But in my opinion the difference between close and balls on is really about the time spent dialing it in, understanding what you are doing, having the right gear on hand and the player himself. I think that if you take any one of those out of the equation it's going to fall short and that goes for tube amps as well.

 

[DigitalTube]

I think the day has pretty much arrived where anyone with a couple thousand bucks can get quality sounds like you'll hear in most records, it's like keyboards have been for a while, you spend 350 bucks and you can buy sample/modeling software that sounds like a 50 K piano! The difference from now on will be on the creativity of the players, songwriting, and guitar playing, not so much in being able to also create your own sounds with amps effects etc. soon anyone will be able to download free or buy the "famous" guitar sounds.

 

[burningyen]

It's hard to decide, people can moan about how you should have patience, and learn to tweak but that to me is more like an excuse to defend their units, it's like people have some emotional attachment to the material item they use, you know its true.

I dunno, given the killer clips online of just about every platform, I think it's fair to assume that user error or impatience are among the more likely reasons for modeling gear not working out for someone.

 

[Aydan]

While user error can be common I'd also say that's one issue of modelling, sure it can be complex, but loading up a nice amp model, putting everything at 12 should sound nice but usually it doesn't cut it. Do this with ant decent tube amp and the tone and feel will generally be great and usable. I'm not saying modelling sucks, hell I'm considering going all modelling using a poweramp and 2x12 eventually, but it's just the whole tweaking issue. Once again you all ramble on how you should learn to use it or whatever but tell that to any other guitarist in the past with a nice tube amp, turn it on, turn the 3-4 eq knobs to 12, play, job done. I understand why modelling can be complex but at the same time there should be some kind of effort to simplify it or at least make it more clear? I don't know, just my 2 cents I guess. I'm sure if I tried an Axe2 I'd crap my pants but then comes al lthe stupidly in depth tweeking which i don't need to do with a real amp to get the same tone.

Take out the practicallity of it, I'm talking simply on ease of editing for basic tones.

 

[derek_32999]

I don't think chasing another guitarists tone has much to do with having a certain piece of gear or many pieces of gear.... Tone chasers are like heroin addicts... never gonna catch that dragon, IMO. Something else will always be more HD, or 11% more real.