Tonedef wrote:
Viccy wrote:
It's an important question. It ultimately guides you in how you play guitar. In my case it was more, "how do I get my sound out of my guitar" and not "how do I get the guitar with my sound". I got my sound by having lots of time on my own with my guitar. Simple.
See, but this is in stark contrast with what you read often, that "your sound" is dependant on the equipment you choose, whereas your sound and your equipment went hand in hand from a developmental aspect.
Simplistically speaking there are two major components to the sound - the player and the equipment. You can replicate Jimmy Page's rig exactly, even borrow his guitars, but sounding the same? Unlikely - though you'll be in the ball park so it depends on how fussy you are.
There are some things you can eliminate. If you want to sound like Santana then don't get a Telecaster.
The balance of player and equipment may be different when it comes to acoustic guitaring. We all strike the strings differently, with different parts of the finger, or with different gauges of pick. Some of us hit the strings harder than others. There's all kinds of little mechanical differences between players. These may be hidden more in the electric world where there is a signal chain creating volume and adding colour.
As to what the driver is - does equipment steer the player's idea of sound or does the player pursue a vision - I don't know and I suspect that there is no rule. One of the most striking guitar sounds I ever heard was Martin Carthy - amazing ringing sound with incredible sustain, sounded like he was smacking bells with a big hammer. Now this is a good case of it not being the equipment or just the equipment. A Martin 000-18 with some modifications - a zero fret and brass bridge pins on the first 3 strings. He played with a metal thumb pick. OK... that's all got to count but even so, do I think I can pick up that guitar and put on that thumb pick and get that sound? Hmm.... On that same holiday I met a guy who has built a guitar for Carthy and done some work on that Martin. He says Carthy conceived that sound as a complement to what he was playing and then went and figured out how to make it real.
[EDIT] but, in this case, equipment was not part of the solution. Carthy had had that Martin guitar for years, what he worked on was mostly right hand technique.
