Electric Guitar Tone

The quest for tone is a never ending one (take it from me). Great guitar sounds are often a mix of purposeful engineering, accidental combination & shear, of the moment inspiration. Greats like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Brian May, Brian Setzer & others, carved their own unique guitar sounds that most of us can immediately recognize. Their quest for their own guitar sounds most likely carried them along multiple changes of equipment setup, enhancing their playing styles to complete their individual guitar tone package. What we want to talk about here, is how an electric guitar shapes its own sound & what elements of the guitar affect its sound the most.

Great Tone comes from Good Guitars

Ever heard the saying "a bad workman blames his tools?" We like to turn that around a little. Do you get those moments where everything seems to come together & you're playing right there, in the moment, getting it just right? Good guitars help you find more of those moments, the more you trust in your instrument, the more you can relax & settle into your own guitar playing. Once your guitar gives you the opportunity to do that, you will find more opportunity for the sound to be right, you're in the groove & everything seems to flow. Can you blame bad playing on your instrument? Not necessarily, but you can certainly credit a good guitar for helping you play well.

Guitar Setup

Guitar setup can have a significant effect on how a guitar sounds as well as how well it plays. There are several areas of setup that can affect how well it plays. Poor fretting (high spots & flat tops - see Guitar Setups) can upset the guitars action, cause buzzing & intonation problems. Improperly set string nuts can also cause dull notes & intonation problems. Problems with your guitar setup can destroy your confidence before you begin to play. Before you expect the best from your guitar, make sure that you have it properly setup by an experienced guitar tech.

Pickups for Electric Guitars

Probably the most significant choice you can make for changing the sound of your guitar is in the pickups. Their are literally hundreds of different pickups avaliable & new versions are appearing all of the time. How do you choose an electric pickup? What is it going to sound like in your guitar? There are some great ways to look at choices for pickups. First of all, talk to people who know, they'll be able to point you in the right direction - It helps if you know what kind of guitar sound you want to have. Secondly, go on-line & look for guitar pickup websites. Some pickup manufacturers have sound files you can download & listen to. The Seymour Duncan Tone Wizard is a great place to start. You can also hear pickups by trying out different guitars at your local guitar store.

Guitar Body Wood

Guitar body wood definitely shapes the sound of electric guitars. Here's a good general rule - The harder the wood, the better the attack and sustain of a plucked string. Common woods like Alder used on many Fender guitars, are chosen for their lightness and are also less dense than say a Mahogany or hard Ash. There is no general rule to apply in terms of correct wood choice or perfection of sound. A strat or tele might lend themselves to a less dense wood in order to temper the brightness of the single coil pickup - An alder or swamp ash body becomes part of the guitar's unique sound that we all love. Applying Alder to a Les Paul body might make such a guitar fitted with the more rounder sounding humbucker pickups, to be rather lifeless in comparison to the normally denser Mahogany Les Paul guitar body with maple top.
Another angle on the wood type is all about the shear feel & balance of the guitar. We all expect a Les Paul to be more solid & weighty & a strat to be comfortable but lighter. Apart from the obvious difference in the contours and shapes, the wood choice really adds to the "feel & balance" equation.

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