Great video which systematically investigates the factors which cause electric guitars to sound different from each other (hint: it’s not “tonewood”) and manages to do so in an engaging and entertaining way. I think one of the best things about it is that the dude doesn’t have terminal redditor brain–rather than wasting time putting down people that believe or perpetuate the myths or gloating about his superb intellect, he just does the experiments and lets the results do the talking.
Jim Lill put out a great video today (Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In A Microphone?) which I would definitely check out if you enjoy the video I submitted, but it’s a little more subtle/niche which is why I chose to lead with the guitar one. My next favorite after the guitar tone video is probably the one on guitar amps–equally good, and perhaps even more surprising.
this whole series is incredible.
tldr: it is empirically demonstrable that most of the tone from a guitar comes from the electromagnetic characteristics of the pickups and electronics, most of the tone from different amp profiles can be traced to EQ of the final output.
That’s great but I’m still going to tell people that tone is in their hands.
Tone is stored in the balls cmon every player knows this
This is April Lawton/Poison Ivy/Marissa Paternoster/Yvette Young/Sister Rosetta Tharpe erasure. Among…just so many others
You’re right, it is a pretty shitty joke
The tacklebox “amp” that was just a series of boost pedals and passive tone controls was hilarious and I kind of want to build one. A project like that demands something silly like an Electric Amp Innovations headshell with the aftermarket badging, though.
Fun coincidence, I just got done watching the video on microphones.
There are a few issues with the guy’s methodology but it’s still representative of how most studios get their results, and if it can help combat some of the snake oil that goes around in the music production industry (and god there’s so much of it), then that’s a good a thing.
This is really cool!
From a macro perspective though, I would argue that when considering an entire guitar rig, the amp head is going to make the biggest impact on tone.
And uhhhh if anyone ever wants to shoot the shit about amps and gear, holler!
