Great songs, great solos, awful sound

    Ultimately, beauty is in the ear of the listener so i hope not to offend anyone so please take this discussion in a light frame of mind...


    What records can you name that could have benefitted (in your opinion) from a better guitar-tone rather than a sound akin to running your finger-nails down a blackboard. (Kids- ask the elders if you don't know what a blackboard is)
    i'll start the list with a couple of great songs with great solos but what I consider to be a guitar-tone I'd do my best to avoid as a player:

    • the commodores "easy" guitar solo
    • the carpenters "goodbye to love" guitar solo

    On the other hand, does anyone like to use the kind of tone these solos employ?

    Good shout on the carpenters - great solo, blumin awful sound!


    The commodores solo sound was rectified by Faith no More I think, Jim's sound on that is filthy!


    I can't think of any songs myself with awful solo sound..Jake E Lee was never happy with his sound so I guess Bark at the Moon but is not really bad..

    Yeah, great thread idea, I know this carpenter solo from very long since my wife introduced me the carpenters like 20 years ago, and she definitely wanted me to hear 'that super solo on goodbye to love with that TREMENDOUS tone'... While listening to this famous track I thought great solo construction and licks but ... what a crappy trebly thin and ugly fuzzy tone :) My wife was an accomplished musician at this time, and she really loved the tone of this solo, I had hard times explain what was wrong with this tone.


    After watching a few live on DVD I managed to watch the guitarist doing 'the solo' with a big 335 like guitar and probably a fuzz pedal to switch from bright clean tone to the infamous fuzz tone, and yes it also sounds VERY crappy with a only a very narrow upper mid band. I think the fuzz is the one to blame here. At this time in the late 60's there was so much gear available, and having a fuzz pedal and a single channel clean amp was probably the only way to have both rhythm and lead tone at this times. Fuzz pedals were also made on heterogeneous/unstable components , so each fuzz was probably different from the next one on the store shelve.


    It's easy to get a trebly & ugly tone with most of the fuzz I had the luck to try in real life, and somewhat difficult to craft a great lead tone out of a fuzz box, the kind of fuzzy tone that maintain the guitar's character, a cool tone balance (keep some basses, no ice pick trebles) and that typical fuzz vibe. Best examples of a cool fuzz tone are the ones from Jimi Hendrix, but he was the only one to get such a tone from a basic equipment ( standard strat , Marshall, wah and octavia).


    I still dig the track and solo very much, the tone does not bother me that much since it's a very well constructed and played one, I think the guitarist didn't really bother about it with such a band, orchestra, singers and musicians behind to build the underlying harmony.


    The lesson to be taken here IMHO is that a good lead might be the best crafted tone ever, but it will stay useless without a good harmony & arrangement where is can sit and do it's job. I most often build a specific harmony for leads on my tracks before thinking about a lead, it's easier for me and sounds much better.


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    Quote from Janne

    A lot of old 10 CC tunes comes to mind. I've always hated Erics Fuzzy guitar sounds.


    I've read that Eric Stewart loved to play his Les Paul straight into the desk, deliberately overdriving the desk preamps.
    But actually I love that sawtooth fuzz tone in that final solo of 'I'm Mandy - Fly Me'. ;)

    Quote from Ingolf


    And while the solo on Steely Dan's 'Bodhisattva' is an all time great I'm not thrilled with that sound either.


    Did you watch the video of how they produced Aja? Donald Fagen and Walter Becker explained why they very often picked whimpy sounds on purpose. :P They were sitting in front of a huge mixing desk with the various multitracks of Aja-songs on. Then they soloed this or that track and each one - when soloed - was freaking awful! soundwise Even the backing vocals... But when played all together it sounded genious. The greates lesson I ever learned.


    Even more funny on that video: There was one certain solo that Walter thought he was not good enough. So they hired a couple of session guys to play it instead. Those were insane, from an ultra fast metal guy to a Hawaian player :D At the end of the day Walter played it himself...

    Ne travaillez jamais.

    Ha, interesting thread!


    That's pretty specific but as a teen, I was really into Gentle Giant (prog rock band from the 70s) for some time. Their writing was far out and they had wicked arrangements. I liked the guitar playing too, however the thin, fuzzy and dry overdrive in some songs on Free Hand and Power and the Glory was driving me nuts. If I'd listen to it again now I'm sure I'd find it somewhat appropriate but back then I thought I could get better tones from my Peavey Bandit.


    The other one that comes to mind was this one Prince concert where he does this "blues" segment.


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    May get hung by some of the Metal guys for this but I for one, can't stand Pantera's guitar tone. I get some people like a bit of a scoop, granted I've always been more of a Josh Homme-esque-midrange-bark kinda guy, I still get it though, but Pantera's just seems to be done to a detrimental level?

    Quote from rickycooksie

    May get hung by some of the Metal guys for this but I for one, can't stand Pantera's guitar tone. I get some people like a bit of a scoop, granted I've always been more of a Josh Homme-esque-midrange-bark kinda guy, I still get it though, but Pantera's just seems to be done to a detrimental level?


    I'd agree with you, too "buzzsaw" for me..


    I had kinda ruled out the 60's stuff because there were limits ion the equipment - master volumes not really around but any of the kinks solo's are too plinky-plonky for me..


    OK, I'm gonna really upset some people now but Jimmy page's guitar sound sometimes is not great, especially live on "song remains the same.."

    I once met the Commodores guitarist backstage on a TV show and asked him about the solo on 'Easy',he told me that there were six producers in the control room all telling him
    what he should play and the finished solo was a patchwork quilt of all their ideas joined up into one.He went on to say that he never wanted to go through that again and that the sound of the guitar was not even an issue.
    Richard Carpenter wanted a Jimi Hendrix style solo on Goodbye to love and so many Carpenters fans hated the solo that they called the radio stations to complain, imagine if it had really been a Hendrix sounding solo,I remember it sounding bad at the time but the notes were perfect for the song and tha'ts what really counts I suppose.
    The guy who played wah gtr on Papa was a Rolling Stone was booked because he owned a wah pedal !
    Eric Stewart once said on a saturday morning kids show that the guitar sound on my bands latest single was the worst he had ever heard, I thought that's rich coming from you my son( the record got to no8.on the Billboard chart). I remember a great session guitarist who always used to say to the producer 'Do you want a Hendrix or Clapton solo on this one? Hendrix meant fuzz box Clapton meant not..In this day and age we are spoilt with our equipment and its great.

    Quote from Laurens

    Keith Richards on Sympathy for the Devil. Hurts my ears. It's a great song though.


    This!


    When i hear that song i always think how the crowd would throw tomatos at me if i would play a solo with that sound...but when he does it the crowd throws bras and panties :D:D

    Quote from LH

    When i hear that song i always think how the crowd would throw tomatos at me if i would play a solo with that sound...but when he does it the crowd throws bras and panties :D:D


    Well. Makes a big difference! 8)


    Actually I loved that song before I even started with guitar. Now that you point me to that sound.... grhhh... ;)

    Ne travaillez jamais.