Standard tuning for me. Always have. And like Wheresthedug I typically use one guitar for a whole show, the exceptions being the obvious like breaking a string or using the acoustic. Just perusing Ted Green`s Chord Chemistry book and realizing none of us could ever exhaust what we can do in standard tuning is enough to humble anyone back to standard tuning for the next three lifetimes.
As far as tone chasing goes, I actually just did a clinic on that very thing at the studio where I teach.
We`ve all heard it; tone is in the fingers, right? I`ve been on the student end with so many great teachers and players from unknown locals to the greatest of the greats and I`ve heard it from all of them. So why, then, do so many people blow so much money on gear trying to find "their" tone?
It`s an excuse to not practice.
I don`t claim to hold the holy grail of tone. I like the sound I have (and absolutely the Kemper helped refine it!), but it`s MY tone, and I`m sure someone out there won`t like it. With that said, I`ll get to the meat of it:
Your tone is as much a part of your style as the notes you`re playing. We invest all this time and energy learning how to play just the right notes and say everything we want to say with them, but few really "work" on their tone. It`s like trying to write the next War and Peace via text message.
Pfft. Work on tone....Jef must be retarded.
Nope. It`s a real thing. (I`ll try to cut out the fluff from the clinic here). When you get close to a sound you want; you have the gear that`s supposed to make you sound like a personal sunbeam from the core of heaven itself, it`s time to start putting your own fingerprint on the sound it makes. You have to learn how your own personal technique affects the sound; do the notes bloom quickly, or do they just sound like a 440hz (or whatever note you happen to be on) frequency vibrating the eardrums? (note bloom is a rarely talked about phenomenon. I spoke about this at length with Joe Satriani). The pressure you exert on the neck, where you pick in relation to the bridge, your vibrato all add up and contribute to your personal tone. That`s why two people can play the exact same setup and sound very different. Chasing someone else`s tone is foolish and futile. You can come close, but their tone has THEIR fingerprints on it, not yours. It`s not in the next pedal, or the next profile. It`s in your next practice session. Spend time with your rig, learn how it reacts, learn how it reflects what you put into it. Learn how to tickle a note just right so it expands with the mythical bloom.
There truly are ways to develop and work on it, but that is fodder for a different thread. If anyone would be interested I`d be happy to work up a blog post for my site going over the things that have helped me over the years, especially what I have learned in the past couple of years from players I consider the epitome of legends of the instrument.