Great Guitar Tone!! You know, I have often been asked about my gear list to create the great guitar tone.You know, the wish list of things I would love to have in my arsenal? Well, like all fellow gearheads, I too think that a beautiful 1959 Les Paul would suit myself just fine!! I’ll add a Marshall 1959 Plexi Head and a few old Hi Watt 100 heads, as well!! One can dream, right? Seriously though, I’m pretty happy with the current rig and few guitars that I use.

Each piece has their own separate issues, but for what I do, my rig is tailor made and usually doesn’t let me down. That said, I have had a few, more than a few, beefs with a compressor/limiter, my old trusty Dbx – 160 seems to be on the blink and my Roland SDE 3000 isn’t what it once was. I guess that as it is somewhere between 18 & 25 years old, well, how much more can I expect from it? You know what I mean?

As I was tinkering about with a few of the settings of my rig, I got to thinking about how I used to get by at a gig before I had accumulated all of the stuff that I use. Back when I hadn’t gotten my rig as I like it. As I recall those glory days of gigs and tours I remember having three guitars, two Marshall 50 Watt Heads, 2 Marshall 4×12 cabs, 1 Jimmy Dunlop  Wha Pedal and an old generic a/b box so as I could switch from dirty to clean.

That was my rig for many years of touring, recording and the odd jam night where I was hosting with a pick up band. It served well for what I was using it for and I was thrilled way beyond to have all of the stuff. So, here I’am sitting in my apartment, thinking about those days and I decide that I will strip away all of the gadgets in my rack and on the floor. Disconnect all of the stuff and just run my Tele knock off right into my Marshall 50 watt head and out through the 4×12 cab. I thought” Well, you used to do this and it didn’t sound half bad back in the day. Why not give it a rip and see what you get from it now”?

I couldn’t ( not in my apartment) open the rig up and wail away at “Gig” volume. This would not bode well for me to remain living there for very long. I turned it up to a little above headphone volume. It sounded odd, but very warm. Obviously at such a low volume level I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hear  all of the rig working and pumping out awesome tone. But it did get me to think a little more about the music scene and the lack of “Great Tones” and great players.

Most of the guys who I name as having great tones have been around since the late 1980′s!! All of us gear heads and tone junkies, we all know who they are: John Sykes, Nuno Bettancourt, Warren Demartini, Zakk Wylde, Slash,Ritchie Kotzen, Jake E. Lee,E.V.H. and  many others.Today,man, what a really sad sonic scene.No, I don’t pretend to like bands like “Avenged Sevenfold” or “Sevendust”, while skilled players that those guys are, I find that their tones and choices of them, well, they just fall very flat when compared to some of the above mentioned players.

The styles of music that the “Newer” bands play isn’t what I like too much of. Can’t say that I have ever been a big fan of De-tuned guitars and a lot of non melodic music, to be fair, “7 dust” have a few tunes that I have heard wich seem to have a lot of melody, with the addition of what sounds like it must hurt being the “Vocalist” for these bands.

Anyway, I wanted to ask all of you readers out there: “WHERE ARE ALL OF THE UNIQUE AND INDIVIDUALLY CRAFTED GREAT GUITAR TONES”? Where is the imagination of say, Eddie, or Slash? Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to have you think that a carbon copy is what I’m refering to. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’am only saying that Eddie and Slash both had some really serious imagination when they burst onto the rock scene!!

25 -30 years later and people are still talking about the tones and imaginations of both of these guys!! It made me want to ask all of you out there if you know anyone who is”The Next Big Thing”? Or if you yourself, could be the next…?Look, there has gotta be someone out there who is going to set the guitar world on fire, hasn’t there?I hope so because if today’s players and their respective tones are any sort of indication of what we are to be hearing for a while, well, I’m sure that you get my meaning.

During the past  few years, I have had made it a point to go to the local jam nights, Coffee houses, nightclubs, pubs & rehersal studio’s, all in the effort to perhaps hear something new, fresh and exciting.!! Sadly, I have been unable to find very much of that. Yes, there are a few bands that I have heard either, live or on disc, that seem to have a little bit of a spark to them. Mostly these have been very far and few between.

Then I decided that I would ask a few friends to give me their take on what and who they thought would be worthwhile to check into. I did get a few cool discs from some of these bands and artists, again, nothing that was even close to original and unique. Seriously, it all sort of sounded as though these bands had heard what was getting a lot of airplay, and they decided to model themselves after those sounds. I’m more than aware of the certain amount of “conformity” that a band or artist has to do. You’re fooling yourself to think otherwise, but is it too much to ask that original, non homoginized, mass produced, formula shlock, not be what you conform to?

In other words, could we dispense with the ‘Nickelback” & “Shinedown” clones?I have nothing against those particular bands and I think that “Nick Perry” of shinedown, at least tries to do something original with his guitar tone, but I really  don’t have anything for those bands. The material that they have been playing out live and from what I have heard of their discs, seems to be some stuff that has been recycled from the latter part of the 1980′s and the grunge period of the 1990′s.

Please, if you or someone you know out there, is the next big thing for guitar playing and guitar tones, don’t hide in your room, play on the street corner, gig on a weekend at a small dive club. To hell with that stuff. Get your stuff onto the net!!!! Today with all of the different ways to market yourself, man, there cannot be any excuse but to have yourself/ band noticed.!! Besides, the rest of the guitar and music freaks will be sooooooooooooooooo  thankful for your breath of fresh and unique air!!