Poll: which ones do you like?

[deeaa]

OK,

Regarding my 'mythbusting' thread; here's a 320 quality MP3 of 7 guitar tones:

http://deeaa.pp.fi/clips/soinnutpitka.mp3

There is no audio markers etc. but if you count it like this: there's seven acoustic recordings, numbered 1 to 7, and then seven amplified ones, we'll call them A to G. In different order, not same.

Which ones are your favorites? Let's see if there is any consensus. I understand this may be a lot to ask and hard to say anything about them maybe, but what the hell. I wanna know if some of my guitars are better than others in that manner.

[Eric]

I'll check on this when I get home from work, but I my laptop speakers at work suck and I'm sitting next to a bunch of noisy pumps right now.

[deeaa]

Thanks...I hope many will contribute. There's a few that stand out some methinks, but I dunno if they're perceived to stand out in a good way, or whether the same effect is felt the same on each unamplified and amplified sound.

The guitars I had at hand are a Squier Strat with a brass block and EMG, Squier Telecaster with Seymour Duncans, Prophecy SG with EMG81 and 'Davette' with EMG85, 'DaLuminum' with EMG85, a custom X with Tesla pickups and an LTD with LTD pickups.

[Spudman]

I chose 6 and C because they sounded the flatest.

[tjcurtin1]

Interesting - when you listen like this several times, you start to pick up different aspects of the tone from strum to decay. It will be interesting to see which ones go together (unamplified/amplified)at the end.

I listened - and counted - several times, and I think there are only 6 amplified tones.

[Eric]

I listened - and counted - several times, and I think there are only 6 amplified tones.
Yep, I agree. I was actually taking notes on them in a text document, and G never happened!

I've cast my vote, but they generally all sound the same. A couple of them (6 and C) sounded noticeably more dull, but that was it. Funny that those were the ones Spud chose in the poll.

Honestly though, this is sort of like the Pepsi challenge. Sure, a given guitar might have a tiny edge over the others, but people don't listen to single chords of guitars juxtaposed with one another. The champion of that contest is only the champion of that contest -- it proves nothing otherwise. Since they all sound so ridiculously similar, I think I'd advise you to find the one that feels the best, plays the most easily, and that you like the looks of the best and play that one. To me, the tonal differences are moot.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

I, too, find the tonal differences insignificant. Maybe if you installed bone nuts......

[deeaa]

Well, obviously there is something to detect here anyway, because 6 and C are the same guitar, one of my all-time favorites if not 'the' favorite :-) the Davette. What I like about that guitar is that it is not too much anything; it can do every sound out there rather easily, especially when you start mixing in the neck pickup, which opens up all new options.

I can only guess that is partially because it's kinda 50/50 fender/gibson by structure; Fender scale and woods/bolt-on but Gibson tiltneck and bridge system, making it kinda halfway ground between the worlds - works for anything really.

[deeaa]

Just a few more please...so far there's a few clear winners and some that haven't had any votes...

[deeaa]

One more interesting thing so far: seems there is no correlation between the preferred acoustic and amplified sound, i.e. a guitar that is not liked acoustically can be liked amplified or vice versa.

I'd really like some more takers so I could confirm if this indeed is so.

[Sada Yairi]

Very interesting. Based on some of the comments, I didn't expect to be able to notice much difference in tone (particularly being a novice with the amplified tones), but I was surprised by how different most of those samples sounded. I actually liked 1 and 7, and then A.

[deeaa]

Too bad the participation still hasn't been very large.

So far, if you can draw ANY conclusions...all I can say is it seems the two guitars I've made myself, the Davette & the aluminum one, have gotten twice or more the votes of the others, which have all gotten one or no votes. All the passive-mic samples have actually gotten no votes while all actives have at least one vote...so it goes pretty much according to my preference as well. Those two customs are indeed my best guitars, and I don't like the passive pickups at all either.

[Hampus]

7 and A are my favorites. It's hard though. Different sounds go with different music. Choosing one is impossible.

Sent from my cobra phone

[Eric]

Too bad the participation still hasn't been very large.

So far, if you can draw ANY conclusions...all I can say is it seems the two guitars I've made myself, the Davette & the aluminum one, have gotten twice or more the votes of the others, which have all gotten one or no votes. All the passive-mic samples have actually gotten no votes while all actives have at least one vote...so it goes pretty much according to my preference as well. Those two customs are indeed my best guitars, and I don't like the passive pickups at all either.
You can do what you like with the results, but I personally wouldn't go too scientific on this. I actually voted for the wrong amplified one by accident, since there are only 6 guitars that I heard, so you can subtract one from F and give it to E.

To me, they sounded largely the same and I imagine that at band volumes, playing real songs, you'd be hard-pressed to find one that stood out among the others. Then again, I usually don't pay too much attention to the sound of guitars at shows other than the basics, so I'm probably not the best one to comment on this.

[deeaa]

Absolutely, Eric...no way to derive anything specific with such a small sample & the quality of samples, and moreover one of the samples got lost and not all guitars had the same number of possibilities to be chosen so that's skewed too.

I'd REALLY want to carry out a proper survery, you know, video & well record some well known song partially with riffs etc. and use various guitars, mask the guitars on the vid & also have an unmasked one, and have like hundreds of people participate.

But that'd be very much work. I'd also like to get some iconic, simple amp for that, like a Twin maybe...and some iconic guitars like an USA standard strat and a Les Paul along with some really quirky ones, something like 10 or dozen at least.

That'd be interesting...

Anyhow here's what little results I got from this, the guitars and the 'likes'

1&A 3 votes. Prophecy SG, EMG81 (but I had the damned neck pickup on the A sample as well)
2,6&D 3 votes. Davette hardtail hybrid, EMG85
3 1 vote (misplaced the amped tone somewhere) Esp / Ltd, passive pups
4&B 1 vote Squier Telecaster w/Seymour Duncan pup (dunno the exact model)
5&E 2 votes. The alumitop, EMG85
7&F 2 votes, D-a x, Tesla pickup
C 1 vote, 'Stratoblaster' EMG85

So considering the different number of samples for guitars, I'd say it couldn't be any more evenly spread for likes.

[Eric]

Now that's odd. I mentioned that I voted for F but really meant to vote for E (or the 5th amplified tone, anyway). If the 5th amped guitar was in fact the Yamaha, that means I voted for that both acoustically and amplified, which would be strange.

See the thing even with your proposed test/survey would be that it would be very much music dependent. If you were playing some GNR tune, I imagine the most LPish tone would win out, but who's to say that's the 'best' tone or guitar? It might work for that song. Maybe I'm pessimistic and not giving you enough credit for controlling for those things, but I just feel like a guitar is a guitar and it's totally subjective. Some are well-suited for certain types of music, as you discussed in your other mythbusting thread.

Fairly interesting anyway, even with my hesitation.

[deeaa]

Agreed - it is indeed always a question of what fits what purpose the best.

I suppose the only way to have any sort of real data would be to have at least three different song clips from each guitar - like all clean neck, crunchy tone, and a singing lead tone.

[marnold]

I listened, but I didn't vote because it was nigh unto impossible to say which ones I liked best. There wasn't enough really to differentiate most of them.

I wonder if the amp has such a signature sound that it will color just about anything you plug into it? I wonder if something like a Blackface Fender would show more differences in amplified tones. Of course, maybe then they'll just all sound scooped. Hard to say.

[deeaa]

Mm, yes, I would rather use a clean Fender amp to coax out differences...but this amp shouldn't be nearly the worst. After all, it's very simple all-tube channel thru and thru, no diodes or anything.

Trying something like this with most any modeling/SS amp would indeed be total waste of time for sure...you could play a bagpipe into one of those and sound fine.

[Eric]

Trying something like this with most any modeling/SS amp would indeed be total waste of time for sure...you could play a bagpipe into one of those and sound fine.
Really? I notice huge differences between my guitars into the SS and modeling amps I have. Arguably more than into my tube amp.

[omegadot]

I said 5 and C. My daily driver is a blacktop HH jaguar through an HD300 or my friends HD500 so I'm not exactly a tone snob. I almost said 7 and I didn't care for a lot of the amplified tones(I'd have liked more than ah strum).