The Worst Guitar Tone You Have Ever Heard?

not_the_dj

The acoustic on Bob Dylan's "Good as I Been to You" album is horrid.

bertie

historyisjunk said:

 post post modernism?  

pre-futurism,   obviously

boogieman

ICBM;187374" said:

Not an electric guitar, but I've just been listening to Warren Zevon's live acoustic album Learning To Flinch, and the Ovation "acoustic" sound on it is just horrendous, even by the standards of 90s "unplugged" tone. Great songs, but the guitar sound is quite distracting.

Anyone playing an Ovation is pretty much guaranteed a horrible tone. Quite why Fripp insisted on players using them on his Guitarcraft courses is beyond me. Nasty, thin, plastic, synthy sounding, the antithesis of decent acoustic guitar tone really.

ICBM

boogieman said:

Anyone playing an Ovation is pretty much guaranteed a horrible tone. Quite why Fripp insisted on players using them on his Guitarcraft courses is beyond me. Nasty, thin, plastic, synthy sounding, the antithesis of decent acoustic guitar tone really.

I know, although I think you can get a tolerable tone out of them if you don't try to make them sound exactly like an acoustic - the older 70s models in particular.

But then I feel the same about the typical Takamine/Yamaha-type piezo-pickup sound which was supposedly an 'improvement' on it as well - horrible, and nothing like an acoustic guitar really. I'd far rather have something primitive like a J160E - nothing like an acoustic either, but at least it sounds good.

sweepy

Worst tone for me has to be Eric Johnson, sickly sweet and saccharin , Re Roy Buchanan, don't forget the pair pf Fender Twins running flat out, sort of explains the paint stripping tone , awesome player though and hugely influential, RB that is .

ICBM

sweepy said:

Worst tone for me has to be Eric Johnson, sickly sweet and saccharin

Have to agree with that as well.

breakstuff

As much as I love Alter Bridge I find Mark Tremontes lead tone quite annoying.I can handle his rhythm tone but his lead tone just grates on me,it sounds too over processed and often spoils what is generally great guitar playing.

ToneControl

beed84 said:

Never been a fan of Mike Stern's tone.  I wish he'd turn his bloody chorus pedal off and buy a decent valve amp.

yes

ToneControl

the solo on Reelin in the years

Not his fault, they had no proper amp in the studio apparently

xSkarloey

ICBM said:

sweepy said:

Worst tone for me has to be Eric Johnson, sickly sweet and saccharin

Have to agree with that as well.

And me. Johnson's meant to be a first degree tone snob (isn't he the one who insists on a certain type of better in his pedals?) and yet his sound does nothing for me. 

I hate to sound luddite about all this, but unless you're creative and inventive in using effects (and credit to players like the Edge for this) then the Johnson's of this world are never going to sound as good as the Angus Young types who just plug in and play and who really know how to set an amp. 

Bellycaster

ToneControl said:

the solo on Reelin in the years

Not his fault, they had no proper amp in the studio apparently

Oooof, I like that tone, I always assumed it to be a classic vintagey type valve sound . I have no idea what amp it was played through though.

Shows what I know.

B-)

dindude

sweepy said:

Worst tone for me has to be Eric Johnson, sickly sweet and saccharin , Re Roy Buchanan, don't forget the pair pf Fender Twins running flat out, sort of explains the paint stripping tone , awesome player though and hugely influential, RB that is .

Not a fan of EJ's clean tones, but his lead tones are lovely.