ilovefuzz.com

This is one thing that's always bugged me, everyone seems to approach guitar "wisdom" in the same way, as if you're trying to learn prog/blues/classic rock solos and all that. That the best way to play is with no effects straight into a Fender amp or some shit. I hate it because it's only the best for certain types of music, not all. Some people just like to make noise with their guitars, and that can sound great too. A lot of the noodlers are no good at doing that because they lack that chaotic spirit. I think people stick to the "Hiding behind your pedals" idea, or mix up effects whores with cork sniffers. Wanting to use lots of reverb or flanger isn't the same as obsessing over that Dumble tone, or the like. I find people do the same with personal vanity, spending hours putting on makeup etc. versus people who actualy create their own image - those kind of people aren't shallow, but people lump them in the same box "Cares about image", it's the same with "Tone" here.

Here's the rant I posted, anyway.

No one gives a fuck about your sound if you can't play.

Again, are textural guitarists not real guitarists then? Focusing on guitar for making sound rather than wanky blues solos is just as valid a way of using it.

I really hate "guitarist wisdom". It always presumes everyone is approaching guitar in more or less the same way.

IMO, having too many effects available can mean you get lazy, and get lured in to over-using effects, which sounds bad nine times out of ten.

Same as above. If you know when to use effects and how it can make or break the atmosphere of a song.

Being able to play epic Prog Rock solos well won't replace a wah or delay. If you're the kind of guitarist that focuses on simple playing with a lot of texture, like Daniel Ash, then all this guitarist wisdom is just bull. I always hate the stereotype of the guitarist who "Hides" behind the effects, because I think a lot of people "hide" behind the simplicity of guitar -> amp as if it somehow makes them more valid musicians for sticking to the basics. I have plenty of respect for people who can do that and genuinely sound interesting. They usually aren't the guys to rat on about the guys who do use effects, though. Whether you use effects or not doesn't make you a good or bad guitarist. But it can make you a better guitarist if you use them right, because tonal changes are a big part of electric guitar. If you don't care about that, you may as well play acoustic.

OOI I don't use pedals often for jamming(aside from Fuzz) and I know I'm not a very good guitarist either way. Loosing the pedals I often fiddling with doesn't really help me, in fact I'd be better off with more options - new sounds give you new ideas. I don't understand why people don't get this. Have you never brought home a shiny new multi effects or dirt box and gotten ideas for a song? And of course, my sucking is nothing to do with the fact that your sound has a lot to do with how you shape a song. Some guitarists, like Jeff Beck, will sound great and inventive without effects. An awful lot of the "Hurr effects whores hiding behind effects" crowd will sound shit without effects because they're so hung up on their simple philosophy and half-truths like TONE IS IN THE FINGERS that they forget what actually makes a song. Actually, my favourite Jeff Beck album is probably Jeff, because it does focus more on sound and texture instead of just guitar wank like Steve Vai or the likes.

I'm not talking about Klon tonez or anything like that, but stuff like "Hey, I should use low gain here, this would sound great with a phaser, I think I'll take a eBow to my guitar here with loads of delay, that'll be awesome". Many synth players focus very heavily on their sound to the extent where they do minimal playing but loads of twiddling knobs and settings. It doesn't make the Rick Wakemans of the world any more or less valid, or vice versa. The actual sound you create is important too. It might not be necessary for every player, or every genre(for example some chip tunes sound great despite being so limited), but it doesn't make it any less valid. In fact that's a good reason why it should be valid - since it's a less worn way of approaching things, we have far too much blues, classic rock, and "Indie" guitarists.

A lot of the stuff I listen to like Dead Can Dance, Faith and the Muse, uses simple playing with plenty of distortion, chorus and reverb to create some really interesting atmospheric sounds. You can't replace that with virtuosity. Even on the other end of the spectrum - with punk, you can get some great fun songs that don't pay much attention to either atmosphere or virtuosity. There are plenty of different ways of doing it, but you can't deny that being open to all of them gives you more options, and more ways to be inventive. Limiting yourself can help discipline and give you focus, but in the long run, it doesn't make you more creative. There's no reason to do it all of the time, you're just denying extra ways of making your music sound inventive. Too many people treat "effects" as one big cheesy thing, when distortion is just as much an effect as some of them.

I don't see why given it's a highly accepted way of approaching synthesisers which are based on similar principles that isn't a valid way of playing guitar especially when the presence of physical strings can help do more interesting things and sound more organic.

i pride myself on not being able to play guitar.

I completely agree. Intelligence/creativity is gained through exposure to a variety of ideas. Variety's hard to come by if you're a ts9 tone nazi.

It's all the same shit that people without talent say. It's like bass players that point fingers because you don't have a hard-on for Jaco Pastorius. They think that, because they LISTEN to something inventive, they are MAKING something inventive. Ummm... no.

Personally, I can go to both extreme when it comes to my playing styles, both on bass and guitar. Just yesterday, I plugged my LP in and spent a couple hours tweaking everything I could to emulate the sound of a Tele going into an AC30 with the volume on 2. It came as close as it could have to being the most gorgeous, crystal clean sound I've gotten yet. I was just strumming, finger picking and tapping (a la MTB, Pele... not Eddie Van whatsoever), and it sounded incredible. I was going through jazz rhythms and scales and all sorts of shit with almost harp-like tone.

Later, however, I thought it would be fun to run LP-> Bazz Fuss-> MBox-> Waveshape VST-> BitCrusher (recording into GB and Pro Tools). Pretty much the pure opposite.

Anyone that criticizes what people do with guitar work, whether they are a tone elitist or a pedal whore, is pretty lame. There is more to be said for people who are trying to do something interesting and creative, even if it is finding the perfect clean tone, than for one whom simply attempts to follow a trend or join some club of generic tonez.

It takes a lot more to be creative than it does to whine about how others play. Probably why I stay as far away from HCFX as possible. That place is a festering cave full of idiocy and general douche-baggery.

Don't let it get into your head too much, Roseweave. There's a reason why they all hang out on HC and stroke each others throbbing egos with "tone" as their lube. And, as most circle jerks of that sort end up, it's most certain that it'll be messy and nobody wins in the end.

i guarantee the majority of those tone nerds/guitar dicks heroes' use their fair share of effects...
there are an infinite number of ways to play any instrument - one style/technique does not negate another.

anyways, who the fuck cares. if you want to "hide behind your pedals" or not, that's your music and your own fucking business.

roseweave

there are few things in life i like more than plugging my 10 string sraight into my hot rod deville and cranking the gain and reverb to wank a half hour guitar solo.

there are few things in life i like more than plugging all my pedals together and making noise that will either make people run, vomit, smile, or lock themselves in a closet with a handful of window panes!!!!

as for all of the jerks out there that take themselves way to seriously they should realize that frank zappa used a shit load of pedals and.....

"True music, like all true art, is an experience to be shared, not judged, for praise cannot make it better, as blame cannot make it worse. Its creation swells and ebbs; it evolves and yet is always the same. It envelops all that it touches, and it caresses the minds of its listeners as it does the minds of the performers." - Pat Martino

Conventional wisdom is conventional but not always wisdom.

The same factors and arguments are just as prevalent in the bass world.
Have to have bazillion watts to cut through, have to go di, have to slap to get the job etc.

I do understand the Dumble tone quest, in the hands of a great guitarist they are beautiful, but even Dumble himself has been known to tell some one that his amp isn’t their sound.
A Dumble isn’t forgiving, every thing stands out, and a bad player sounds worse because the sloppy technique and mistakes stand out.

Effects can be a crutch; you can some times hide sloppy technique behind a wall of fuzz, lack of inspiration in cascading swirls of modulation.

Some effects, like voice modulation, have been so overused that it begins to sound like everybody is releasing the same song over and over again.

For me effects are like icing on a cake. The music should be able to stand alone clean, with the effects adding depth, ambiance and texture.

As for learning techniques..
Learning to play blues, jazz, or classical can and does help.
You develop tools, technique, and hopefully good habits that can be brought into any other genre.
Hammer ons, pull offs and vibrato came from classical violin, viola and cello technique and the wah from jazz horns. Didn’t Django and Segovia use tapping and pinch harmonics?

Anyway I use effects.

What I love about effects is how some can inspire on their own.
Now some may only have one or two songs in them, others are an acquired taste, and some need to be combined to get the best out of them.

It seems like every time I plug into an ILF pedal, songs and ideas just pop out the other end.

MM

metalmariachi wrote:For me effects are like icing on a cake. The music should be able to stand alone clean, with the effects adding depth, ambiance and texture.
MM

This is how I feel. If you can't play it ona coustic or a lightly overdriven amp, its probably not music. That to no disrespect of swirling textures of fun-ness, I just don't consider it music, I consider it more audio therapy.

well "good" is a subjective word in itself.
imo, "good" is being able to play guitar and being able to use effects.

i know that has been the general consensus here
but you know... people who can only accept one definition of "good" are the ones who are "bad" at guitar

randel_07 wrote:but you know... people who can only accept one definition of "good" are the ones who are "bad" at guitar

Well said.

PumpkinPieces wrote:

metalmariachi wrote:For me effects are like icing on a cake. The music should be able to stand alone clean, with the effects adding depth, ambiance and texture.
MM

This is how I feel. If you can't play it ona coustic or a lightly overdriven amp, its probably not music. That to no disrespect of swirling textures of fun-ness, I just don't consider it music, I consider it more audio therapy.

i would almost agree except that somehow I doubt Loveless would sound good without any effects, or on an acoustic or on a lightly overdriven amp.
does that make it not music?

or how about sampled stuff? minus the bear is a great example, what happens there?


i would argue that there's nothing to argue about, everything is subjective except music......

I have to admit that hooking a drum machine or oscillator trough a dozen fuzzes, is not musical to me. Then again, a bunch of boys or girls bouncing about while lip syncing doesn’t constitute a “band” either.

“Good” is colored by personal preference.

I would be bored to death in an old school country band playing the same 4 or 5 root notes over and over again, but that is another bass player’s idea of heaven.


Do what you like, but do it well.

MM

htsamurai wrote:

PumpkinPieces wrote:

metalmariachi wrote:For me effects are like icing on a cake. The music should be able to stand alone clean, with the effects adding depth, ambiance and texture.
MM

This is how I feel. If you can't play it ona coustic or a lightly overdriven amp, its probably not music. That to no disrespect of swirling textures of fun-ness, I just don't consider it music, I consider it more audio therapy.

i would almost agree except that somehow I doubt Loveless would sound good without any effects, or on an acoustic or on a lightly overdriven amp.
does that make it not music?

or how about sampled stuff? minus the bear is a great example, what happens there?


i would argue that there's nothing to argue about, everything is subjective except music......

I was speaking mostly of guitar. I'm not familiar with Loveless. Gray areas are gray areas. It's more of how I write songs, but when I listen to noisey shoegaze espeically at a local show it makes me space out. fuck it, music, therapy its the same thing. i love fuzz either way.

i feel that all sound is music. airplanes flying, birds chirping, dogs barking, toilets flushing, rusty swing sets creaking, a chk chk boom with a jellyfish secret destroyer going into a murf, ravi shankar, peter brotzmann, frank zappa. people like miles davis, john coltrane, and ornette coleman pissed off a lot of people when they went away from post bop but it is all just sound. our hearts and our brains turn those sounds into "music".

some sounds make my ears unhappy, but those sounds could make someone else's ears happy so how could i say those are bad sounds that are not "music"?

who invented "music" anyway???

i love fuzz too!

i think the same atonality and dissonance in say classical music, people who really don't know anything about music are usually the first person to call that "not music." i think the same typecasts and misconceptions operate in rock music i.e. if it does not sound like such and such, it is not music therefore it is invalid...