Over the past few decades, I’ve been blessed to not only meet but also interview and even work with many of my guitar heroes — from Edward Van Halen, Tony Iommi, Ace Frehley, Allan Holdsworth, and Billy F. Gibbons to Dimebag Darrell, Zakk Wylde, Kerry King, and Yngwie J. Malmsteen, to name but nine.
While the above is a pretty impressive list of 6-string supernovas, its intent isn’t to impress you but to impress upon you that I’ve gleaned this wisdom directly from the source(s), not via a third party.
Like pretty much every guitarist I’ve met, these nine all revealed that the reason they started playing was because of their admiration for other guitarists’ work. Yep, even Guitar Heroes have guitar heroes! Many also openly admitted to buying axes, amps, and pedals purely based on what their idols used.
Success Leaves a Footprint — so Does Great Tone!
What I’m about to say might seem obvious, but as my much-smarter-than-me father (RIP, Dad) always used to say: “Unless you continually state the bleedin’ obvious, it ceases to be obvious!” To that end, if you want a tone like the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan, you’d be foolish to buy an EMG-loaded, Floyd Rose-bearing Jackson and a Marshall stack — you’d be much better off with a Strat and a Fender tube combo. And the reverse is also obviously true: if you’re after Randy Rhoads’s sound, then the Jackson/Marshall setup would get you way closer than t’other! But wait: there’s more. Dig deeper.
Back in the good ol’ pre-Internet days, I’d obsessively collect as many interviews as I could with my heroes because I wanted to know everything they used: stompboxes and the order they were in, string brand and gauges, action height, tuning, picks, pickups, tubes, speakers — and if possible, photos that gave a clue about settings or action. Why? Because all of these seemingly minor things impact tone in a major way; they all play a part in the tone-generating chain.
Now, having said all that, as we all know, tone ultimately comes from the heart, head, and hands of the player. For example, I recently had the good fortune to play through Dimebag’s old rig. I plugged in the correct axe with the correct pickups, tuning, and strings, used one of his picks, and I sounded exactly like me! Was the tone similar to Dime’s because of the gear? Absolutely. But, it was still unmistakably me.
And that, my friend, is another reason why guitar playing rules. Regardless of the rig, ultimately, you’ll always sound like you.