How and why does tone effect fast playing the way it does?

Playing Technique
#1

I remember way back in the early 90s when I learned For The Love Of God. I had most of it down, basically all but the super fast licks, but it never quite sounded right. Same with a ton of early Satch songs, all but the super fast licks, and some things just sounded weird. I learned them on a Harmony Strat, and always with the bridge pickup, while I made tiny payments towards a BC Rich Mockingbird. When I finally payed it off and played those songs again, a lot of them seemed infinitely easier right away, even some of the fast licks. But, only the ones that were more legato based, and, again, always on the bridge pickup. Then came the solo to “Under A Glass Moon”. I had a decent amount of it down and when I asked my mentor why the tone changed so often, he told me that JP switched between the bridge and… the NECK pickup?? And that was kinda my introduction to the neck pickup. I mentioned FTLoG above because playing those first 4 notes on the neck pickup of a humbucker was life changing. It finally sounded RIGHT! And some of those fast licks? I could finally get close. Which is what brings me to the point of this…

I don’t mean clean vs. distorted. That’s obvious. But neck vs bridge pickup and legato vs speed picking was an odd thing for me coming up. I could legato just fine on the bridge but not as well with the neck. And I could speed pick lead lines with the neck but not as well on the bridge. Then there’s the speed picking Slayer-level riffs where they’re easy on the bridge with high distortion but not on the neck. And similarly, EJ-style lines being easier with less distortion and a single coil neck instead of lots of distortion and the bridge/humbucker combination. The run in Metropolis Pt1 is almost easy on a neck and seemingly impossible on a bridge. And don’t get me started on the difficulty of some of Satch’s fast runs, especially from the 10th fret or so and lower, using a neck.

'Sup with that???

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#2

In the same fashion try playing a “tight” metal rhythm part from Metallica to Megadeth to Carcass to Arch Enemy to Pantera on the neck pickup.

It’s a chicken and the egg question for me at the end of the day. Is the lick easier on a certain tone configuration or is that lick or riff necessarily a product of that tonal selection?

I don’t know if there’s a clear answer.

I think for the same reasons that certain licks just bleed out of certain guitars or certain pickup or amp configurations.

I know I play totally different stuff depending on what guitar I pick up be it strat, les paul, tele, V, etc.

The neck pickup is always going to have that “rounder” “smoother” “mellow” sound and due to location makes certain harmonic content harder to access. Conversely the bridge will have a “tighter” “snappier” “harsher” “brighter” tone and due to location allows more flexibility with harmonics.

I consider one of the hallmarks of the crossover from intermediate to advanced player being able to hear that difference in pickup selection in a song on the fly.

I remember hearing this shortly after it was released a few years ago and going.
Strat :white_check_mark:
Neck Pickup :white_check_mark:
Which imo is one of the absolute best combos for lead guitar cause its about as close as a guitar gets to singing like a bowed string instrument.

And sure enough my hunch was right.

Yngwie is the obvious choice of someone who does a lot of fiddling with pickup selection but then there’s someone like Marty Friedman who for many years in Megadeth played a guitar with no neck pickup while having a very smooth tone. Friedman has arguably one of the best levels of harmonic control and control over bends and vibrato ever. Or there’s Mike Amott who does a lot of lead work with wah and neck pickup kind of building on the foundation cast by Michael Schenker.

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#3

Or is it because of how you first heard a lick or style of licks and they will never work under your own fingers unless you use the same? I think that’s what it is for me for a lot of it. It’s a brain thing. I just can’t separate the tone from the lick. Even when I’m doodling. If a lick is in a certain style, I tend to switch to those attributes. It’s part of why I play a JS series. I can have a single coil or a humbucker with the raising of a knob. The actual tone itself, meaning amp and pedals and such, really doesn’t factor into it for me either, aside from the obvious.

That being said, it took the Cascade series and the close ups of ACL Cliffs that I realized that EJ uses the bridge as much as he does. I always used the neck for his lines and have since the early 90s lol

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#4

Well EJ also recorded most of Cliffs and who knows whatever else on a 335 so it’s gonna be a smoother mellower tone than a strat bridge pickup.

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#5

Eric Johnson has his bridge pickups on a tone pot, and he rolls off to match the neck pickup. It’s a big part of his sound, and was probably inspired by Eric Clapton’s “Woman Tone” during the Cream era. Scott Henderson does the same with his single coils, and Allan Holdsworth rolled the tone off on his bridge humbuckers too.

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#6

I don’t necessarily think a passage becomes ‘easier’ so much as the articulation (or lack thereof) becomes more or less apparent and the feel/feedback to the player changes. If that makes any sense. You may not play differently…but it seems that way.

I remember a Hot Licks video Danny Gatton did where he complained that Arlen Roth was making him play a passage bone-dry. No reverb, no delay…with a squeaky-clean, nowhere-to-hide clean tone. He wasn’t mad…but he wasn’t happy about it. :slight_smile:

#7

I would go further and claim that tone affects ALL playing, not just the fast bits :slight_smile:

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#8

Even live (ACL etc) he has that trademark dark tone from his bridge strat pickup. Probably like @Tom_Gilroy mentioned, rolling the treble off with the tone pot is a big help.

On my Les Paul style PRS’s, at least in a distortion channel context, I’ve always done neck for lead, bridge for rhythm. I’ll have to give the bridge with tone rolloff a go though, sounds interesting!

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#9

Agreed. The “better” I can get myself sounding, the “better” my playing gets. Neither ever get excellent, unfortunately lol! That comes with the territory of being a hobbyist though.

#10

I’m a big Dave Murray fan and used to do a ton of Maiden covers, hitting the Tube Screamer and the phaser as well as going to the neck pickup was such a headache. So I moved my right hand to over the neck pickup instead and loved the sound; warm and smooth but without killing all the high end.

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#11

So many angles to this conundrum!

The ol’ neck vs bridge hemorrhage. It’s down to filtering I think, certain pedals gained or not have righteous high pass filters within, 308 comes to mind, the kind that would crackle any firewood into submission.

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#12

Speaking of filtering I think using a Wah as a moveable filter that you move with the frequency range of the playing is underrated. Totally different approach to the Kirk Wahmmett cliche type thing. And it’s controlled by the foot so it’s not a juggling act of pickup selector and multiple pedals. Of course modeling amp enthusiasts can set up myriad changes like that on one stomp switch of their preferred modeler.

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#13

Some of my favorite guitar tones on recordings, whether they are or not, sound to me like a wah at the sweet spot. It’s such a cool sound.

I just love the tone he gets, really on everything (and he’s got so many different great tones too). I doubt that’s a wah but something about it reminds me of that “throaty”, hollow sound you get at just the right spot.

and hmmm actually this one doesn’t sound as “throaty” to me as it did when I was younger, interesting maybe my ears have changed

And I never really liked his tone much to begin with (he’s one of my very favorite players though), but something about that cued up part always used to jump out to me as sounding different than his normal sound and I thought it was cool. Not sure anymore lol

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#14

These are my favorites. This is a song I’ll always remember hearing for the first time. That solo is mind blowing.

A lot of people don’t realize part of what makes that riff bite is the cocked wah.

Essentially all a Wah is a movable bandpass filter that accentuates certain frequencies so it’s going to make what ever it effects bite or pop.

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#15

The cocked wah is one of my all time favorite sounds. Puts me in the frame of mind to play all of the Zappa lead lines I know and then spend an hour or 2 making up my own. The preset on the Fractal for the Money For Nothing sound is quite convincing!

The wah was also a big part of the early Slayer leads, if I remember correctly.

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#16

Absolutely smashing track there, never heard it, thanks!

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#17

It’s shifting the pickups resonance frequency down by quite a bit which is why it also has the effect of sounding boomier in conjunction with rolling off treble. A lot of that roll off comes with the resonance shift because a typical passive pickup tends to naturally exhibit a steeper db per octave attenuation into oblivion after this resonance than the 6db per octave first order lowpass filter formed by the cap and dcr or the pickup. One of the reason standard passive tone controls don’t work in the same fashion, or as well, with actives since you are essentially isolating the inductive elements of the pickup with the amplifier contained within them. Of course don’t get this confused with what the frequency response of the pickup will exhibit over all if you were to pluck strings and look at it with a spectrum analyzer, but its a big part of it.

That said you can change the character of an existing pickup a bit by messing with the value of this capacitor. If you want something more subtle, and not full on tugboat, or to make a bright pickup a little darker, try even smaller values than you typically see in tone controls like 470p, .001uf, .002uf.

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#18

Cool thread! I know that for me, I play very differently depending on the tone I have! An amp or direct in, or a modeller changes everything even with the same guitar! And of course, different guitars have me doing different things also. Vibe I guess…

Ty Tabor’s got some really cool tone, I am a big fan of his stuff!

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#19

King’s X 80s output is flawless. Can’t believe I slept on them for so long they are definitely your favorite musician’s favorite musicians.

Something about the 80s I feel aside from very few edge cases that’s when overall guitar tone peaked. Before overproduction squeezed all life from much of music.

This is my favorite of all time. Pristine Roland JC-120 cleans and tight but organic Marshall dirt and leads. Chris DeGarmo and Michael Wilton crafting a flawless album when Geoff Tate was arguably the greatest metal frontman alive. It’s a perfect album. I will never tire of it.

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#20

I think it was Alice Cooper who said that it was just a matter of time before King’s X was the biggest band in the world on VH1’s 100 of Hard Rock. Wish it would’ve happened. A trio tour with Rush, Primus and King’s X should’ve been a thing.

As for Operation Mindcrime… hell yes!! That’s in my top 20 of all time and though I’d pick DT as my favorite prog band, that album surpasses any of DT’s for me l. I saw the Empire tour with Suicidal Tendencies opening and my mom was reluctant to let me go. But not because of ST. But because of this album and the fact that a nun died and she knew my stance on religion even at that age lol

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