Get a bunch of guitar players together and in no time debates will ensue about some other player's "tone". What causes it, what contributes to it? Like some kind of Godwin's law for guitarists, someone will always answer, "it's in their fingers" with complete sincerity and total confidence. But does this make sense?
It's in your fingers?
In the broader spectrum of acoustic science and music, "tone" has a somewhat confusing meaning - it is about the sound quality of an instrument, but was almost certainly coined at a time when you would be describing two similar instruments, 2 Cello's perhaps, to compare them or compare two players on the same instrument. There is an element of the instrument itself, and its player. And there is a finite range of results; a cello is never going to sound like a french horn. You could compare a french horn and an oboe and comment on the tone of one vs the other, but that would never hinge on the player or the context. We would be describing intrinsic properties of the devices themselves. Clarinets have pronounced odd harmonics, trumpets have a pronounced 2nd harmonic, flutes are well balanced, and so on. No one wold confuse them with each other. Better players do seem to be able to coax better tones out of whatever they are playing. But it is still the instrument it is. There are limits; well understood bounds to the equation.
The electric guitar is not a complete instrument though; it is almost useless without an amplifier. This serves to confuse our idea of "tone". What part of it is the guitar, what is the amp, what is the player and what is the complete system contributing? They are all adding something, and the sum is often greater than the parts. There are incredibly wide limits; different pickups in different positions on the instrument, different construction approaches (hollow, solid, neck through), different scale lengths, different string types (flat, round) and gauges, bridge types and materials, nut materials, types of fret material and sizes...and so on and that is before we plug it into anything. People still debate whether the wood used matters. Your goal could be clean tight chicken picking or long feedback drenched dive-bombs, or anything in between. (or everything in between)
While timbre and tone are sometimes interchanged, timbre is a bit more specific. We might say this Cello has a warmer tone than that Cello, or a smoother tone, but we would use timbre to describe why a cello sounds different than a piano or an oboe.
In the case of electric guitar players, that is most often going to be some kind of guitar-->amplifier-->speaker system that is the "instrument". An amp is not an amp - they can have very different designs and goals and configurations - and the "right" guitar and the "right" amp brought together can change everything we think we know about what an electric guitar sounds like and what it can do. Eddie Van Halen sent generations of players to the woodshed for the next few decades trying to figure out what was going on. Guitar players still debate it, and Van Halen 1 is now (as of 2022) 43 years old! Hendrix & Page did the same, in their day. Many others as well, probably starting with Les Paul who played with tape echo and tape speed to broaden the definition of what was possible.
You can always re-write the book because it is an incomplete instrument. It's not finished by definition. You choose the ending of your story.
While amps and speakers don't necessarily have "tone" by themselves, they do have timbre. Timbre simply put is the harmonic series the instrument creates, it is also the envelope of a note (aka attack, decay, sustain & release) and the non-linear artifacts the circuit imparts. In the case of amplifiers it may also include the EQ and dynamics of the circuit.
Jensen speakers add different artifacts & tone shaping than do Celestion speakers or JBLs. Closed back cabinets behave differently than open cabinets. Different amps have different EQ curves, some are mid-frequency heavy, some may have gentle mid scoops. There are different approaches to signal gain. Guitar amps, net net, are far from linear, and the way they treat the guitar signal has contributed to the way we play and the sounds we make.
If linearity and good frequency response were important we'd all use solid state hi-fi amps. They are cheaper, smaller and lighter, after all. But almost no one does.
Our amps are chosen for their tone shaping, speakers and cabinets, gain structures, distortion products and more. Does it work with you or against you? Does the net result inspire you?
It is common sense that a Strat is not a Les Paul. A Telecaster is not a Gretsch 6120. A Vox AC30 is not a Fender Champ. A Gibson GA20 RVT is not a 100W Marshall 1959 with a pair of 4x12 cabinets. None of this should be surprising. I am, I hope, stating the obvious.
These instruments each have characteristics that are unique to them, and aggregate characteristics that may be unique when combined. As Keef once famously quipped when asked what the secret to great guitar sound is, "it's the right guitar and the right amp". They come together to form a system that has specific timbres and behaviors. Sometimes you just have to try things out. Life is full of surprises.
As an example, EHV would not be playing "Eruption" as we know it on a Telecaster plugged into a Fender Vibrolux. He probably could, but it would never sound the way he played it. The timbre is wrong. His hands - how he plays the instrument is unique, his touch, his vibrato, his note choices, his technique - you would always know it's Eddy, but the timbre of the system he is playing is going to limit the scope of what can come out. His piano is never going to be an oboe. His 1-1/2 ton pickup truck will never be an Indy car. Again, I hope that is intuitive and obvious. The feedback, the dive bombs, the over-the-top gain from hitting the front end of the amp so hard would all be missing. We could give him until the end of forever and a stock Tele isn't ever going to do it. Other players are perhaps less stark examples, but it still follows. Their musical vision led them to a place, a set of equipment that together with their creativity and musical ability achieved their goals. Getting to that place can be a lot of work.
Eddy's approach of course, was to use an old 100 Watt Marshall head and a heavily modified strat-style guitar with a Floyd Rose vibrato system. (tremolo is a change in volume, vibrato is a change in pitch) He was as famous for his determination to find the sound in his head as he was for his ability to play groundbreaking guitar parts. He even wound his own pickups! His fingers were certainly a big part, but no one's fingers could simulate a modified guitar going through a 100W Marshall cranked to the hilt. Not even his.
The thing I suppose that amazes me most is that our minds and bodies are able to turn an idea into realized sounds coming out of a very complex system of devices. Somehow we catalog the things this system can do, and in what circumstances, which interactions result in what, and turn it into a musical vocabulary that is often unique to us.
Whatever we call that. Our voice, I suppose.
Some Famous pairings:
Eric Clapton playing a '59 Les Paul into a Marshall JTM45 2x12 combo for the "Beano" album. This was such a big guitar sound moment that the amps became known as "blues breakers" after the band's name.
Pete Townsend playing a Gretsch 6120 into a Fender Tweed 3x10 Bandmaster on "Who's Next"
Malcolm Young cranking his Gretsch Jet through a 100W Marshall stack in AC/DC
Jimmy Page playing his Telecaster into a modified Supro on Led Zeppelin 1.
Neil Young playing his modified Les Paul into a 1959 Fender Tweed Deluxe (Many, many recordings!)
Joe Perry playing a Strat and/or his '59 Les Paul through a low power Tweed Twin on "Toys In The Attic"
Dave Edmunds - Gibson 335 or a Telecaster direct in. (usually no amp!)
Jimi Hendrix - Rightly famous for running his Strats through Marshall stacks, but 'The Wind Cries Mary" was a Fender Twin Reverb. One of the more iconic "clean" tones of all time.
George Harrison running a Rickenbacker 360/12 through an AC100 on early Beatles albums like, "Help!"
Brian May playing his homemade "red special" guitar (with Burns pickups) through a Vox AC30
Peter Frampton playing a Les Paul through an Ampeg ET-1 Echo Twin
Kieth Richards (live) is usually seen sawing away on a Telecaster through a high powered Fender tweed Twin
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