Guitar quality vs processing

[BoneDigger]

I realize that starting out with a high quality recording is immensely helpful for getting a great final product. But, ignoring live sound, if you had a guitar that is 90 percent of the tone of a higher end guitar, how close could you get to the higher end guitar tone through processing? For instance, people say that a Squire Classic Vibe stay is 90 percent the tone of an American strat. Would it make a huge difference once you work your mastering magic?

[Mark L]

I’m going to opine that it’s going to depend a lot on what kind of music you’re playing, and what kind and depth of processing it’s going to take to achieve the final product you’re after.

“GI/GO” is usually a good baseline principle, but electronic and computer magic is something else these days.

Good luck.

[Steve DeRosa]

IME you can easily afford the better guitar, when you add up the initial cost of the "90%" guitar and the processing gear/upgrades to make it 100% - why not just wait, save up the extra bucks (or offer something in trade), and buy the good guitar in the first place...

[BoneDigger]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

IME you can easily afford the better guitar, when you add up the initial cost of the "90%" guitar and the processing gear/upgrades to make it 100% - why not just wait, save up the extra bucks (or offer something in trade), and buy the good guitar in the first place...

This is just a scenario situation, and honestly I meant to post this to recording. But in a hypothetical where you have a good mixer/masterer, would the difference in final tone in a recording be all that much different?

[Steve DeRosa]

Depends on your technique/genre(s) - probably easier to cut corners with thrash metal than with solo jazz...

[blue]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

But, ignoring live sound, if you had a guitar that is 90 percent of the tone of a higher end guitar, how close could you get to the higher end guitar tone through processing?

There's a flaw in your question. The idea of the higher end guitar tone being the tone everyone wants or being "better".

The Les Paul was a higher end guitar compared to the SG. Is the Les Paul the gold standard of tone? Are you asking "can you make an SG sound like a Les Paul?" That's a legitimate question. And of course the answer is yes.

There is no holy grail tone. A Gretsch does not sound better than a Silvertone. It sounds like a Gretsch. Look at the oddball guitars used by Queens of the Stoneage or the Black Keys.

5 watt world did a youtube video on getting Eric Clapton's "Beano" tone. Eric used a burst Les Paul through a JTM 45 amp back in 1966 for that album. I don't remember the amp the guy ended up using, but the guitar he ended up preferring for matching Eric's tone was a shorter scale PRS Mira with P90s! Short of a Fender, most folks here would consider that about as far as you can get from a late 50's early 60's Les Paul.

[merlin666]

The gear and electronics used are secondary, the magic is all in the operators. The guitar needs a talented player to bring out the high end qualities, and the electronics a skilled sound engineer to get it recorded.

[Gordon Currie]

Hard to answer this question, as I believe that audio tools available to us are not capable of increasing actual signal quality, but can only (if used well) increase the PERCEPTION of signal quality. It's a clever trick, but it's not magic.

Even today, it is more common to borrow or rent a Les Paul than to spend the time trying to process a Strat into a believable facsimile.

What you describe has been used for many decades in denser mixes. No one is going to do this on a featured instrument in a trio.

Of course, with the fast progress of digital signal processing, a decade from now this may be moot.

[BoneDigger]

Thanks everyone. Let me clarify a bit. I'm not talking about trying to get one type of guitar to sound like another (i.e. a strat and LP). Mostly what I'm talking about is the same guitar, but maybe of a lesser quality. So, if I gave Eric Clapton a Squire Classic Vibe and he recorded with it. Then gave him an American Professional strat and he recorded with it. Would the difference, once processed, be detectable?

On a side note, if a great player played a whole concert with a Squire Affinity, would 99 percent of the audience perceiver a difference?

[Howard Emerson]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

I realize that starting out with a high quality recording is immensely helpful for getting a great final product. But, ignoring live sound, if you had a guitar that is 90 percent of the tone of a higher end guitar, how close could you get to the higher end guitar tone through processing? For instance, people say that a Squire Classic Vibe stay is 90 percent the tone of an American strat. Would it make a huge difference once you work your mastering magic?

I would say that if the musical content of the guitar track didn't interest me, that the guitar itself was not to blame.

If a cabinet door is cut out of square, don't blame the saw, and don't try to fix it after the cabinet is installed.

HE

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

Thanks everyone. Let me clarify a bit. I'm not talking about trying to get one type of guitar to sound like another (i.e. a strat and LP). Mostly what I'm talking about is the same guitar, but maybe of a lesser quality. So, if I gave Eric Clapton a Squire Classic Vibe and he recorded with it. Then gave him an American Professional strat and he recorded with it. Would the difference, once processed, be detectable?

On a side note, if a great player played a whole concert with a Squire Affinity, would 99 percent of the audience perceiver a difference?

If the player uses their volume and tone controls as part of their technique then I'm thinking there would be perceived difference to many people listening because cheap pots don't give the same response/rolloff/cleanup as good pots.

But if a guitar can give 90% of what is considered a "top" guitar then I think the vast majority wouldn't notice in a live gig. The Player would notice though which may add frustration for them.

[stephenT]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

I realize that starting out with a high quality recording is immensely helpful for getting a great final product. But, ignoring live sound, if you had a guitar that is 90 percent of the tone of a higher end guitar, how close could you get to the higher end guitar tone through processing? For instance, people say that a Squire Classic Vibe stay is 90 percent the tone of an American strat. Would it make a huge difference once you work your mastering magic?

Nothing wrong w/ the Chinese Fenders, playable guitars. Ceramic magnet pickups, different sound from alnico magnets. Cheaper everything used in the construction.

Processing is never going to add quality to the basic sound of a pickup. Run it through an exciter to add in harmonic content, compress it to add sustain, you still have an over compressed, over excited ceramic pickup.

But your hypothetical, can a listener tell the difference? Depends on the listener doesn't it. I can tell the difference between a ceramic pickup and an alnico, but it's my business. To me, it's more important how the artist feels about the guitar and it's sound and playability.

If you're trying to justify buying a cheap guitar, just buy it, see if you enjoy.

[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

Thanks everyone. Let me clarify a bit. I'm not talking about trying to get one type of guitar to sound like another (i.e. a strat and LP). Mostly what I'm talking about is the same guitar, but maybe of a lesser quality. So, if I gave Eric Clapton a Squire Classic Vibe and he recorded with it. Then gave him an American Professional strat and he recorded with it. Would the difference, once processed, be detectable?

On a side note, if a great player played a whole concert with a Squire Affinity, would 99 percent of the audience perceiver a difference?

I think the answer to both is a clear "no." This stuff matters to some of us, but not to any audience I can think of. And I say some of us, because it's interesting to me how little actual working, touring, big-time pros know and think about their gear. The ony exception I can think of is if one guitar is more comfortable to play I will probably play better on it, but I don't think that's actually your question. So no, I don't think it matters to the listener at all.

[BoneDigger]

Originally Posted by stephenT

Nothing wrong w/ the Chinese Fenders, playable guitars. Ceramic magnet pickups, different sound from alnico magnets. Cheaper everything used in the construction.

Processing is never going to add quality to the basic sound of a pickup. Run it through an exciter to add in harmonic content, compress it to add sustain, you still have an over compressed, over excited ceramic pickup.

But your hypothetical, can a listener tell the difference? Depends on the listener doesn't it. I can tell the difference between a ceramic pickup and an alnico, but it's my business. To me, it's more important how the artist feels about the guitar and it's sound and playability.

If you're trying to justify buying a cheap guitar, just buy it, see if you enjoy.

Oh, I've got cheap ones and expensive ones, I was just wondering out loud.

[rockabilly69]

Oh this is a good question and recently I've experienced a real life situation like this.

My $429 (on sale at Musician's Friend) Squire Fender Jaguar, after a proper setup, was easily good enough to record a whole albums worth of guitar stuff without ever reaching for another electric guitar. And I own quite a few high end electric guitars.

When recording electric guitars, I use both nice amps mic'd up with nice mics, or sometimes I'll plug straight in. When going straight in, I plug into a Drawmer 1960 preamp and then into my interface (RME Babyface). I then use amp modeling, with my favorite being the Fender 2 Collection by Amplitube. In Amplitube, along with a good tweed amp model, I may use the 62 reverb plug-in, and perhaps an echoplex plug-in. With this setup, my stock Squire guitar sounded great, and I seriously doubt anyone that likes Fender clean to somewhat dirty guitar tones would disagree with me. And I don't think there would be many people that would say I could have gotten a better tone with a more expensive vintage of custom shop version of the guitar.

I recorded it with both the stock pickups and later boutique pickups that are very good sounding. The only reason I changed pickups is that the bridge pickup sounded kind of weak in comparison to the neck pickup, and there really wasn't a good way to balance them in the way of height adjustment. But, make no mistake the stock pickups were VERY good sounding alnico Jaguar pickups, so I could have easily set up a volume for the bridge pickup using my pedal board and just backed it off a bit for the neck pickup. So I guess it just comes down to the individual guitar.



Yes the parts on the Squire were of less quality than what you find on the American built model of the same name, and I have since changed out almost every part on it, but I only did it as a learning experiment. This is my first Jaguar so I wanted to see if high end parts would make it sound better.

The first part I changed was the bridge. There was no change in tone, I just got a lock feature.

The second part I changed was the pickups. I got more output out of the bridge up so that was nice. The new pickups sound nice, bit so did the stock ones.

The next part I changed was the neck. I only did this for aesthetic reasons because I didn't like the block inlays and binding. This was the biggest change in tone, but that was to be expected. Was it better tone? That would be up to the individual because the stock neck sounded good. I like the tone with the newer neck better though. I also cut a new nut for the new neck that helps with the way my trem works!

I then changed all the wiring to vintage cloth wiring, along with changing all pots, switches, and caps, to best currently available. None of that changed the tone, I did that for future reliability. I also experimented with cap values on the rhythm circuit. That changed the sweep of the tone knob and that was a good change!

I then replaced the whole bridge and tailpiece assembly for a ridiculously expensive boutique assembly, which frankly, I think is built better than American custom shop stuff. This changed the way the guitar sets up, and for the better. It is now easier to set up my guitar for a lower action. And the tone changed, especially on the low strings, I got more brightness and clarity. The change works well for me as I like brightness since I rarely use a pick, and brightness works well with flesh on strings! But I feel some people would prefer the stock stuff in tone as the brightness can get in your face quick when using a pick.