A serious question that may sound like trolling.

[ScottR]

Ach! You just want an excuse to buy more shoes!

Pfft...he needs no excuse.

 

[László]

This would be a good place for the meme that has a picture of Jimi playing at Woodstock and says “Jimi Hendrix seemed to enjoy himself at Woodstock despite the fact that is pedals were not true bypass.”

They didn't have to be, because they were always on.

 

[Gyakuto]

Musicians:
. . .I still just sound like ME.

So if you were to play a straight A major scale on my rig, one note after the other, no embellishments or anything, it would sound different to me doing the same?

 

[veinbuster]

So if you were to play a straight A major scale on my rig, one note after the other, no embellishments or anything, it would sound different to me doing the same?

I guarantee I would sound different than you.

 

[Nice F Holes]

It's a great question. In my experience, chasing a particular tone never seems to perfectly happen. I basically gave up on guitar for awhile because I felt like I was always chasing tone.

This time around, I'm happier with maybe just a general idea in mind, but essentially getting the gear I like and having the tone develop. I got the guitar I wanted, then played that model guitar through different amps and chose the tone I liked, then did the same with a pedal or two. I have 2 pedals I bought with some expectation of tone and am disappointed in both - great pedals, but they subtract from my rig instead of add to it.

 

[shinksma]

Last night I was playing my 594 SH (double cut) into my Sweet 16, fairly cranked. No pedals (very unusual for me). Doing (well trying to do) some finger-picking David Grissom style on a song I wrote a couple of years ago. Then I just messed around with some other stuff, still finger picking (also unusual for me), an basically noodled for an hour or more.

I was in tone heaven. It was exactly the tone I wanted at the time.

Tonight, if I want to play some Gilmour-esque stuff, I will need to take a different approach (strat style guitar using pedals, for example, into a different amp perhaps, and definitely using a pick!) to dial in the tone I would desire in that case. There would be no point in starting with the 594 straight into the Sweet 16.

I think that is a big part of chasing tone - your target is often moving, so you need to anticipate that, and intercept rather than chase.