Tone that sparked you to learn a song?

[Ovibos]

I was practicing today on my SE Custom 24 (b/c the CE24 is in the shop) and the combination of the HFS bridge pickup and my Katana’s Lead channel hit me like a bolt of lightning saying “this tone is Ratt’s ‘I Want a Woman’!”

So I hopped onto Ultimate Guitar to learn it!

What’s your bolt-of-lighting tone-rig-song moment?

 

[11top]

Mississippi Queen



A loooooooooong time ago.

Radical tone for 1970.

More cow bell!

 

[mark cassidy]

All Your Love off the Beano album. A very long time ago. I had a Les Paul. I bought a Marshall Bluesbreaker reissue. I put, I mean, hours into getting that sound locked away down in the basement when nobody else was home. I believe I got close but....

 

[Alan Manning]

Originally Moonage Daydream. Bowie / Ronson then fast forward a few yrs
anything off the Frampton Comes Alive Album.

 

[László]

 

[bodia]

Anything that Brian May plays on.

 

[11top]

Dammit!





I wish I didn’t remember that.

Maybe In a few more years I won’t.



Les, I can still walk, but don’t run.

 

[goat-n-gitter]

Stumbling onto a cool tone is more likely to cause me to write a new riff or song of my own. Hearing a fun guitar song I haven't heard in a while sometimes causes me to pull it up on YouTube and learn to play it.

 

[Ovibos]

Stumbling onto a cool tone is more likely to cause me to write a new riff or song of my own.

Oh totally!

I had just had this moment of locking in to someone else’s tone purely by accident and the song jumping into my head.

 

[Boogie]

The other guitarist and I (from our “vintage” rock band) do a pretty convincing job on this one with him on his old Strat and me on my Cu24. Yep, you read that right. He was going thru his 65 Twin and I was going thru my MkIII. We covered a bunch of Ventures tunes and they were a blast. Realistically, we will probably never play another show together, but we had a good 10+ year run. Great memories.

 

[dmatthews]

I wish I had a bolt of lightening moment.
That being said I have a helluva good time finding the tones I want/need for the cover band.

 

[László]

Les, I can still walk, but don’t run.

Hahaha! I saw what you did there!

Yeah, age, what can ya do? Very little choice in the matter.

Still getting hired to score interesting ads; still rockin’ in the free world, still breathing!

 

[11top]

Hahaha! I saw what you did there!

A Venture’s Wind Talker.

 

[László]

The other guitarist and I (from our “vintage” rock band) do a pretty convincing job on this one with him on his old Strat and me on my Cu24. Yep, you read that right. He was going thru his 65 Twin and I was going thru my MkIII. We covered a bunch of Ventures tunes and they were a blast. Realistically, we will probably never play another show together, but we had a good 10+ year run. Great memories.

Considering that The Ventures started rocking these in 1963, and they really don’t sound like Strats at all, seems to me a CU24 would be a tone improvement!

Also...these were never the best looking guitars out there, which no doubt contributed to the demise of the company!

One fun fact for me is that the case that came with my 30th Anniversary CU24 PS is black leather with brown end caps, too, though the Mosrite’s is Tolex with leather ends.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Considering that The Ventures started rocking these in 1963, and they really don’t sound like Strats at all, seems to me a CU24 would be a tone improvement!

Also...these were never the best looking guitars out there, which no doubt contributed to the demise of the company!

My first guitar was a Kawai Mosrite copy. I ruined it when I was 13 because I didn’t like the look, I tried making a vaguely LP shaped body for it so I could look like all the punk dudes. Modding guitars has always been in my blood, for better and worse.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Holiday in Cambodia by Dead Kennedy’s was probably the last time that inspired me to learn a song.

 

[László]

My first guitar was a Kawai Mosrite copy. I ruined it when I was 13 because I didn’t like the look, I tried making a vaguely LP shaped body for it so I could look like all the punk dudes. Modding guitars has always been in my blood, for better and worse.

Awesome!

BTW, if you’re running Kawai, and you’re going to copy an American guitar model, do you say to yourself, “I’ve got a great idea! Let’s copy a guitar that flopped during the few years it was made?”

Or do you just say, “To hell with guitars, we should just keep making pianos!”

 

[László]

Mississippi Queen



A loooooooooong time ago.

Radical tone for 1970.

More cow bell!

I saw Mountain live opening for Jefferson Airplane and was very much taken by the tone. I was able to come pretty close with my SG Special and my Blackface Bassman cranked all the way up. There may or may not have been a Maestro fuzz involved.

As enthusiastic as I was about this gigantic achievement at the time, for some reason it did not endear me to the neighbors. I can’t imagine why, I mean, I really nailed the tone!

I’m reminded of something one of my friends said at a party one evening when he was being kind of obnoxious, and someone said, “Stop, man, you’re bumming me out.”

The guy was having a very good, pot-fueled, time, and said, incredulously, “Wait - how can I be bumming you if I’m not bumming me?”

 

[CandidPicker]

George Benson's "Breezin' ." Several years ago when I was going through my study of smooth jazz technique, playing for pleasure, Breezin' was part of my practice regimen.

In fact, back in the late 70s, when Breezin' was first released, the 33LP resided in my collection among rock and blues albums, waiting patiently until recently when my interest in smooth jazz was sparked.

The tone was primarily a clean, warm tone, but was necessary for good jazz tones. That inspired me to play more cleanly, although more recent gear choices have provided a wider range of tones and variety of music genres to choose from.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Awesome!

BTW, if you’re running Kawai, and you’re going to copy an American guitar model, do you say to yourself, “I’ve got a great idea! Let’s copy a guitar that flopped during the few years it was made?”

Or do you just say, “To hell with guitars, we should just keep making pianos!”

I can give Kawai a pass as it was branded a Silvertone, so yeah, somebody at Sears thought it was a good idea to, uhh, at least place an order for them.