The Science of Tone

Most of you certainly know that my love of guitars rivals my obsession with books. I got an opportunity to explore that love a bit recently for Premier Guitar magazine. The cool folks over there asked me to write an article on the science of tone.

Which turned out to be quite a challenge. Like evaluating books, there is no objective measurement for what is “good” or “bad” in terms of guitar tones. It really is all up to the listener. Sure, there are certain standards and accepted principles, just like we have in literature. But there’s no perfect formula or recipe that says, “This much distortion plus that much sustain, cut with this amount of feedback will sound good.” So the article turned out to pose a question that can’t be answered, but is very fun to discuss nonetheless.

So if you’re into rocking, be sure to check out the piece. And peruse the rest of Premier Guitar as well. I’m really impressed by the staff over there and how they take chances and do things a little bit differently than so many of the guitar mags.