Tone Control Quotes

The Marshall guitar amplifier doesn't just get louder when you turn it up. It distorts the sound to produce a whole range of new harmonics, effectively turning a plucked string instrument into a bowed one.

I honestly believe that you have to be able to play the guitar hard if you want to be able to get the whole spectrum of tones out of it. Since I normally play so hard, when I start picking a bit softer my tone changes completely, and that's really useful sometimes for creating a more laid-back feel.

At the end of the day, you, as the player, create the tone coming out of the amp. The gear is part of it but by no means all of it.

I fingerpick a lot because I can get more of a range of feeling from the guitar than I can when I bash away with a pick.

The Beatles had some juice when it came to distortion, but Clapton was finally able to break through those early studio engineers' fear of overloading. He defined the sound that guitarists spend the rest of their lives trying to get.

I still fall back a lot on my Les Paul, and there is just no getting away from a Les Paul and a hot pickup.

I've seen a lot of people getting into Jazzmasters because of me, and, well, people don't know what they're in for. I mean if you're looking for endless sustain, you're going to have to get it out of your hands (laughs). Because a saxophonist gets it out of his breath. You've got to work for it on the guitar - it means you have to pull it out of yourself, otherwise, what are you doing? You end up playing a lot of noise or scale exercises.

I swear and it comes off a little angry, no matter how funny I'm trying to do it. If I use certain words with a certain intensity, it's like 'Whoa whoa whoa, buddy buddy!'

You are a valuable instrument in the orchestration of your own world, and the overall harmony of the universe. Always be in command of your music. Only you can control and shape its tone. If life throws you a few bad notes or vibrations, don't let them interrupt or alter your song.

I figured out how to get the guitar to rumble...I put it on the middle pickup, turn the tone know down, grab it by the wang bar, and just shake it on the floor... a Stratocaster is pretty tough - I wouldn't recommend that anybody do that with their ES-335

These days, my main guitar amps have been Magnatone. They're beautiful. Magnatones have actual tremolo, which I recently learned about guitar amps. Often what guitar amps call vibrato is really just a volume Up and Down. But Magnatone has a true vibrato, which is pitch bending. And so, it's just a lush sound.

Constructing passive sentences is a way of concealing your own testicles.

If you think that the brass is not blowing loud enough, mute it by a couple of degrees.

A director will always tell you, when you go in to do a scene, 'You go as big as you want, and I'll tell you when to come down.' And I found that on 'Shameless,' you can't follow that rule because they will never tell you to come down. So, I've had to find my own balance with when it makes sense to get this upset or angry.

It sounds boring, but I'm such a guitar junkie and a gear junkie. I'm always fiddling with my stuff. It's relaxing to me... I'm always pulling my stuff apart, getting my pedal board out and fiddling with it or changing guitar strings.

A wah-wah is important as well. I love it; it makes the guitar scream.

My father played one of the first electric guitars in England. He built his own in 1940, because you couldn't buy them in those days. He used three telephone pickups under the strings, which gave chronic distortion on chords but was quite good on single notes.

There's always a tone that you have to hit right in horror. With the blood, you want to make sure that it makes sense all along.

There are situations when, in your singing, in your interpretation of songs, for instance, when you want a straight tone. And I have to work really hard at getting a straight tone... That's sort of like if you have curly hair, you have curly hair.

I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.

That sound in tune to you?.. Sounds sharp to me. Sounds like I'm playing sharp all the time. My singing teacher told us you should do that. Maybe I got it from her. She said singers when they grow old have a tendency to go flat. So if you sing sharp as a young person, as you get older and go flat, you'll be in tune. In other words, it's never thought good to be flat. It means you can't get to the tone.

The only one I can play like is Johnny Ramone. I would love to be able to play like other great guitarists, but my mind doesn't work like that.

I'm using Fender Twin Reverbs and Fender Blues Devilles on stage.

Basically, I try to treat the electric guitar like an acoustic guitar. What you have to do is attack the instrument and know that your feelings aren't controlled by the controls of your guitar.

Nobody seems to play Yamaha electrics, but it's the best guitar I own.