Describing tone is hard.

What does dry mean? I have no idea and if I did define dry to mean something does that mean that you hear the same thing. I do see lots of guys use the “wine” adjective to describe tone and although I do think I understand, truthfully I may not. If I were to describe a guitar as “tight,” would we know that that means? Probably not, but maybe through some conversation we might be able to come to some sort of agreement that would help us to narrow down what we mean.

I try to describe tone in things that are quantifiable. For instance sustain. We can say that a guitar sustains for so a certain amount of time before dying off.  I describe “attack  as how quickly that note rises to  max, once again something that can measured.  Someone mentioned  “balance,” and that is something I feel that can be measured to some extent. How much power does each note create when plucked with the same force. If it turns out that all the notes in the chord or  a lead run are about equal in power then I would say a guitar is balanced. Overtones and fundamentals can be measured too although I caution, that we may not all be hearing the same thing. It does sometimes take me some time to sort out what I am hearing and I usually do that through some sort of testing. It does get me closer on being able to verbally discuss what I am hearing. Now I don’t necessarily put number value(s) on these parameters but I think by categorizing some of them can get closer to talking  about and descibing tone.

I do slip into the adjectives from time to time. What about the terms “sharp” sounding (not pitch) or “round” sounding (sometimes described as warm) There I still think there is a quantifiable way at looking  at them. If we were to analyze a sound wave as a  visual waveform and we saw a sort of sawtooth or triangle pattern, we might hear something that we might describe as “sharp” or shrill. Think of the speaker that this hooked to coming to a sudden stop as it is moving out and then reversing direction quickly.  Now round that same waveform off and typically the sound will become more “pure” or warm.  In the speaker example, the cone is flowing more smoothly back and forth.  I guess this is the reason tubes are still used in amps as they tend to “round” signals over where its solid-state counterpart the diode will create the sharper waveforms, the tubes give us that nice cozy “warm” sound.

It is hard not to fall into the more romantic side of describing tone, with the wine-like terms, but when I am talking with people about tone I do try to get it to a point where we can make sure we are on the same page.  My friend Al Carruth was once telling me about a guitar that sounded “nasally.” He pinched his nose at the same time talking in a forceful voice. Everybody in the room looked as it really cut through. It was not a pleasant sound (sorry AL) but the point was well made. He did a good job of showing what this adjective meant.  Sometimes a guitar that can “cut-through the mix” might be desirable, but  a nasal sound  might not be what we want.  Reverb is another thing that I sometime mention.  Harder to measure but I guess since it does have some sort of universal understanding to musicians,  I feel like can get away with that one. 

Anyway it does take some 2-way conversations with people to make sure we are on the same page when we say this guitar is sweet, subtle, aged, mature quality to it, yet also a nice clear shimmering pure organic flavor. J I am still working on narrowing down what people mean when they use these adjectives,  but I do tend to revert back to the more measureable things to try to narrow in on what someone means when that say a guitar sounds “ mature.”