Guitar Tone Is Changing... Is It Time For Traditional Guitar Gear To Disappear?

#guitarist #guitartone
Love it or hate it, but guitar tone is changing. And that has to do a lot with the type of guitar gear new generation players use. Let me know what you think about this in the comments below!

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Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
1:00 1. The point of reference changes
4:17 The same riff w/ traditional and modern rig?
5:18 PLAYING | Traditional 'pedal-into-tube amp' rig
5:46 PLAYING | Modern plugin rig
6:25 The Sound That Makes Me Wanna Play
7:15 The plugin rig explained
8:20 So... will tube amps and pedals disappear?

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-Barocsi "Frankenstrat"

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Recording:

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Cheers,
Kris

[thejovialpanda]

I think you really over-inflate the importance of modern guitar players like Polyphia to most young people. I've spent the past ten years working with teenagers and I can tell you without a doubt that none of them had even heard of Polyphia or Periphery or any of the others. But, they were all huge fans of the Arctic Monkey or Greta Van Fleet or older bands like Nirvana. They love Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Oasis is huge. The average teen is more into guitar music that we give them credit for, but they also like a lot of new stuff, dance, edm, hip-hop, pop music. But not new modern guitar stuff. Just look at numbers on Spotify. Polyphia has 1.4million subs, Arctic Monkeys has 54million, Greta Van Fleet has 4 million, Nirvana has 32 million, Oasis has 26 million. I think we underestimate how much the young people like the music we like. They're just not motivated to learn guitar. And the why of that is a whole nother question and discussion.

[argento]

About that thing of young people becoming adults.
I was born in the second half of the 90s, and I grew up obsessing over the metal scene of the early 2000s, all I wanted was to acheive that gnarly, percussive high gain sond that I heard in the records of the most prominend metalcore bands of that time such as As I Lay Dying, Trivium, Killswitch engage and so on, the only thing I cared for were modern superstrat like Ibanez ESP and Jackson guitars, preferably loaded with EMGs or other active pickups, plugged straight into a 5150 or dual rectifier.
I spent my teenage years and early 20s practicing and playing mostly "modern" metal stuff, but slowly I started to experience what in the beginning was simple curiosity, that over time evolved in true interest towards "older" sounds, I started exploring and appreciating the music and the sounds of the 80s and 70s, I started studying them and now getting close to my 30s I still love and play metal, but I own a JTM, 2 Teles, a Strat, a P90 loaded Gibson Les Paul and even a Gretsch.

[UntilTheSilence]

Going to a shoe gaze show in NC Friday night where 2 out of 3 bands are in their early 20s and all bands are playing tube amps and using pedals. It's coming back!

[paulyates]

I teach guitar and yes most of the kids/ teenagers I teach aren’t that fussy about gear, but also they are not listening in the main to virtuoso guitarists. Mostly old school rock, and indie mixed with some modern bands. It’s the same as back in the day where in reality many more players were influenced by Jack White/ Kurt Cobains of the world than Steve Vai. Polyphia is for the Geeks. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s a minority thing

[whyceeguy]

As an old guy I will say that part of why the "classic rock" guys are so great is that there was a lot more effort that went into achieving a tone. None of those guys had a list of a bazillion patches to scroll thru, they had a couple guitars, a couple amps and a couple pedals and just made it work. They all managed to sound awesome and unique because they were PLAYING the guitar and not using the gear to create their music.

[jcugnoni]

Totally agree. There was the amp era, then the pedal into amp phase, the rack era (preamp with digital effects into power amp), then the first gen modeling era (pod into power amps during the nu metal boom) and now profiler/modellers/ai-models with in ears and click tracks. I started with transistor amps (ok for cleans but shitty dirt sound) then Zoom mfx and PodXt which helped me understand better how sounds are built, tried early days plugins in pc (was trash, but discovered how important IRs can be in the process) and then pedalboard into clean tube amp and finally went into tube preamps with switcher (DIY and Synergy) and built my own tube amps. This is all about experiencing tones to find our own sounds that resonate with what inspires us.. So nothing goes away, the tools add up and fuel new inspirations.

[Michael-bmhi]

Young players tend to focus on technique (the faster, the more complex - the better) and like to play next to 6 strings with knobs and computer settings. As they mature they will start focusing more on tone and the traditional tube amp will come in. Music is in the end is an analog thing when it comes to our ears.

[paulbradshawguitar]

great talking points Kris, i sort of look at this like Vinyl and more modern formats of consuming music, despite all the progress (Tape, CD, Minidisc, MP3 to streaming now) Vinyl is still around and there's even a resurgence and interest in vinyl in the last 10 years or so

the ease of recording/DSP power has also been a big part of the shift, can't argue with the portability/ease of use, but there'll always be a usecase for amps/cabs and stage volume =)

[jimwoodard]

As guitarists, we sit in a realm of knowing "the new guys" (and fighting about who's better on the Internet), but the majority of people I know wouldn't know Polyphia or Periphery. They would probably think I was talking about books on sociology or psychology. It's not as popular as the musico's want to believe, because they have conversations with like-minded people. Most of the "kids" I know are either into the new pop (Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Pitbull, etc...) or "classic" music (The Cars, Pink Floyd, Skynyrd, Bee Gees). Even Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix covered "To Love Somebody" in "Joker: Folie à Deux" and I could hear young people singing along with "You don't know what it's like..." as the song played in the surprisingly packed theater. My sons (25) listen to a variety, but play some Animals as Leaders, and they go, "What the heck is that?" and not in a good way. To test his sound systems, one of my sons uses "Rock You Like a Hurricane" to make sure he gets booming bass and searing highs along with all of the frequencies in between. I'm not so sure one needs to invent a better mouse trap (as they say).

[doctorjoyboylove]

The reason why I don't see the "grandpa stuff" disappear (or why it hasn't already disappeared) is, that it's still the reference point for most modern amp sounds. How often have I heard people say "this sounds just like the real thing!" when talking about modellers or profilers, and they are correct most of the time, but that implies, that there is still a "real thing" that is being referenced and that makes the "real thing" something, that is not obsolete yet.

[SisGuitarGAS]

Probably not in a position to comment, bought a valve amp today 🙊

[ollieguitarman]

As long as the digital reproduction of the tube amps is designed to be as realistic a replica as possible, I have no concerns that the original will continue to be used. Ultimately, it's not necessarily the understanding of sound that changes, but rather the practical accessibility. If you can easily get a digital Plexisound these days, why should you put the box in your room...but the reference Plexi remains

[ToneChaseBasement]

I really like your point with actually getting older you start appreciating all these things... and also, you learn to appreciate quality... and the real physical, touchable craftsmanship... but still, you have to carry this feeling of appreciation inside you somehow, while you are growing up... like remembering your dad putting on a vinyl and when he says, do you hear that warmth and those slight crackles? a teenager says, naaaahh sound is much better on CDs because its cleaner... then you grow up and start listening to vinyls yourself and saying, yes i understand my dad now... thats the same way with plugins and tube amps... very good video as alwayswith some really good points!

[mylogify]

I think we might go back to amps only after Kemper's new business model, the paid upgrades. I feel like we will at the end all be playing Marshall's only 😂We are going back to Jimi Hendrix tones... 😂😂 Now watching the vid.

[dragonheartstudio]

Yup, totally agree, being 41 I had tube amps for the first 20 years of playing, had been using Fractal FM3 for the past 2.5 years then had the itch to get back on a tube amp, picked up a mesa.. it just hits different, not so perfect, slightly spikier but oh my so much more inspiring! (still love my fractal of course :-))

[nfsforever]

The youth ignores tube amplifiers and other traditional pedals, firstly they are expensive (plug-ins are much cheaper), secondly they are not so loud. A 100/50 watt amplifier is certainly nice, but I'm afraid the neighbors won't approve.

[PooNinja]

No matter what you use these days it should sound the way you want. Such a great age for artists.

[mamad]

what was that riff you played to compare? it was super cool i can't get it out of my head

[KomboAndy]

I really agree with that. I really love tube amps, Pedals and Hollowbodys.
I like that i can modify the stuff, especially Pedals (I started building them by myself recently).
But one of my dream guitars is the Tim Henson acoustic one.

[iankinzel]

What I'd like to see, is more integration of the old with the new. Imagine a physical, hardware pedal where you could upload the plugins of your choice; imagine a real tube amp capitalizing on digital modeling to offer tone stack & preamp options, before feeding into a set of real EL84's. Or even better yet, a tube amp that's also designed to operate as an audio interface to go into your computer. Etc etc.