i once went to a paul gilbert guitar clinic for ibanez guitars and laney amps at ronnie scott’s in birmingham. apart from a kazoo for a cover of hendrix’s crosstown traffic, gilbert came up with tones by simply altering the pickups and volume/tone knobs. during the Q&A, someone asked why his PGM signature series ibanez sounded so different from the one gilbert was playing. gilbert said that the guitars he used in his recording were all stock models, off-the-rack with no extra modifications. paul gilbert would still sound like paul gilbert because he is paul gilbert. as simple as that. i am sure you have also heard a few more similar anecdotes pertaining to this aspect of guitar tone.
i now own two good guitars. i have a few others of a lesser quality, but i now don’t have an excuse to do better with what i already have. i have to say, late last year, i managed to play along (in one of those rare occasions i get to do this) with my pearl jam records with my les paul plugged in straight to my marshall. no pedals whatsoever. i didn’t even have to change amp channels. i finally learnt how to utilise the volume and tone knobs and the pickup selector on its own, to get what i hear on the record.
the road is still long but i was delighted i finally managed to be able to do what i saw in that clinic in birmingham that day. as uncle T used to say in his email correspondences to me – “practice, practice, practice!”.
