This is brilliant - I think when I saw my first electric violin made out of clear acrylic I wondered whether once you switch to an electric version then nothing really matters. Else there’s a ton of electric ‘stick’ type instruments that should not function at all.

Paul Reed Smiths hate this trick.

Man hasn't put a video up in 9 months, he's clearly been whacked by Big Music Equipment

Thank you for your very thorough work on this! Saving this video as a permanent resource.

I ordered a custom shop custom made Les Paul chasing the elusive butter that is guitar tone. That tone that melts like butter on the souls pancakes… so I did what anyone on a pilgrimage would do. I pulled the 498 pups and started the pup rabbit hole. Then I hunted 50s caps, Russian caps, and every other thing I could. The beauty I found is the search not the destination… still searching. Sweet documentary!

I found an old Champ chassis so I built a repro cab for it. I was feeling guilty for using plywood. Thanks for the vindication!

It's obviously always going to be the pickup, and to some extent the gauge of string. other factors make no difference, the bit that's transfering the sound is the metal string vibrating over the pickup pole. Get any guitar you are comfortable with, slap some good pickups in, job done

Great work! Some Companies like AMT, Tech 21, Koch, Blackstar and so on knows this and build Preamps u can put in a frfr or power amp. My AMT Bulava costed about 170 Euros and sound great,greetings from Germany

some things I have noticed in the last 30 years. having a straight neck with clean polished frets and clean strings makes a slight difference. loose parts that vibrate can create distructive interference with certain notes. pickup height. pick ups have a certain height that is like a sweet spot. Raise them up and they get louder but too high and the magnetic field interferes with the notes and deadens the strings. too low and it is not loud enough. big strings should be futher away than smaller strings. The big strings are louder because they interfere with the magnetic field of the pickup more because it is more metal vibrating back and forth over the pick up. I always tilt the pickups slightly for this reason. I try to find the height where the A and D strings sount the best. then I Raise the high e sife of the pick and lower the low E side. Then I try to get it so all the strings are about the same volume. then raise and lower both sides by the same amount till it is almost as loud as can be without the magnetic fields messing with the strings. then I lower both sides a half a turn so it is just a bit below that. That is usually the point where it sounds the best. iF it is over driving on clean lower a half a turn and repeat. aome pickups are real loud and will over drive on clean which isnt really desireable. Try playing an E min Chord. it shoukd sound huge!!! That is my two cents.

this is like mythbusters for music gear lol, love it

You could take a cheap amp with the cheapest sovtek tubes and by just changing the brand plate, get massive differences in who loves what. So much is BS because of brand snobbery.

Are you talking about the slope resistor and the tone stack or what? Or, are you going component by component and gain set by gain set?

What a beautiful tribute.

Psychology is hardly measurable but very inclusive to the general experience. I really don’t think there’s one perfect rig when considering the EQs of the other instruments & listeners. Almost what’s better…linseed oil, water colors, or acrylic. There’s no GOAT here. Wish you’d have mentioned Mark Knopfler‘s tone as it’s in the face of most other considered to be good tones. I think distinction comes with variety.

Psychology is hardly measurable but very inclusive to the general experience. I really don’t think there’s one perfect rig when considering the EQs of the other instruments & listeners. Almost what’s better…linseed oil, water colors, or acrylic. There’s no GOAT here. Wish you’d have mentioned Mark Knopfler‘s tone as it’s in the face of most other considered to be good tones. I think distinction comes with variety.

I found wood, strings, pickups, cable, effects and amp all contribute to tone...along with the player and pick.

I recently came across the idea of "perceived sustain". The listener believes they're hearing longer sustain but in reality the dropoff is less steep. This is achieved with artificially with a compressor.

Like a formula 1 car, every little details matters...for tenths of a second... More, some guitars are more or less sensitive to feedback due to a lot of details. From the guitar itself point of view, they all are made to sustain well. That's the goal of the designer/luthier. Then you have limitations by the physics laws. And of course avaibility weight and price of materials. I remember of a clamp you put on the headstock to increase sustain. It would be interesting to know why and how it works...

Interesting What is missing is how dynamics changes, and the way the amps sound interacts with guitar at high volume. At low volume more or less everything sounds the same. This is the problem with we all face when playing at bedroom level, and why people buy overdrive pedals... A valve amp should be at least cranked till it breaks out, but it's better cranked all the way up. Then you clean your sound with guitar pot. If you don't play that way, you won't ear their different sounds. By the way, sound is a chain, by experience I know that every little thing matters. Some people can hear it others not. You can make everything sound more or less the same if you want. That’s not difficult, but if you set the sweet spot of each amp, no other amp will match it. Short, you can prove what you want in any experience...😉

Can't wait for the speaker video. Looks like as long as a good speaker is screwed to a big enough box it's gonna sound alright.

So the only factor that really influences the tone is the Pickup. Single Coil or Humbucker and distance to the string. The Brand of Pickups might, but the differences get smaller the more high gain you go (as other people have pointed out in the past). I might have missed it, did the scale length have any influence on it? Because that is a very often repeated phrase, but very often compared with not accounted for differing factors.

PLUS, in a mattrr of seconds, in your room listening to your loud amp, your ears chop frequencies to stave off damage.

THE SPEAKER !

Awesome video. Nut material is a real one that I've noticed on upgrading cheap guitars. Cheap plastic vs bone. However the truth could be (after watching this video) that I'm replacing a poorly cut nut with a properly cut one

It looks like the Bogner cab had a G12-65 and a WGS speaker? Not two 65's?

Guitar players are like cult members. They hate having their myths busted!

I was planning on spending $2,000 tomorrow on a tube head and decided to stick with my fender vibro champ after this video!!!!!! WOOOHHHH 2k saved.

Genuinely such a stud for this. Will be watching this over and over again.

Genuinely such a stud for this. Will be watching this over and over again.

This just became my favorite video of the internet.

Maybe the stiffness of the guitar body makes a difference because it would affect the accuracy or deviation from the 'perfect' sound wave. If that's true, then the connection between the neck and the body would make a difference too. Does a completely steel construction (neck and body) sound any different? Does a hollow body make a difference too because it's producing an added sound itself. The possibilities are endless, but what your video does prove is that a reliable bridge, good quality Tuners and a good quality pickup does make a big difference.

I got a Torpedo CaptorX and started going through cab ir's a couple years ago and I think the DNYR's on it are amazing. They are great for recording, I might even go live with them, although I think I would feel naked without a cab behind me.

I guess I always assumed what was meant by the sound of an amp in the room was a mic'd amp. Minus eq, compression, whatever desk, tape, etc. Which was designed to produce the sound of the amp in the room.

Even more sinful, lately I've been chasing tone using an amp through ir's. Sounds great too.

Let me explain something that a lot of people miss, Good guitars and parts are not about "good" tone at all. Its about the consistency of tone. Meaning if I take two fender strats and put pearly gates in it, I should get the same results time and time again. But regardless of upgrades, squire and the likes of cheaper guitars arent consistent in manufacturing, so the sound can very greatly. Tone is subjective to the artist, consistency of tone is subject to build consistency. So yes if you like a tone great, but try recreating it time and time again, those are the tones artists are after.

You should totally take all of this data and create a VST plugin that allows you to "turn" your SM57 into these other mics by applying the EQ line that you have measured. I think it would quickly become a very popular plugin in home and small studios

This has to be the single best video I've ever seen on mic comparison, and on KZfaq.

Crazy experimenting bro..I have one cab you didn't try and that's a thiele style subwoofer cab with one 10 inch guitar speaker that I use as an extension speaker for combos, or two of them stacked with mini heads, and they have as much low end as a 4 x 12 with a much smaller footprint and they sound amazing, try it out sometime

I feel like I've known this information for a while, but not that it would be viable nor that it would sound this good. DIYing your own amp sounds insane! With a bit of tinkering I can get eerily close to my normal (digital) clean(ish) sound with a DAW and the standard EQ, compression and distortion plugins, into a power amp plugin and an IR (all free). It's very close to a modern pc modeler. I'd be perfectly happy with a good quality analog solid state version of this into a real speaker.

Exactly. Thats why its funny how hoards of people hate combo amps because their sound is not like on records. Poor souls

15:30 The real change in tone was the hearing loss we made along the way

I've been using these videos to teach my kids about science and analytics. Absolutely perfect. I've had plenty of researchers and analysts who are paid well into the six-figure range, who really need to take a few lessons from Jim Lill. Such good work. It's a joy to watch his process.

You'll get better mids with Briggs & Straton.

I love this channel! it's like Mythbusters for music.

Epic video... Instant sub from me.. ty!

the goat istg

Time to sell the tackle box 👀

I will say wattage and headroom is important as well so if you're buying a solid state I would say you need about 50%-100% more power than a tube amp. Otherwise if one of your bandmates has a tube amp he may have no problem keeping up with a loud drummer than you will even with the same wattage. OFC all this has nothing to do with tone really just how loud you need to be within your band and setup.

One question I have is in regards to compression and transient response. I have a 5e3 Tweed Deluxe that even at low volumes and no audible distortion is present, sounds compressed. On the other side, I have a Roland JC 120 which is a very dynamic sounding amp with a sharp transient response and is much less compressed sounding. So is it that the Tweed deluxe has distortion always present even when it's not very audible? Or is there another factor that affects transient response other than crunchy audible distortion? Also want to note that the Tweed Deluxe has a ceramic speaker, not an alnico speaker that would compress the sound.

WHO CARES, JUST PLAY