It’s Friday! That means it’s time for SMG Viewer’s Comments; my weekly show where I try to answer your comments and questions to the best of my ability!

Chance Hurley Comments:

“Along with the “I bought it, I’m using it” mentality, I think a lot of adolescent-minded musicians. Get. Caught up in the whole “my tone is me” thing. They. Think that their sound is some sort of personal expression because the people they admire used. A certain. Type other own gear and that’s what “made them sound that way” on their records. I think there is. Some sort offer involved because someone using a line 6 should be drooling at the idea of using a great amp. Thoughts?”

I had this discussion with my good friend and we were debating the Spider V practice amp, and he thought no one would ever want to use that in the studio! Are you fucking kidding!? I have had to talk numerous kids out of using the spider in the studio cause it’s “their sound.”

Here’s the thing, nobody heard you play, nobody knows your sound! You don’t even know it. I always offer to find their sound together rather than tying my hands behind my back before we even get started. – Lets start with some quality. I get it. There are some guitar players out there who have really unique sounds: Dimebag Darrell, Randy Rhoads, Jimi Hendrix, the list goes on and on and on.

But all those players were incredible players as well, and there is a big difference between a kid who knows 3 cords and a guitar virtuoso. The tone isn’t necessarily controlled in the hands any more than it is in changing the strings. In the studio you’re going to have a lot more control of the tone than the guitar player would like to believe. Changing the tone is quite simple; move an SM57 about 2mm either way and you will get a very different sound.

In my experience the greatest contributing factor to guitar tone is where the mic is placed on the speaker. There are a lot of other factors, but that is the one overwhelming factor over everything else. Changing out the amp head isn’t going to change much. Changing out cabinets will a little but, changing where the mic goes, oh yeah that’s really going to make a difference.

So when he says “this is my sound.” …Your sound is everything the engineers aren’t telling you that’s going on.