This is the companion book to Rockin' Your Stage Sound: A Musician's Guide to Professional Live Audio, a recent Hal Leonard release that explained how to achieve a great live sound. Here,
Dave Hunter walks you through everything you need to know to create a cool guitar sound.
Everybody wonders how Jeff Beck, Edward Van Halen, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix gave birth to such remarkable guitar tones. The truth is, the majority of sound comes from a player's fingers - you could take any one of the guitarists and present them with different guitars and amps than they're used to playing and they'd still sound like themselves. But beyond that, these guitar players and every guitarist you've ever heard with a great tone has worked hours and hours on conjuring their sounds. They've worked with guitars, pickups, amplifiers, speakers, effects, and everything in-between.
Hunter explains why certain things sound a certain way. He talks about bolt-neck solidbodies versus hollowbody electrics; vintage amps versus high-gain amps; various speakers; different effects ranging from boosters and overdrive pedals to stereo and effects-loop boxes; and in a chapter
entitled "Peripherals and Consumables," he even discusses guitar/speaker cables, guitar strings and picks.
Don't expect to sound like Eric Clapton after reading this. You won't and you never will. But that's not the point. This book is meant to help you understand the tools at your disposal and - with a lot of woodshedding - hopefully come up with a sound unlike anyone else.