What makes an electric guitar’s tone great? How is it defined and how is consensus, if any, arrived at this subjective opinion? I’ve heard all kinds of answers over the years. An entire industry is fueled by the sale of instruments, equipment and accessories to help guitarists achieve the optimum guitar tone. There’s the claim that “it’s all in the hands." That, while true, is really only part of the equation. Many, like Percival in his quest for the Holy Grail, are forever searching for an elusive tone that escapes them, but unlike him, the prize is forever out of reach. After years of using, selling and talking about the equipment responsible for generating electric guitar tone, my thoughts turn to these fundamental questions: What has informed us about good sounding electric guitars? How have our tastes been influenced and shaped by the tone of electric guitar as it’s been recorded in the last 50 years?
According to the RIAA, these are the best-selling albums in American history:
- Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975 // 29 million copies
- Michael Jackson - Thriller // 29 million
- Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV // 23 million
- Pink Floyd - The Wall // 23 million
- Billy Joel - Greatest Hits Volume I and II // 23 million
There’s a lot of guitar playing on these albums, but it’s the second one on the list (that’s tied for first) which is interesting to me. The Eagles’ guitar driven sound and the influence of their songs represent an obvious contribution to our collective sense of good guitar tones, but Michael Jackson’s Thriller? Not so much unless you take into account that MJ and producer Quincy Jones knew they couldn’t bank on the success of another Disco album like Off The Wall. They had to take another approach and incorporate a sound that was hugely popular at the time. Beat It, the third release sharing the #1 spot with Billie Jean, featured the unaccredited guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen. No one needed to be told it was EVH’s solo on that track; everyone knew who played it. The song helped MJ cross-over to uncharted pop-success territory and the winning formula led to collaborations with other virtuoso guitarists for the rest of his career.
Album sales are only one measure of the popularity of music and its accompanying influence of guitar tone. The cultural impact and the potential to shape our expectations of everything that is popular in “pop-music,” including how we want our guitars to sound, now spans generations. The search for great guitar tone is in many ways as much about the journey as it is the destination, even though the search is more often characterized as a lament for what we don’t have than not. Let’s not forget that early distinctive guitar tones like Dave Davies’ of The Kinks on You Really Got Me were often the product of intentional as well as accidental damage to equipment. Early guitar amplification wasn’t a hi-fidelity affair, and the rush to capitalize on the consumer demand in the early days of the industry didn’t allow for extensive R&D. That came later with the next wave of innovators.
EVH’s “Brown Sound” from his modified Marshall amplifier (modification of amplifiers like his was its own cottage industry in the 1980’s) is a historic tonal reference point. However, that wasn’t the only guitar playing and featured guitar tone on one of the most popular songs on one of the best selling albums of all time was it? Steve Lukather played the guitar on the rest of Beat It and, with over 1,500 studio sessions credited to him, is probably one of the most heard guitarists across a variety of styles of music. During this period his band, Toto, also had a few hits, and what amplifier was he closely associated with at this time? It was the Mesa/Boogie MKII C+. Mesa/Boogie Amplifiers are arguably one of the least known but most heard guitar amplifiers, they have had a massive influence upon how great guitar tone is perceived.
The list of guitarists and albums that use and feature Mesa/Boogie amplifiers is a shock to anyone who does their own research on the subject. Based in Petaluma, Ca., Randy Smith founder and lead designer, once told me “We started out as hippies making guitar amps in Northern California and we’re still hippies making guitar amps in Northern California.” I first met him and toured the factory over ten years ago when Moore Music became a dealer and succeeded in helping Mesa/Boogie move the last of their Nomad Series amplifiers. Manufacturer representative, Shawn Farbman, called the store one day to inform us that they wanted to meet the guys from Moore Music in Evansville, Indiana who clearly knew something about tone. “It’s one thing to sling a bunch of Dual Rectifiers but to move Nomads tells us you know what you’re doing.” This was high praise, indeed! The trip, factory tour and time spent in the Tone Lounge playing a Les Paul through a Mesa/Boogie Stiletto Deuce, while upside-down and open, as Randy soldered different components, at the same time asking me if “this sounds good?” was a professional high-mark and unforgettable experience. I’m pretty sure this led to Moore Music being presented with Mesa Boogie’s The Spirit of Art in Innovation award in 2006.
For many years, I would regularly ask customers who said they’d never heard of Mesa/Boogie if they ever watched The Tonight Show. Kevin Eubanks, the Tonight Show Band’s leader during Jay Leno’s tenure as host wailed through a Mesa/Boogie nightly for years. Long-time user Carlos Santana actually gave the name “Boogie” to one of Smith’s early efforts when he said, “Man, that thing really boogies.” Metallica is a long-time Mesa/Boogie user as well as a host of other multi-platinum selling bands and artists. As I said, your own research will blow your mind. The variety of guitarists that rely on Mesa/Boogie amplifiers is a testament to the versatility, reliability, and innovation that has kept this product relevant and essential for many of us since 1968. I’m a long-time user of Mesa/Boogie amplifiers and have had the pleasure of helping many of my fellow guitar players over many years be able to hear and see the wisdom of investing in, what for many, is the proper end of Percival’s quest: the attainment of the Grail and the end of the search for great guitar tone.