What is your favorite guitar "tone"?

Brian May's majestic, multi-tracked Red Special

 

Roy Buchanan 1971
Jim McGuinn 1966
Link Wray...any decade
Chuck Berry 1955-1960
Randy Holden...1964-1970
Grant Green up until about 1969
Jeff Beck...any decade
Eddie Hazel...right up to the end
Jimi Hendrix

 

Okay, the guy who drew the diagram has no understanding of how a Leslie HF horn works...

 

Albert King
Freddie King
B.B.King
Mick Taylor
Peter Green
Mike Bloomfield
Duane Allman
Dickey Betts
Robin Trower
Paul Kossoff
John Cipollina
Jimi Hendrix
Jeff Beck
Roy Buchanan
SRV
Eric Clapton
Carlos Santana
Frank Zappa
Alvin Lee
Billy Gibbons
Leslie West
Tommy Bolin
Grant Green

 

The early to mid-90s fuzz guitar tone Neil Young had, especially on Mirror Ball. I remember hearing some of those songs for the first time and thinking "Now THAT is what a guitar ought to sound like."

 

Fuzz? Try this on for size (I believe it's Ron Metalic on fuzzbuster lead):


http://indiana-bands-60s.blogspot.com/2012/01/sir-winston-and-commons.html
http://www.lysergia.com/LamaWorkshop/Anonymous/lamaAnonymousBody.htm

 

Larry Parypa - The Sonics:


Cinderella batting lead-off, He's Waitin' at around 14:45 will do the tone trick quite nicely...

 

David Gilmour (the king of great tone!), and of course Andrew Latimer from Camel, always great tone:

 

Steve Rothery from Marillion. Another great tone example here (from min 2:22):

 

I really like the sound that Stephen Stills used on songs like Wooden Ships -- that really round, almost muffled lead tone.

The tone Knopfler gets on the first Dire Straits album is pretty awesome, too.

 

neil young and david gilmour.

 

The guitar tone the these artists:
Robert Smith (The Cure)
Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree)
Annie Clark (St. Vincent)
Falcore & Rainbow (The Birthday Massacre)
James Shaw (Metric)
Edge (U2)
Andrew Innes (Primal Scream)
Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Colin Newman (Wire)
Charlie Burchill (Simple Minds)
Benjamin Curtis (School of Seven Bells)
Dean Garcia (Curve)
Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine)
Miki Berenyi & Emma Anderson (Lush)
Neil Halstead & Rachel Goswell (Slowdive)
Duke Erikson & Steve Marker (Garbage)
Kirk Hammet & James Hetfield (Metallica)
Bernard Sumner (New Order)
Mick Jones (The Clash)
whoever plays guitar in The Sisters of Mercy (probably Andrew Eldritch)

 

Tommy Bolin...Savannah Woman, Lotus, Post Toastee, Spectrum Album
Clapton - Layla album
Jeff Beck - Blow to Blow
Santana from '68 to '77
Some Rolling Stones 1981 shows
Perry and Whitford in Back in the Saddle
Jan Akkerman in Moving Waves and Focus III

 

As much as people yammer on about Clapton's tone with a Les Paul, he uses the tonal pallet of the Stratocaster to great effect on that album.

 

To me, that album sounds more Stratocaster than Les Paul...It's too late specially

 

Torben Enevoldsen on Section A's Parallel Lives.

 

Forgot to add Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) to the list.

 

I already covered my guitar tone so now it's time to talk about my favorite guitar tones on record. I'll start with two of my all-time favorite guitar tones of the 1960s.

Michael Knust (Fever Tree)
His wild “synthesizer-like” feedback solo in "San Francisco Girls" still blows my mind

Epiphone Sheraton
Arbiter Fuzzface
Vox Super Beatle

Ed King (Strawberry Alarm Clock)
His creamy sustaining fuzztone was one of the best guitar sounds of the '60s

Fender Telecaster/Gibson SG Standard
Maestro Fuzz-Tone
Fender Concert/Vox Super Beatle

 

Robin Trower or Neil Young

 

Can't top that.

 

Some of my favourites:
Beatles: Paperback Writer (Needs to be mentioned)
Chris Isaak: Wicked Game (That twangy, airy, clean guitar made me a Chris Isaak fan)
Paul McCartney: Riding To Vanity Fair (Macca's electric solo guitar has an amazing tone)
Thin Lizzy: Fool's Gold (those opening chords when the band starts playing)
Dire Straits: Money For Nothing (I don't expect many to agree with this)

 

I love that plain ol' dry crunch on Sweet's "Love Is Like Oxygen."

 

I like the way Neil Young's guitar sounds on On The Beach's title track.

 

So many to choose from but right now I'm listening to Suede's first two albums and Bernard Butler's tone from this period (1992-94) is one I've always loved and tried to emulate, right down to getting the same type of guitar and amp he plays.