Worst Guitar Tones

For me...

The Black Keys...I find Auerbach's guitar tone completely unlistenable.

Blink 182

Rush, Alex Lifeson (1990s-Today).

 

D. Boon of Minutemen. Love that band, but his tone...

 

For me, that natural Fender Tele sound is integral to the band.

 

Limp Bizkit

 

Hmm, nobody stands out in particular (I generally don't dwell on negatives about music... but...) The whole L.A. '80s metal sound, that sort of middy, plasticky, buzzy sound, was a big turnoff for me. Almost ruined the Marshall amplifier company in the process! I very much dislike anything played through a "triple rectifier" sort of amp ... Sounds like gravel rolling around in a cement mixer. Fooey on all that.

 

Not a common complaint, but I always hated those Ovation acoustic guitars with the fiberglass bodies. Very popular onstage in the 80's, but they had such a thin unnatural sound I never understood why. They seem to have gone away, thankfully.

 

Just about anything that calls itself Metal.
Ted Nugent
Just about anything that calls itself "grunge".

 

That mid-rangy Heart Full of Soul distortion. I much prefer the richer distortion that came later from Hendrix and Townshend.

 

Funny. Just as much as I hate Nugent, I'm nut for his tone in the 70's, particularly on the live "Gonzo!", archtop (Byrdland) with Fender (Super Twins I think) - and I still find that his solo on "Yank Me, Crank Me" is one of the best I've heard in r'n'r.

 

Nu-metal and emo bands - hard to describe, but it's a slick, polished, processed rumble.

 

Every hair metal guitarist.
Steve Morse.
Steve Vai most times.

Agree with contemporary Alex Lifeson, I wish he could unplug his delay pedal sometimes.

 

yeah odd. ted nugent is known for his outstanding guitar tone

 

I hate him too, but I love his tone on the live Gonzo version of Great White Buffalo.

 

If you're talking about what is called post-grunge, I agree with you. In case of the early 90's bands, you couldn't be wronger. Kurt Cobain got a Jaguar not because it was cheap but because he wanted that very sharp and dry sound you hear when he pairs the thing with his small clone. By your answer, it seems that you suggest that there's a generic grunge guitar tone out there and they're all very different (Kim Thayll and his heavy Guilds, Mike McCready and his SRV tone, the humbucker-driven Jerry Cantrell etc.)

 

(I'm assuming that bass tones also count in this thread)

As a bass player myself, one of the worst bass tones ever for me is Reginald Arvizu's (best known as "Fieldy"). All bass and treble, with zero mids. Middle frequencies are where the definition of the instrument's sound resides, but he simply has no definition. It's all "boom" and "clickety", but no "meat" in his tone.

Also, and while I consider Mr. John Myung an outstanding musician, I'd like to know what made him decide to use such a clean and "pretty" tone for his work in Dream Theater. That tone is great for his solo stuff, but the band's massive guitar and drums bury him in the mix very easily. He needs some GRIND! And it's not his instrument: When he decided to ditch his Yamaha signature bass and switch to a Music Man Bongo (the reason why the company started making six-string basses, BTW), many (including myself) thought "now he's going to cut in the mix like a sharp knife", since the Bongo is such a beast of an instrument (I'm talking from direct experience). Nope. It didn't happen. It's just the tone he has in his head, which doesn't work for me, at least in a band like Dream Theater.

 

I never liked that sort of buzzing sound that Ronnie Wood had on The Faces recordings (but I love The Faces).

 

ever heard a Crass record, crappiest guitar sound ever!

 

I love Jeff Beck's MK1 Tone Bender fuzz sound. Probably my second favorite ever guitar sound, behind Willie Johnson's incredible sound on those early Howlin Wolf 78s.

 

Metal, with drop D and an avalanche of gain. Or metal, again, shredding on the light strings at 100 notes a second with demented sustain.

 

James Gurley of Big Brother & The Holding Company had what I consider to be the worst guitar sound on record. The sound of the guitar solo on Summertime is a good example I believe.

 

Vernon Reid, at least on the early Living Colour albums. Such an awful '80s tone saturated with digital reverb, when he takes a lead it sounds like a cat wrapped in cellophane howling in a small tin box.

 

As much as I love Jethro Tull, and absolute adore Songs From The Wood, and Hunting Girl being one of the best songs on the album, the guitar tone is not very nice

 

Anything with chorus pedal on it.

 

I know many of you are going to have a hard time with this, but here goes:

Springsteen's lead tone on Darkness On The Edge Of Town. Razor blade across the ears.

 

eric clapton's.
ty tabor of my favourite band king's x. i don't like the sound he gets when soloing, the rest of the time it's great.