These last days, something keeps on running through my head: the most recognizable guitar sounds/tones (without really trying, I usually think about rock music, because this is my “business”, let’s say). Please keep in mind that I am not considering the style of each guitar player, but his tone only, even if when trying to identify a guitar player both are considered.

1. Brian May (Queen) ,the overdriven tone, has an electric guitar sound that in my opinion can be recognized in an instance. It is somehow a strange sound, and for sure I wouldn’t set my guitar this way, but it really defines him. I don’t think that his clean tone has anything special.
2. Slash (GNR), the overdriven and the clean tone. I am not a big fan of Slash, if you constantly read this blog you may already know this, but I really believe he belongs here. I think that the one thing that helps defining the tone of Slash is the fact that he is tuned one step down, thus using low tensioned guitar strings, which gives some kind of a “loose” and sweet relaxed sound. About the clean tone, I have asked myself what makes it particularly recognizable for ex in Don’t cry or Knocking on heavens door. I have added a delay on my rhythm clean picking tone and I was surprised to see how close I get to it when playing Knocking!
3. Joe Satriani’s overdriven and clean tone. How could you possibly miss Satriani? How could you miss the one that is called the master of tone?! Here I think that his Fred pickup (which gives him that beautiful feedback) helps a lot in getting the almost patented overdriven sound.
4. Metallica’s clean tone. Well, this is kind of funny! Metallica, which became famous for trash rock to be recognizable by the clean tone. Well, but for me, I think that the tone in One, Enter Sandman, Fade to black can never be mistaken!
5. Carlos Santana’s overdriven tone. In such cases it is difficult to say where recognizing the sound starts and where recognizing the licks end.  Santana’s style is unmistakable, but so is his guitar tone, in my opinion. And I know it is not rock, so don’t point your finger at me!

I would have said also Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mark Knopfler, Jimi Hendrix but I can’t tell where playing style ends to only speak about the sound. I think I would recognize a new Dire Straits song by the way Mark Knopfler plays, but I don’t know if only the guitar sound would be enough.

So, what’s your take on this?

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