Author Topic: Playability or tone?? (Read 497 times)

terryc · « **on:** October 06, 2009, 02:19:00 AM »

Okay..it has been a while since I started a new thread.
Which is better or preferred, easy to play guitar/bass and a poor tone or the other way around.
Please don't answer both because everyone here has that!!

grateful · « **Reply #1 on:** October 06, 2009, 02:30:59 AM »

I don't understand: my Further is, by a massive margin, the nicest guitar I've ever played and therefore the easiest to play too. Needless to say, it doesn't suffer from poor tone.

Mark

terryc · « **Reply #2 on:** October 06, 2009, 02:59:12 AM »

Okay lets step back a bit...I am not considering Alembic instruments here..we all know they are excellent on both accounts
Imagine you are a beginner..which is best then from the thread title

grateful · « **Reply #3 on:** October 06, 2009, 03:08:08 AM »

Playability: if an experienced player would find it hard to play an instrument, what chance has a beginner?

malthumb · « **Reply #4 on:** October 06, 2009, 03:11:32 AM »

I'd have to say playability first, then tone.

I have on more than one occasion modified a bass to improve tone. I have never, other than adjusting action, done anything to improve playability of a bass. I've improved tone by changing preamps, pickups, bridges.

For me, playability starts with neck profile and extends to balance, action and fret conditioning. Of those, I'd only feel comfortable adjusting action and maybe changing strap button position to adjust balance. Otherwise I'm talking to a luthier, or more realistically, looking for a bass that already has good playability.

Peace,

James

mike1762 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 06, 2009, 03:15:01 AM »

I've never NOT been able to get a good tone (maybe not the one I was looking for, but good nonetheless) out of pretty much any instrument through a combination of nice fresh strings and a decent amp, so I'll say playability.

On a (somewhat) related topic: I participated in an experiment where a guy used an American Jazz and a cheap knock-off strung-up with old round wounds, new round wounds, old flats, and new flats. My conclusion: I'll take nice fresh strings on a cheap instrument over dead strings on a good instrument any day (tone wise).

jazzyvee · « **Reply #6 on:** October 06, 2009, 03:32:19 AM »

Some years back, I did a gig playing guitar with a singer and her husband. He had a really old Hondo Les Paul copy which an old dear from his church bought for him at a cost of ?10 from a second hand shop. I played it once and although the sound was not very good, the neck and feel of the guitar was perfect. Alas he wouldn't sell it.

I bought one of my Fender strats after putting my hand round the neck at the shop and that was enough for me. It now has Alembic pickups in it so I have a great tone too. However I've now taken it to my Luthier to get the neck re-profiled as it gets tiring on my hands when chopping reggae or calypso songs all night.

Jazzyvee.

David Houck · « **Reply #7 on:** October 06, 2009, 08:31:19 AM »

For a beginner - playability.

For me - Alembic.

serialnumber12 · « **Reply #8 on:** October 06, 2009, 10:57:18 AM »

when i first laid hands on my alembic before buying it,it was strung with old Heavy-gauge flat wounds which almost made me not buy it cause it lacked that sparkly diamond Stanley sound so i convinced my self to get new round wounds & then play it and that TONE i was looking for came alive ........so i'm gonna go with Tone!

(Message edited by serialnumber12 on October 06, 2009)

alembickoa · « **Reply #9 on:** October 06, 2009, 11:35:38 AM »

It has to be playability, especially for a beginner. If someone doesn't have a playable instrument, many times it ruins the experience for the neophyte and they will lose interest, or at least that has been my experience in teaching new students.

As an old codger I can work my way around the playability factor. When thinking back it was easy to play in the beginning because my instruments were, while far from the best or even laughable in the tone department, fun to play.

There is also the hands factor, where you hear someone who plays beautifully yet the instrument they play on is to something that might make good firewood, but that comes with experience.

There is the philosophy taken from a Guy Clark song...I got an old guitar it won?t ever stay in tune, I like the way it sounds in a dark and empty room...

So many factors, but playability, or playing is the foundation. IMHO.

cozmik_cowboy · « **Reply #10 on:** October 06, 2009, 01:05:25 PM »

When I was 13, my parents gave me 2 months of weekly guitar classes & 6 months of a rental guitar for x-mas. It had action like a Dobro & was truly painful to play. I didn't practice & after the lessons didn't try to play for about 10 years, when a girlfriend gave me the one I mostly play now, 30 years later. I didn't know what tone was then; the fact that it no doubt sounded like crap was meaningless, and if it had sounded like a pre-war Martin, I still wouldn't have practiced. If that POS had been playable, however, maybe I would have stuck with it then. When my son decided he wanted to play, I bought him a Strat. He is now a pretty good picker. Playablity trumps tone hands down, esp. for a beginner.

Peter

sonicus · « **Reply #11 on:** October 06, 2009, 01:17:33 PM »

I would agree that if you are trying to get a beginner to play and practice that playability might make it or break it as far as them sticking with it. I think tone is something that we work on after the fingers think they know what their doing, Alembic for me now.

goop · « **Reply #12 on:** October 06, 2009, 01:24:37 PM »

I totally agree playability over tone. However, I bought my first bass a 79 4001 because I wanted to play like Geddy. I didnt even try other basses. I did briefly consider a jazz bass, for about 5 minutes. The 4001 just happened to be a fairly easy bass to play and it is hard not to get a great tone out of it.

Lucky for me, I learned afterward that many of my favourite players were also using the 4001, which was THE bass in the 70's. I still think they sound great.

I didnt care about either playability or tone, because I didnt even consider either one. It had to be a 4001.

Another point is that good playability offers good tone; there is no correlation going the other way. A bass that is easier to play makes you sound better. As someone mentioned it is easier to tweak tone than playability.

Colin

eligilam · « **Reply #13 on:** October 06, 2009, 02:12:22 PM »

Hmmmm...if you have a bass that's really hard to play (such as with super high action), and you learn to play it well, then you could conceivably become an even better player in the long run.

Example: Bill Dickens actually trained himself to play on a bass with a towel stuck under the strings to make the action impossibly high...and then when he switched back to normal action, he was that much better.

So, I guess with that argument, I'd say tone.

nnek · « **Reply #14 on:** October 06, 2009, 03:49:24 PM »

I guess I'm a tone addict ...
My series one is definitely less comfortable to play (most notably in the first position) than my old Jazz but the tone has me hooked to the point of playing the Alembic almost exclusively.