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Your letters to the Guitarist editor. Drop us a line at guitarist@futurenet.com

STAR LETTER

HEAR, HEAR

Having been a person who makes noises on a guitar since 1964 – those Beatles have a lot to answer for – I have often anguished over picks, strings, guitars, amps and layers of paint (see Neville’s Advocate issue 491). However, as I have grown older, I realise that those things have very little authority when it comes to ears. As you lose the youthfulness of your aural ability, you lose not just volume but also frequency and who knows what. This doesn’t mean you lose everything, but it does mean that all that other stuff is subjective.

I still love the Strat-y sound of a Strat and the humbucking sound of a humbucker or effects like echo, reverb, distortion, etc. But, I will never be able to distinguish the difference between certain amps or guitars. Nevertheless, as a longtime Guitarist subscriber, I do enjoy the debate between more wood versus less wood or Bare Knuckle versus original brand and so on. It’s interesting to look at the science and hear expert views, so please keep it up.

Rob Hinchliffe

Thanks for your thoughts, Rob. Hearing does change over the years, partly depending on how much punishment our ears have taken either by loud amps or other factors. Treble is, if memory serves, the first part of the frequency spectrum to lose acuity, so maybe some of the nuance you report losing in your hearing could stem from that – as treble so often brings detail and definition to sounds. It’s worth examining what the real importance of ‘tone’ is. It’s not just meant to be a pleasant sound, heard in isolation – getting good tone is about inspiring yourself to play with more feeling, expression, connection. So, in that regard, if the tones you do hear do that for you, you have the essentials. Everything else is just good honest debate, as you say. One thing your ears won’t fail to appreciate, though, is the set of Vox headphones winging their way to you for penning this month’s Star Letter.

Each issue, the Star Letter will win a pair of Vox VGH AC30 guitar amplifier headphones! www.voxamps.com

NEW FOR OLD…

Just seen the Feedback column in this month’s magazine talking about the quantity of coverage given to new versus old-style guitars, and asking for input on this. I vote for more new. While it’s always interesting to see how manufacturers adapt tried-and-tested designs, I feel that there is only so much that needs to be said here before we quickly retread well-worn ground.

So how about this instead? When a new Fender/ Gibson-style guitar is released you could just run a relatively short piece along the lines of “it’s like a Strat except for x, y, and z; and we give it X out of 10 for these reasons”. This would presumably free up the space for coverage of some really innovative modern designs that really do have a new story to tell, and offer some genuine cri

This article is from...

Guitarist Magazine

11 November 2022

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