How do you feel about copy-cat guitarists?
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Forum Name: Tech Talk
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URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=54281
Printed Date: November 25 2024 at 11:00
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Topic: How do you feel about copy-cat guitarists?
Posted By: JLocke
Subject: How do you feel about copy-cat guitarists?
Date Posted: December 25 2008 at 11:03
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Y'know, alot of people buy signature guitars and equipment because they want to sound just like their guitar hero does, but if you ask me, being a musician is about finding your own 'voice', so to speak, musically. So, experimenting and trying out different equipment for different sounds has wlays been part of the fun for me. Each new addition to your rig helps further define your legend.
There's this guy on youtube who plays Tool songs alot, so he has a nearly idedntical rig to Adam Jones, and I'm thinking . . . why? The guy's really good, and if he would want to start his own band he could, but for some reason he just likes to mimick another guitarist rather then come up with his own setup. Tragic.
So what do you guys think? Am I over-exaggerating a bit? Or is this a valid complaint? When I start selling records and gaining fans, I surely wouldn't want some kid to copy me 100%. I would want to encourage experimentation and choices based on personal discovery and taste.
Maybe it's just me.
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Replies:
Posted By: jplanet
Date Posted: December 25 2008 at 13:19
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Almost everybody starts out by imitating. At one time, all Eddie Van Halen played was Eric Clapton solos note-for-note. As far as YouTube goes, it's a different game - you get a lot more viewers for posting an impressive rendition of a cover rather than posting an original. In fact, if I were to use YouTube to promote my band, I would post a cover first to draw in a lot of viewers, and then hit them with something original. Some people just enjoy learning other people's riffs and it stops there. I never found the urge to criticize them as lame. Are they having fun? Are they learning something? Then great! There are worse hobbies a person could have. There's plenty of people doing original stuff, too, there are hundreds of thousands of them out there if you want to try to find them. ------------- https://www.facebook.com/ShadowCircus/" rel="nofollow - ..::welcome to the shadow circus::.. |
Posted By: JLocke
Date Posted: December 25 2008 at 13:57
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Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not calling people who play covers 'lame'. I play covers myself, so it would be hypocritical of me to say that there was something wrong with it.
No, I'm merely speaking of the gear and equipment certain people use. Not only do they want to play the songs they love, but they also need to sound exactly like their idol by i mitating an already existing rig. That is what I was talking about, not covers.
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Posted By: jplanet
Date Posted: December 25 2008 at 22:12
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Oh, I see what you mean now - I guess I was just responding to the second paragraph about the guy who plays Tool covers on Youtube. ------------- https://www.facebook.com/ShadowCircus/" rel="nofollow - ..::welcome to the shadow circus::.. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 26 2008 at 05:11
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No guitarist worth his salt is going to buy a guitar that doesn't look right, sound right, feel right and (most importantly) play right to them, whether it is endorsed by a name or not - a signature guitar that you cannot play is just an expensive ornament (unless you are into collecting Prog memorabilia), however if it fulfils all those criteria and has the name of your hero, then where's the harm? Copying their rig is a similar issue - probably one of the main things about a particular guitarist that first appealed was the sounds they made so it would be natural to experiment with similar setups to achieve the sound you so admired - but the novelty will eventually wear-off and any guitarist faced with all that equipment is going to discover other setups and sounds they like too.
------------- What? |
Posted By: jplanet
Date Posted: December 26 2008 at 18:34
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My brother-in-law recently purchased an SRV Strat. He's quite an experienced guitarist with his own sound, but happened to love the feel of the big frets and the sound. Personally, I would rather hope that someday, somebody will want a copy of my own heavily customized Strat...But I know I'm being ambitious! ------------- https://www.facebook.com/ShadowCircus/" rel="nofollow - ..::welcome to the shadow circus::.. |
Posted By: JLocke
Date Posted: December 26 2008 at 22:25
Hey, dream big, man! It's the only way to be! I think every musician wants to be in positions like that eventually. I dunno, something about a signature instrument line really means something. I guess it's the point when you know you've made a legacy; when people want to play your guitar!
I checked out your band, btw. Love what I'm hearing (puts a trip to prog rock records' online store on to-do list)
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jplanet wrote:Posted By: AlbertMond
Date Posted: December 28 2008 at 00:29
| Don't have a problem with them. If it weren't for idols, most people would never pick up a guitar at all. However, I do think that playing a guitar ONLY to sound JUST LIKE your idol is rather silly. Different strokes for different folks, though. |
Posted By: jplanet
Date Posted: December 30 2008 at 23:57
Hey, thanks! ------------- https://www.facebook.com/ShadowCircus/" rel="nofollow - ..::welcome to the shadow circus::.. |
Posted By: debrewguy
Date Posted: December 31 2008 at 21:47
Well, I'm a dog person, so I don't think I can give an objective answer 
------------- "Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case. |
Posted By: mystic fred
Date Posted: January 08 2009 at 01:31
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Jimi Hendrix played many guitars; acoustics, Gibson flying Vee - but especially Strats, and in his hands they sounded fantastic - the point is he got through many (some say hundreds) of American strats, and the only practical modification he had done was stringing a right handed guitar the "wrong " way round as he was a left handed player. If he had picked up an Epiphone Les Paul or a Squier he would still sound like Hendrix - you can spend as much as you like on vintage Marshall amps and a so-called Hendrix replica but you will never really get it to sound like Hendrix - like all guitar gods the magic is not in the gear, it's in the fingers... -------------  Prog Archives Tour Van 
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Posted By: jplanet
Date Posted: January 08 2009 at 02:16
Very true, and there's plenty of footage of Hendrix playing a Flying V to prove it. Same with Eddie Van Halen playing his Gibson Explorer, Jimmy Page when he played Strats in the later Zeppelin years...in all cases, these weren't the guitars that people naturally associated those players with, but they still sounded like the same brilliant guitarists nonetheless.. ------------- https://www.facebook.com/ShadowCircus/" rel="nofollow - ..::welcome to the shadow circus::.. |
Posted By: mystic fred
Date Posted: January 08 2009 at 03:48
i can't resist mentioning this.....
i once visited Hard Rock Cafe in London, it was very early in the day and empty of customers, and after a coffee and burger and wandering around all the bars gazing at the famous guitars on display, i crossed the road to the Vault - many rare relics were there, and the Curator allowed me to handle Hendrix's flying V (needed cleaning and new strings
 ) , and Kurt Cobain's Fender Jagstang !  ------------- Prog Archives Tour Van
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Posted By: Petrovsk Mizinski
Date Posted: January 09 2009 at 03:46
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I've always thought it was best to go for your own sound and style really. I think it's occasionally cool when you get someone who dedicates their entire life to, say, play like someone who has passed on, learn how to capture their playing style, the nuances, their guitar tone as accurately as possible. It's cool to see guys do this and play for a younger generation of people that missed the original the first time around. I mean, we have guys playing Liszt and Chopin on piano, note for note, nuance for nuance perfect, why can't a few select guitarists do the same? It's cool when a few guys do it, but when everyone tries to do it, ohhh lord, save me. The problem is, when you have people that want to sound like a player, but they totally miss the mark, because of reasons like not being educated on music either, not understand how to catch the subtleties of the playing, not being able to get close to the guitar tone etc. Oh also, the seemingly never ending stream of Stevie Ray Vaughn clones is pissing me off to no end as well. Leave it to a few guys, not entire hordes of people wanting to play like him, arghhh. You get all these guys, that call themselves "blues players" and you realize, it just sounds crap. It just sounds going through the I-IV-V motions and some of these guys have the personality of a brick and it just shows in their playing, just crappy, stock pentatonic licks I cannot care for for the life of me. That's the thing you see, Stevie Ray Vaughn had a larger than life personality, but was humble too, and it just showed in his playing, it was pure, 100 per cent him SRV dripping in each and every note. Me personally, I go for my own sound and style. My general goal is to get a set up that works with the 3 main sounds I need, which is a clean sound (I'm talking clean without a hint of breakup, uber clean), a fairly high gain rhythm sound and a saturated and sustaining lead sound. Because the amount of possibilities in the gear world are not endless, you will end up buying an amp or guitar somehow has used in the past to great success (musically or otherwise). I mean, a lot of guys bought the Peavey 5150 amp, and some of them couldn't give a flying poop about Eddie Van Halen. A lot of guys are playing Progressive Technical death metal on these amps, pretty far removed from the hard rock of Van Halen, but it so happened some guys heard this amp and though "holy sh*t, this amp has some serious balls to do extreme metal with" and they bought it. I guarantee some of the guys that play the 5150 (or it's successor, the 6505, same amp, with a different badge) have never even heard Van Halen, or hate Van Halen's music and don't listen to them. They just like the tone. The sounds I use on my amp modeler, is a clean tone (generic, non amp based model), A Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier amp model for rhythm guitar sounds and a Soldano SLO-100 for lead playing. Mesa in particular, is very widely used in metal. I personally couldn't care less about "this artist uses it, so I must use it", I use them 2 amp models because I found those 2 worked the best for what I need to play. As for the Soldano SLO-100, I'll be completely honest, I couldn't name a single guitarist that used that amp, because frankly, I don't know, and don't care enough to research who has used one. The tone just ended up striking me as a good lead tone, so I stuck with it. I guess it's true that your playing style largely dictates what sort of equipment you use. For me, it's modern day high gain amps (the amp models anyway) and super strat style guitars, and in the future, 7 string super strats. I can't work with vintage amp tones or guitars or pickups to get my sound, because it just wont work well and wont sound good for the way I play. I spend a lot of time on guitar forums, I spend a lot of time talking to guys who have been in the guitar playing business for ages, whether it be guitar teachers, sometimes guitar techs, sometimes even fairly well known players (I mean, fairly well known as in widely revered among the type of guitar style/players I associate with, so not THAT well known:P), guitar builders, or just guys that have been gigging for years and just know what works on the stage, know how to get the best out of gear etc. You want your own sound and perhaps ultimately, the most satisfaction out of your current and future playing endeavours, you would probably be a guy like me who,. away from this website anyway, is always doing his research and asking the right questions, in order to get that bit closer to the tone in my head. Or, you can just be like a 14 year old kid at Guitar Center (or whatever equivalent guitar store is in your country GC being American and all) and just buy stuff because it has some guys name on it, because you want to sound like them, because you're too lazy to do reearch on what you really need, and ultimately, possibly end up disappointed because in the end you wanted to carve your own playing style and sound and realize you wasted all that money and time on crap you don't want anymore. ------------- 
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Posted By: JLocke
Date Posted: February 03 2009 at 14:44
Exactly.
I mean, I love Adam Jones, John Petrucci, Dave Gilmour, Steve Wislon, etc, but that doesn't mean I'm going to immediately go and buy a Music Man, Les Paul, Strat or PRS Custom just because I dig those players. To me there isn't any point in it. I want to try out the more obscure, well-crafted guitars that are harder to find in your average corner guitar shop, because that's the way a person begins to develop their own unique sound. To rip off someone else's is in all honesty a bit of a lame move, in my opinion (Unless you're doing a tribute band, like you mentioned, in which the idea is to sound as close to the original as possible simply so that you can show your apprecciation.)
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