Thurston Moore = Guitar Tone Genius

Crashing

Crashing

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This might be old news to you guys because i was recently informed about how current this forum really is, but as many of you surely know Thurston has been paying special attention to his music, mainly his signature guitar style and tone for at least several decades. This is what's he's doing now, in his 50s.

Also, can anyone explain the Electronic versus Non-Electronic categorizations of music here? Who's idea was that lol.
 
^ Please don't bring that up again lol, we're actually in the process of discussing it privately
But this forum is more for instrumental music, and edm is for electronic music like techno and what not, there I gave you a brief explanation

But I seen Thurston with his new band or whatever, it was all quiet acoustic boring music imo, unless I just didn't give it enough of a chance
I was lucky to catch Sonic Youth playing back in 06, and it was an awesome show, I always wanted to see them live, at least once...

Edit: Sorry I didn't even listen to your video, I just started to ramble, wonder if this will create any good discussion anyway
 
well i don't know, that tone isn't really interesting to me. Sounds like something i could easily get out of my LP. I am big on tone and making it as unique and best sounding as possible, do you know his equipment/guitar set up? I think Gary Moore's tone blows this shit out of the water.

just sounds like a grungy tone which i usually get out of a p90 and humbucker mixed at certain levels... nothing special IMO.

if he's using some advanced shit i'd like to hear about it, i've been rewiring my LP to get the best tone possible out of it and there are some special mods out there i'm interested in trying. Cool song anyway but the tone doesn't blow me away at all.
 
There are quite a few Sonic Youth songs with cool guitar tones, but I've always felt that Thurston's playing was the most impressive thing about his style. He's got an interesting sense of melody.
 
RobotRipping said:
well i don't know, that tone isn't really interesting to me. Sounds like something i could easily get out of my LP. I am big on tone and making it as unique and best sounding as possible, do you know his equipment/guitar set up? I think Gary Moore's tone blows this shit out of the water.

just sounds like a grungy tone which i usually get out of a p90 and humbucker mixed at certain levels... nothing special IMO.

if he's using some advanced shit i'd like to hear about it, i've been rewiring my LP to get the best tone possible out of it and there are some special mods out there i'm interested in trying. Cool song anyway but the tone doesn't blow me away at all.
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He's definitely using p90s with the jazzmaster. It really takes a good sound system or headphones to clearly hear all the harmonics of that fuzzed out sound, but like i said the 'sound' has been his main goal his whole life. Similar to Kevin Shields, with ridiculous walls of fuzz. I really doubt you can get this sound from an LP. I am big on tone too and i like tones that are on the opposite end of the spectrum as well, but to hear overwhelming fuzz with definition is pretty rare I think.

Autolux and My Bloody Valentine have similar things going on.

If you ever watched Sonic Youth play, you notice they are all extremely articulate with picking style and positioning over the neck, to get ultra rich smooth harmonics. This is to ensure every strum has the exact tone that he's looking for in it's place with the mix. He studied extensively on the topic of tone and getting multiple guitars and bass to mesh into a smooth singular entity and i think he does the grunge sound well. Not my favorite tone but awesome nonetheless.

Clean, it sounds like the strings are going right through your head. THen around 2 minutes, when everything is fuzzed i find it amazing that you can still keep track of who is playing which parts. That's just really good sound production.

But yeah, acoustic performance of this type of music is total garbage, i think it's all about the sound of the electric guitars more than the songwriting.
 
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^No, that's how i feel about it too. But i think his new band is much more cohesive in terms of listenability than Sonic Youth was.
 
Crashing said:
He's definitely using p90s with the jazzmaster. It really takes a good sound system or headphones to clearly hear all the harmonics of that fuzzed out sound, but like i said the 'sound' has been his main goal his whole life. Similar to Kevin Shields, with ridiculous walls of fuzz. I really doubt you can get this sound from an LP. I am big on tone too and i like tones that are on the opposite end of the spectrum as well, but to hear overwhelming fuzz with definition is pretty rare I think.

Autolux and My Bloody Valentine have similar things going on.

If you ever watched Sonic Youth play, you notice they are all extremely articulate with picking style and positioning over the neck, to get ultra rich smooth harmonics. This is to ensure every strum has the exact tone that he's looking for in it's place with the mix. He studied extensively on the topic of tone and getting multiple guitars and bass to mesh into a smooth singular entity and i think he does the grunge sound well. Not my favorite tone but awesome nonetheless.

Clean, it sounds like the strings are going right through your head. THen around 2 minutes, when everything is fuzzed i find it amazing that you can still keep track of who is playing which parts. That's just really good sound production.

But yeah, acoustic performance of this type of music is total garbage, i think it's all about the sound of the electric guitars more than the songwriting.
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i'll definitely check out sonic youth, it's been a while so i can't remember how good he was at guitar but in my memory it was average. I have a p90 in the neck of my LP so i can get some verrrry fuzzy sounds out of it with the humbucker in the bridge. I need pedals and a fuzz pedal to really set it off but just naturally the guitar is prone to fuzz :) i like fuzz :)
 
Bill said:
When I think of guitar tone genius it has to be either Roy Buchanan or David Gilmour for me
Maybe SRV and Buckethead too
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I hear ya but it is rather easy for anybody to plug a strat into a twin verb. Add a few pedals and viola, tone of the century.

But his (Gilmour's) inflection and musicality is top of the line for sure.
 
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i love sonic youth. daydream nation, sister, and EVOL are essential albums. that new track isnt that impressive though.
 
Mote (from Goo) is one of my favourite guitar songs of all time (song proper, not the droning rubbish at the end).
 
Really, if you listen to this track through your computer speakers, it just sounds like garbage/noise/static. It's not really user friendly, i'll give you that. Maybe it takes a scrupulous listener with good phones to get the magic, i dont know.

Its also fucked through mp3 + youtube compression, which ruin the tone quite a bit.
 
its a good track, just nothing to write home about, at least IMO since I am a huge Sonic Youth fan, and comparing Sonic Youth's trademark bizarre, experimental, yet catchy and punk-y sound to this piece of decent garage rock is kind of... "meh".
 
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