Quotes About Guitar Sound

#1. In recording, you're trying to make something work sonically - getting the right inflection on the right guitar sound - and maybe a part that would be musically great doesn't sound as cool.

Beck

#2. I was left with an urge to make the guitar sound like things it shouldn't be able to sound like.

Adrian Belew

#3. I'm on this eternal quest to get the best guitar sound in the world, but my vision of what is 'the best' changes every time I go into the studio. Sometimes my goal is to make my guitar jump out, and sometimes I want it to lay back.

James Hetfield

#4. I don't try to make the guitar sound like the harpsichord or lute. That makes you end up being like a bad copy.

David Russell

#5. Don't be precious about anything-much less a certain guitar sound. There is always another interesting sound or effect just waiting to be discovered.

Robin Guthrie

#6. Still others want a traditional guitar sound if they call you for guitar.

Mark White

#7. I played 'Eruption' two times for the record, and we kept the one that seemed to flow ... there's a mistake at the top end of it whenever I hear it, I always think, Man I could've played it better ... but I like the way it sounds. I'd never heard a guitar sound like that before ...

Eddie Van Halen

#8. A good player can make any guitar sound good.

Mike Bloomfield

#9. Black Sabbath - one of the world's universal language of music. I felt proud, for three or four minutes of my life combining my voice with Tony Iommi's guitar sound.

Henry Rollins

#10. I don't understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.

Jeff Beck

#11. There's so much to be said for making your guitar sound like a synthesizer and try to make your drummer sound like a drum machine.

Matt Tong

#12. It was shocking to see Nirvana play, because it was like, "Here's this little guy with a monster-guitar sound." And it was heavier than Black Sabbath. That was shocking.

Billy Corgan

#13. The most obvious thing you can't do with a guitar synthesizer is to really sound like a guitar.

Andy Summers

#14. Hunting Bears is a complex song. A bear, as you know is another term for a chubby chaser. The guitar line is actually the sound of a fat man's thighs rubbing together as he approaches another lardy male for a night of sexual deviance.

Thom Yorke

#15. There's just not a lot of guys around playing like that these days; a lot of steel players are plugging into stomp boxes, trying to sound like Jeff Beck on a steel guitar.

John Fogerty

#16. There's just certain styles of playing that you do play in your own way. Maybe it's in the way your fingers bend, for all I know. And so whenever you pick up the guitar it's not so much the sound of the instrument itself, it's like the ting that you add onto it-the attitude.

Keith Richards

#17. The Telecaster has two sounds - a good one and a bad one.

Jimi Hendrix

#18. I was just a music lover who wondered what it would sound like if Otis Redding strapped on a guitar and played in a punk band. That's it.

Benjamin Booker

#19. That is the true joy of being a solo artist. I can do whatever I want. I can go wherever I want. I can show up with my guitar and my song, and it can sound a hundred different ways. That's the freedom of being on your own. The flipside is: That's you on the cover. If it sucks, it's your fault.

Jenny Lewis

#20. A Strat was a thing of wonder .. when I was 14 or 15, the Shadows were a big influence, and they had the first Strats that came to England. I like to play all kinds of guitars, but I wasn't getting the sound I really wanted until I got a Stratocaster

Mark Knopfler

#21. I want to make hip-hop that can use guitars and soul and jazz and just fuse it all together. And I want to make this whole new sound that's going to shock the world. Unfortunately, the masses didn't receive it.

Will Ferrell

#22. If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet.

Andy Summers

#23. Absolutely, all guitars are different. You can go into a store and grab five guitars, all the same model, and even though they look identical they're not identical. They play differently, they feel a bit different and they sound slightly different.

John McLaughlin

#24. James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they're fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.

Vonda Shepard

#25. A cello can sound like so many instruments, but it's only one, you know, like a guitar; it has percussive qualities. It can sing like the violin, you know, like a voice.

Luka Sulic

#26. Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar.

Frederic Chopin

#27. The guitar to me, from the classical/gut-string guitar right through to Hendrix, et cetera, has all the range [of sound]. Within those six strings it is incredible what one can get sound-wise. It's just down to imagination, really.

Jimmy Page

#28. I like The Smiths as well. They took a cue from The Buzzcocks. They have jangly guitars instead of distorted guitars. All the Manchester bands have a character about them. The Stone Roses and The Smiths and all that. Even if you don't like them, they have a certain original sound.

Steve Diggle

#29. My real interest in music was the old 78 records and the sound of the music. I loved it and began to realize that one of the main sounds on those old records I loved was the guitar.

Doc Watson

#30. We've always described our sound as a bit more guitar driven than normal pop music. Kind of Pink in a boy band form. We've heard a few people say that so now we use it. I think Pink is amazing person to be compared to.

Liam Payne

#31. I think I could walk into any music shop anywhere and with a guitar off the rack, a couple of basic pedals and an amp I could sound just like me. There's no devices, customized or otherwise, that give me my sound.

David Gilmour

#32. That it's a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar.

Julian Casablancas

#33. I'm starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.

Tom Jenkinson

#34. I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.

Dan Hicks

#35. I like the sound of a Silvertone amp for myself. It's kind of cleaner guitar sounds when necessary, maybe a little less metal-sounding. But it really doesn't matter what amp I play through; it's really the way I voice chords and play guitar, how I strike the strings.

Brian Bell

#36. Well, you know it was so different from when you rehearsed. You're out there with your guitar and trying to get a sound, but it doesn't sound anything like what you expect!

Jonathan Richman

#37. I had this idea ... I wanted the sound to sing and have that thickness but yet still have an edge so that it could articulate. So my dad and I designed the guitar ... the one that was made from an old fireplace.

Brian May

#38. Joao Gilberto on guitar could read a newspaper and sound good.

Miles Davis

#39. I started playing the guitar when I was 14. I'm not superstitious about guitars, but I do need strings to be old because that's part of my sound, and I don't like steel strings.

Jose Gonzalez

#40. My place in Scotland is in the middle of nowhere, so you've just got a keyboard, guitar, a little drum machine and you know if you can work stuff out like that, if you can hammer out songs that sound good just with those three things and a voice, you're on your way.

Jay Kay

#41. If you make it sound too much like a synth, it will just sound like a guitar part played on a synth.

Daisy Berkowitz

#42. Looping isn't an effect: it's your playing, only more of it and, if you hang with it, it'll uncover previously hidden facets from the body of your music. Remember: the original source of any loop is whatever your sound is, at the moment of input.

David Torn

#43. If you have a great-sounding guitar that's a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that's the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.

Eddie Van Halen

#44. I think when I began, I played distortion more than the guitar. The results of my strumming. Now I play the twang of the string, which is a lot closer to the source of the sound making.

Ian Williams

#45. I always hated jazz guitar. I loved jazz saxophone but I hated jazz guitar. If I would buy an organ trio record I would make sure I'd buy one that did not have a guitar player on it. The sound was awful!

Tom Verlaine

#46. The sound of boots stomping rhythms out of the dust. The sounds of happy squeals and laughter when people spin out, nearly dizzy from joy. The sound of a scratchy voice, a thumping guitar, a plucky violin. That's what pure joy sounds like.

Natalie Lloyd

#47. I was just a punk kid, trying to get a sound out of a guitar that I couldn't get off the rack, so I built one myself ... I wanted a Gibson type of sound but with a Strat vibrato .. I went to town painting it and I put three pickups back in, but they don't work - only the rear one works

Eddie Van Halen

#48. We tune differently, and we use some tricks. There's just the two of us for much of a concert, so we want a big sound. We do use some guitar effects, distortion and delay. Playing cello with distortion sounds so good.

Luka Sulic

#49. A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that's true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there's something about the guitar - the range of possibilities is much broader.

The Edge

#50. Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor.

Leo Kottke

#51. I put in the sounds of instruments such as the guitar and piano, which everybody hears often, and tried to go with melodies that would sound familiar. Rather than trying to do music that I want to do, I focused on doing music that I want my fans to hear.

Seungri

#52. To be honest, I'm one of the least-technical guitar players around. I just want a guitar to feel good and sound good. That's it, period.

Scott Ian

#53. The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar. Strum them and you create a pleasing sound. A harmonic. But then start adding strings. Ten strings, a hundred strings, a thousand, a million. Because they multiply!

Stephen King

#54. We sat side by side on the swings. The creaking sound they made seemed sexier to me than a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo.

Ryu Murakami

#55. When I first played the guitar without plugging it into an amplifier, the people at Fender were blown away. They couldn't believe the sound. I said, 'See, gentlemen, the world is no longer flat.'

Dick Dale

#56. In my case, I am improvising with existing sound files. I use an MSP patch that a friend of mine made, and you have to improvise when you use this patch. I don't use a guitar in performance anymore.

Christian Fennesz

#57. I'm not too picky about guitars. I love to collect them, mostly oddballs, but I'm not married to any brand or model. Whatever guitar has the best character for the song is the one I want to use, because if you've got a style, you're going to sound like yourself no matter what guitar you play.

Dan Auerbach

#58. The Marshall guitar amplifier doesn't just get louder when you turn it up. It distorts the sound to produce a whole range of new harmonics, effectively turning a plucked string instrument into a bowed one.

Brian Eno

#59. Of course the folk guitar is the one I play very often, but I wanted a more electric sound.

Rokia Traore

#60. It is very important to me that my songs can sound amazing with a big band or orchestra, but just as powerful and touching with just me and my guitar.

Tessanne Chin

#61. I'm very lazy when it comes to making the original sound. I don't go through amplifiers and different compressors and signal parts. I just grab something, whether its an old guitar or a children's toy that happens to be lying around, and record it straight into the computer.

Imogen Heap

#62. There's a sound with Motley Crue, and it comes with Vince's voice, which is such an important part of the show, and Mick's guitar. And the way Tommy and me play together is an important part of it.

Nikki Sixx

#63. I try to become a singer. The guitar has always been abused with distortion units and funny sorts of effects, but when you don't do that and just let the genuine sound come through, there's a whole magic there.

Jeff Beck

#64. Ampeg made incredible guitar heads in the early Nineties and then stopped. And I don't know why. The one we used had a nice clean, warm sound, and it blended well with the other amps that were in the studio.

Kirk Hammett

#65. My first love was the sound of guitar.

Boz Scaggs

#66. There were times I used to go to parties when I was, you know, like 15-, 16-years-old, and I'd always bring my guitar, and all my friends would be like, sing one of the Smokey songs. And everything I sang was his music, and I could sound just like him.

Teena Marie

#67. This is going to sound crazy, but I can hear music in my head. I can imagine a piano or a guitar playing, and I can sort of think out ...

Ryan Adams

#68. I'm not good enough to be playin' much acoustic guitar onstage. Man, you gotta get so right; I mean, the tones, the feel, the sound. Plus, acoustic blues guitar is just that much harder on the fingers.

Johnny Winter

#69. Jeff Beck is probably my favorite and biggest influence on the guitar. Touring with him in 2010 was such a milestone. I used to show up early every day just to hear his sound check, which sometimes lasted an hour.

Gary Hoey

#70. When I was 14 years old, I had the opportunity to meet Buddy Holly. I asked him how he got that big, powerful sound out of his guitar amp. He said, 'I blew a speaker and decided not to get it fixed.'

Robbie Robertson

#71. Surf music is actually just the sound of the waves played on a guitar: that wet, splashy sound.

Dick Dale

#72. Guitars are fun. There are plenty of different kinds to play. They look cool. They sound cool. Don't *you* want to play guitar?

Joe Satriani

#73. The first reason why I started to use the [electric] keyboard is because I really like the bending sound of the guitar and bass player. I can't bend the piano sound. I really like the feel behind it. I feel it adds flavour and character to my music.

Hiromi

#74. I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.

Johnny Marr

#75. To get my sound in the studio, I double guitar tracks, and when it gets to the lead parts, the rhythm drops out, just like it's live. I'm very conscious of that.

Dimebag Darrell

#76. I guess I'm interested in pushing the boundaries of the cello without giving up on the idea of playing the cello, if that makes any sense. I have no real interest in putting the cello through different effects to make it sound like a guitar or other instruments.

Okkyung Lee

#77. If the wind and rain could play guitar, they would sound a lot like Doc Watson

Greg Brown

#78. I mean, the sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there.

Eric Clapton

#79. I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.

Brian May

#80. I've been used for writing rhythm guitar chords for a long time because it's so easy to play and chords just sound good on it.

Bradford Cox

#81. Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It's the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

#82. I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment. I also will use any gadget or device that I find that helps me achieve the sort of sound on the guitar that I want to get.

David Gilmour

#83. All the songs were written on guitar and then put into the computer, where I played around with different sounds I was hearing and what was available in the software.

Jamie Woon

#84. Write great songs that sound amazing if sung and played on the piano or acoustic guitar. Always encourage sing-alongs! Be prolific! Say "Yes" to new collaborations because you never know where it could lead.

Wendy Starland

#85. The flanger setting ... makes it sound as if the chord is being chewed over thoughtfully by a large genie accustomed to telling long, implausible stories

Tim Brookes

#86. If I'm going to buy a new guitar, I take it to a good 'hot' room, like a tiled bathroom, and listen to the wood. If tone comes off the neck, you can bet it's gonna sound beautiful through an amp

Richard Betts

#87. The hole on the face of an acoustic guitar is called the sound hole. The one of the face of its player is called the sincerity hole.

Dana Gould

#88. A guitar is more than just a sound box ... it is part of your soul.

Manuel Velazquez

#89. Because I don't play guitar any more, African harmonies and rhythms have been an inspiration to me. I love the raw origin of the sound. It complements my voice and words naturally.

Cat Stevens

#90. I didn't know that you were supposed to tune the guitar to an open chord, and I learned to play slide with a normal tuning. I think it's a little more melodic that way and doesn't sound so bluesy. Of course, if I could play like David Lindley or Ry Cooder, I'd be a happy man!

Ken Hensley

#91. When I got my first Marshall amp, it was so empowering. No one ever forgets their first Marshall amp if you're a guitar player pursuing a big powerful sound. I mean, no one ever forgets their first Marshall amp.

Kirk Hammett

#92. The one thing I've always done, because I like the sound of my guitar from where I sit - meaning not in front of it - so what I do is, I put microphones around my ears. I have them around my head, too. I don't know if it's a superstitious thing, but it's actually how I recorded my first album.

Kaki King