Do You Chase Artist Tone Or Create Your Own?

[MetalPlayer]

Many guitarists try to copy their favourite players’ tones. Do you try to replicate artist tones or focus on creating your own sound?

[GearNerd]

I copy artist tones as a learning exercise. It really helps me understand how to better use my equipment to shape tone. Ultimately it helps me to craft my own sound based on the knowledge I gain by copying others.

I guess that's how all music works really!

[BluesGuy]

I am never usually trying to replicate a specific tone. Generally, I prefer experimenting until I find something unique or that fits with the style of sound that I am looking for.

[MetalPlayer]

Starting with a basic tone of an artist is a good place to start. I usually start here and then continually tweak and modify them until I find something that I really like.

[Solarflares]

Allan Holdsworth.
Yngwie Malmsteen.
Eddie Van Halen.
Robin Trower.
Jeff Beck.
Jimi Hendrix.
Frank Zappa.
Joe Walsh.
Paul Kossoff.
Steve Vai.
And most others you’d care to mention.
They all used pre-amps/overdrives into the front-end of a Marshall amp.
A lot of them were using pretty much stock, off the shelf guitars.
With this in mind, I think you can safely take a Koko Boost, a Strat or Les Paul/SG, or even a Jem, and a JTM45 or JMP50/100 - and be anyone you want - even yourself.

Of course, this would destroy your ears in your bedroom long before you reach any decent prowess, so wise to buy an attenuator like a Sequis Motherload Elemental. Then no reason you can’t approach any player from the last 60 years with that setup.