by Saiichi Sugiyama.

I am the first to admit that if someone did a blindfold test on me of recordings with a reissue Historic Les Paul and an original 1959 Les Paul, I would not always be able to tell the difference, even on live recordings. This is because there are so many factors that affect the final outcome of the recorded tone. The variables are infinite – the amp, the strings, the pick, the player (most importantly), as well as pedal effects (if any), the room, the microphones, and of an increasing importance, the studio processing. That is listening to the recorded guitar tone as an outsider.

On the other hand, if I am the player, the position is a bit different. If you live long enough with a person, say your family, you get to know the person at both conscious and subconscious levels. The ability of humans to distinguish faces of fellow humans is apparently nothing short of miraculous. This is done at subconscious levels. You don’t consciously go, “Erm, in the case of James, the relative position of his nose to his mouth is such and such,” you just know it. The same goes with human voices. There are voices that you automatically recognize, voices that you find familiar in everyday life, and voices that are uniquely identifiable, such as with well known singers or actors. In some cases, guitarists, particularly blues guitarists, acquire voices in their lead guitar playing. When you hear a single bended note and say it sounds like B.B. or Albert, you are in that realm.

In that way, if you have a guitar voice in your mind that you want to hear and you achieve it, that becomes your sound. There may be more than one sound, or the sound you are looking for may not be out there at all but just in your head at the moment (Jimi Hendrix must have felt like that in the early days). After you find that sound and have worked on a certain guitar or a setup for a length of time, it becomes your voice and it will then not be difficult at all to separate the tone produced by a particular instrument from what you bring to it to produce your unique voice. Then it is really irrelevant whether or not other people can tell whether you are using a Brazilian fretboard 2003 Historic or a 2007 hard-rock maple top VOS. Voice is a personal issue. You must feel like yourself and play like yourself in order for you to translate your voice into what comes out of the speakers. If you don’t feel like yourself, then as a performer, you have an issue.

In that sense, it could be a real curse if the guitar that you nailed your voice on was some very expensive, rare or simply irreplaceable model and you have been unable to get that voice on other less precious guitars. You will then, particularly if you play the guitar for living, have to compromise your voice in order to be practical. You will of course not want to be burdened with all the problems associated with gigging and touring with such an instrument. As an extreme example, if you could only get your mojo working on an original '50s Les Paul, that is really too bad. You will then have little choice but to use reissues on stage (unless you happen to be Gary Moore or Mark Knopfler). Yes, an original Les Paul would undoubtedly be a wonderful instrument to make your own, but what a burden it would be for you to always feel that you are compromising your performance on stage by having to play a second best.

On the other hand, if you can get your sound out of almost any guitar, like apparently Eric Clapton can, then you are free to play any guitar you lay your hands on. That is to a real practical advantage if you are a performer and every professional guitarist should be aiming for that level of proficiency on his or her instrument. No crutches – but easier said than done.

Having said that, if you are still looking for your own voice on the instrument and have a certain template (someone else's guitar tone that you admire), it is true to say that often the easiest way to acquire that sound is to get the exact setup that sound was played on so that the only weak link between the sound you are after and your sound is just you yourself as a player. That might or might not be a big hurdle. A friend of mine had an opportunity to play B.B. King’s guitar before a show. Disappointingly, he sounded nothing like B.B. B.B. then came on stage, put the guitar over his shoulder, and what came out was 100% unmistakably Lucille! Contrast this with another friend who played one of Paul Kossoff’s Les Pauls. It was put through a later master vol Marshall head connected to Fender speakers in a generic silver face Twin Reverb. The sound was still so unmistakably Kossoff it was scary.

But, after all this, I suppose there are no universal rules. Trust your ears and make music that is good for your soul.