Guitar Tone

I've been talking with some people lately about guitar tone. My take on it is this:

"Tone is a guitarists awareness of his sound"

His "sound" is the musical manifestation of who he is, whether he's playing on Lower Broadway, eating a burger, taking a crap or gets his hair done. Gear therefore are tools that help him to a) get that sound out (thus preventing him from having to fart into a microphone) and b) manipulate that sound. This is why Eddie Van Halen will always sound like Eddie Van Halen, even if he's on SRV"s rig. Point in case, Ed Beaver and I crashed a private party in Clarksdale, MS (yes... we live on the edge) where a blues band fronted by Mississippi Slim was playing. His guitarists gear was a guitar, a cable and a transistor amp. He blew us away...

And now you also know why I think you will not sound like SRV, Hendrix, Clapton, Brent Mason or Brad Paisley, even if you were to play their rigs. You are not your idol.

As for my personal tone, I was talking with Ed about how I really enjoyed playing Bettie, my Fender Strat. She has a really cool vibe, and it comes out through the way she looks, feels, plays and sounds.

As I wrote before, this guitar spent some time on a grill, and that burnt the guitar and melted the plastics, which I've obviously replaced. As far as the wood finish is concerned, I sanded it off, exposing the wood, so now the wood is not constrained by the sealing lacquer anymore: Bettie breathes. So she has the same sound whether I play through an amp or unplugged. I dig that.

So what I'm looking for in my basic live tone, and Ed verbalized this, is that I want my electric guitars to sound like acoustic guitars, just louder and with more gain (but with not much or no distortion). The effects I buy I judge mainly on their transparency. If they mess with the sound from a guitar, I don't like them. The same for my amps. Both amps and effects can have their flavor, but the guitar itself needs to come through.