Do Jacksons sound worse than ESPs?

[eaeolian]

My ape luthier would like a word with you.

You have your apes custom-built? Nice.

 

[Giest]

If by awful you mean Godlike! LOL Everyone I know who chased Dimbag's tone never came close including myself. People forget that technique is also a huge contributor to tone. I played guitars from every production guitar manufacturer that i loved and hated. The most important thing is how the guitar feels, plays, and sounds when it is in your hands.

In his hand's it was godly no doubt, but because he was a guitar god. That's basically what I'm saying in that regard, he was a once in a generation type of stand out musician and didn't GAF what other people thought in regard to his tone. He went to pickup companies with outlandish requests and came back with brain melting, wrist breaking, atomizing guitar work and musicianship. With any artist it's always the really legendary ones that went their own way who ended up being remarkable. If we all huddle around the fire pit and discuss what "good" tone means it just becomes a vapid circle jerk and nothing meaningful ever gets done.

As far as technique you're not wrong, but I could reiterate in how my opinion may be more discretionary. Technique is a huge contributor to the context of tone surely, but tone itself is a factor of empirical science. Quantifying such things by any standard for every guitar is especially difficult if not impossible, though. What is good or bad is entirely subjective on the other hand, and to that the context of technique for sure is the final word which perhaps makes it all a moot point. If a guitar can hold a note consistently and you can't make "good" music then you suck on that guitar, and probably most people would if it's a "bad" sounding guitar since it's not easy to make interesting music out of pots and goddamn pans for instance- but people still do that. Dimebag's tone was and still is the rowdiest horse on the range, you don't break that sumbitch sitting around the fire eating beans is all I'm saying. Finding it these days might be a problem with all the plugin do-it-for-me's and whatnot, but back then the real hurdle was actually using it constructively. If you can't find it easily then it's probably because it bucked every other rider to ever put a saddle on it, at least such has been my observation.

I've had some AWFUL sounding equipment when I was coming up, in my recent years I realize I can't blame the equipment outside of signal noise though. I failed the equipment. It didn't fail me. I didn't have a broad enough skill or appreciation for music either mathematically and/or artistically at the time to utilize it properly to its strengths. In terminology "tone" is concretely a blind science in and of itself, but in a rarefied sense there is so much more to it and I totally agree is that respect. I think you're right on the money in saying it's all about how an instrument feels, plays, and sounds to an individual. Nothing else could ever mean so much to a musician as the right fit in such regards, but The GOATs could make music with almost anything if that's all they were given. That's all I mean to say, I guess.

 

[Indigenous]

We're 7 pages in and no one has said that tone is stored in the balls? Smh.

 

[STRHelvete]

Yes they do
/thread

 

[Hoss632]

to be honest it sounds subjective. But unless your jackson and ESP are pretty much identical spec wise who's to say. Sounds like jackson's just aren't your thing and ESP is.

 

[Emperoff]

How is this trainwreck of a thread still alive? Holy shit you guys must be very bored

 

[ShredmasterD]

Do Jacksons sound worse than ESPs?​

depends on who's playing

 

[budda]

How is this trainwreck of a thread still alive? Holy shit you guys must be very bored

Definite bouts of slowness mixed with being busy at the gig

 

[Chri]

How is this trainwreck of a thread still alive? Holy shit you guys must be very bored

What ever happened to that superb, train wreck thread with the Russian dude that was super adamant he needed some special pickups to fix the low end in his 8 string?

 

[Dr. Caligari]

How is this trainwreck of a thread still alive? Holy shit you guys must be very bored

I don't think it was that bad.

 

[Celtic Frosted Flakes]

Slayer sounded better with Hanneman when he was still playing his Jacksons and not ESPs, and Megadeth sounded better with Mustaine with his Jackson King Vs and not his ESP 8-ball Vs and Axxions so I am pretty sure we all can conclude that Jackson sounds better than ESP and not the other way around.

 

[Hoss632]

If by awful you mean Godlike! LOL Everyone I know who chased Dimbag's tone never came close including myself. People forget that technique is also a huge contributor to tone. I played guitars from every production guitar manufacturer that i loved and hated. The most important thing is how the guitar feels, plays, and sounds when it is in your hands.

I think some forget as well that dimebag also played solid state amps which I think contributed to his tone as well. No doubt he had a sound all his own which is hard to do in music.

 

[Hoss632]

I didn't realize there was a sound clip in the original first post. So now having listened to that. You can't say jackson inherently sounds worse than ESP because the guitars are not identical. I realize that 2 guitars with the same specs can still sound different. But in this case the 2 guitars aren't even close. Body woods, trems, pick ups, are probably completely different. Tone pots probably are as well. So it's not an apples to apples comparison. The jackson does have more low end, but in a mix they aren't different enough that I'd ever notice.