I'd say Robin Guthrie has my favorite guitar tone. I'm a huge sucker for that 80's goth-y/dream pop-y reverb and he's the king of it.

Another few of my favorites:

Neil Young
Bob Mould
Fripp
D Boon
Gilmour
Marr
Verlaine
Paul Leary
etcetc. A lot of my favs have already been mentioned.

by the most literal definitions of tonal capability, there is no one more precise then good ol jerry G..

you know these dudes invented everything in regards to modern live music? Think of anything short of gaffers tape and it was probably pioneered by those fuckers..

Great:
Euronymous on Mayhem's Live in Leipzig
Fenriz on Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger
Johnny Marr
Ed Kuepper on Today Wonder
Rowland S. Howard

Bad:
Zephyrous on Darkthrone's Under a Funeral Moon

Frank Zappa.... I hate saying this...I love the man's guitar work but dammit his tone can be really cheesy sounding sometimes.

I always loved Johnny Ramone's guitar tone on those early albums before the producers decided it needed to be fucked with.

And Greg Ginn was pretty much perfect. DOnt know what kind of amp or pedals he may have used but he fucking nailed it with his tone

And Neil Young at his grungiest. He makes his guitar sound like an exploding pa system and makes it work like no one else I've ever heard.

greg ginn had a shitty fender practice amp and he turned all the knobs down except the mid.

i like keiji haino's rock stuff riffs a shitload.

hendrix "machine gun" still flores me every time.

shit if i start going on about guitar players i like it could take days.

Blixa Bargeld's tone on Haus der Luege is also great.

i love the guitar tones on Grails__Doomsdayer's Holiday.

and of course Hendrix and Zoot Horn Rollo (really all Beefheart guitarists like Adam said)

albini had nothing to do with nevermind.




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i'll point out the obvious since none of you seems to appreciate the good shit:

Josh Homme (QOTSA / KYUSS)
Geordie Walker (KILLING JOKE)
Tommy Victor (PRONG / MINISTRY)
Tommy Vetterli (CORONER / KREATOR)

they all have very distinguishable sounds.

I think we all agree on SY's sounds... superneat of course!

production can fuck up a good guit tone, no question about it.
good production can really help make it shine.

I don't think he said Albini did nevermind. I think he was referring to Kurt's tone, which sounded great on In Utero because of Albini. But I dunno, I don't feel like going back a bunch of pages to check.

Chavez always had a great tone to them. Albini too. Also the guitars on Spiderland always stuck me as very nice.

absolutely unfuckwitable that tune, could listen to it for years on end

Crispin Gray

greg ginn never used any pedals.