How do I create my own unic sound?

Rute Rodrigues · May 21, 2020

Sup guys? So I really want make a living in music in my future and I was wondering if Im doing the enough to create my own sound in the future. Im not talking about tone, Im talking about a sound, like for example when you hear Syn you instantly know its him, when you listen plini you know its him, Tim Henson too.
So how do I create that “legacy” ?
I do a lot of covers but that everyone does, so do you have any tips to develop that sound? Would be cool that when other people hear me, they could be able to hear my influences and my roots, but also be able to hear myself as a player and to identify me through my playing.
Any tips?

Calvin Phillips · May 21, 2020

after a while.. stop play covers and just do your own stuff. You'll find your trends rather quickly. I find people focus so much on covers and whole it expands your techniques you don't get to work on your own sound much. You'll definitely steal stuff from others but you'll eventually find what's easy to you and you'll resort to those patterns more then the ones covers will teach you.. if that makes sense.

Calvin Phillips · May 21, 2020

Another thing you can do is just look at a lot of scales and play them out.. and find out which ones sound the best to you. Just jam different scales amd techniques and eventually you'll find your favs.

Rute Rodrigues · May 21, 2020

Calvin Phillips said:
after a while.. stop play covers and just do your own stuff. You'll find your trends rather quickly. I find people focus so much on covers and whole it expands your techniques you don't get to work on your own sound much. You'll definitely steal stuff from others but you'll eventually find what's easy to you and you'll resort to those patterns more then the ones covers will teach you.. if that makes sense.

Yes that was what I was thinking. After having a good bag of technique I would stop playing covers. What you said makes sense, thank you

idssdi · May 21, 2020

Take all the players you like and take the little tid bits you like about there playing and throw it all into a blender and there's you.

You do need to learn a lot of covers for this though(and a lot of different ones) also try to actively listen to what players do when you hear them play(that's about 50% of what my practice is tbh))

Even players with their own sound transcribe and learn songs from other people still, they never really stop doing it. It's just a way to add something to your bag of tricks. It helps redo your style and not do the same thing for you're whole musical career. Every cover you learn helps create your own sound really because you create something new using the influence of the covers you learn.

Dominik Gräber · May 21, 2020

Honestly, from your videos I get already a real sense of passion. Just stick with it, learn the songs you like, find out what makes your idols great and when you get into writing original stuff and you get comfortable performing it your own unique style will come for sure

Brian Haner Sr. · May 21, 2020

Hi Rute! Interesting question. I think great sound, tone & style grow organically from songs. Stevie Ray Vaughn wouldn't have worked in Queen and Brian May would have sucked in Green Day. The song's style and vibe dictate tone and choice of notes. Every great guitarist can be traced to a song or songs. Work on that. The song is 1000x more important than your chops. What kind of songs will you write? Speed metal or punk? Rock/funk like Red Hot Chili Peppers or Country? You need to answer these questions before you can develop an unmistakable style and sound.
Good luck and keep us up to date with your progress.
Cheers!
pg

AGA · May 21, 2020

This is a life long pursuit Rute, you are not going to create that legacy over a few quick tips, you will continue to grow and evolve as a musician and as a person your entire life. It will take years to develop your sound, and that sound will continue to change as you expand your horizons. There is no way to speed the process up, that's just how it goes. It is also different for each person, it depends on your tastes, your environment and the unpredictable places life will take you.

The one tip I could share with you from my own journey is to allow yourself to be inspired by everything, even art forms different than music. Don't close yourself to other genres either, every genre has something to teach you and you might be surprised by the things that can end up influencing your sound.

In my case, the clearest example of this is that I went to school for audio engineering. Audio engineering taught me to think about sound and music from a very different perspective and it has been a MASSIVE influence in my playing, even more so than any guitarist in particular. When I play I think of textures, ambiances and filling frequencies and spaces in my arrangements, not just how I would articulate a phrase or how I would play a riff.

That is something that I could have never predicted, it's just where my path took me. The same will be true for you, your life experiences will influence your sound in unexpected ways and it will be different from everybody else's.

Moonrunner · May 21, 2020

You should try producing a song! If you have a pc you can download some free DAW and VST. The key is to work with what you have. Don't aim towards something expensive yet.
You can try some quick jamming over a beat, just picking a music scale and limit yourself to that, anything.

When you start producing stuff it kinda flows naturally, suddenly you think about things like Tone on the mix (not necessarily the same as jamming tone), you become aware of panning, double tracking or quadtrack importance, how to use modulation FX, why using MONO or STEREO guitars.... all those might help you realize what kind of sound you want.

Just my two cents. For some of my friends it helped them a lot and they also record stuff from time to time.
You mentioned Tim Henson, try his approach. He does some beats on ABLETON and then adds layers of pianos, guitars etc.
Whatever works for you. I kinda hate ableton for instance, i do find myself more comfortable with other DAWs.

Calvin Phillips · May 21, 2020

Rute Rodrigues said:
Yes that was what I was thinking. After having a good bag of technique I would stop playing covers. What you said makes sense, thank you

Some people like to play vertical.. some like horizontal. Whatever is easier for the player. Some definitely resort tons over the other.

Then there's note and chord choices. Ideally you already know what chords you like playing. Im sure you strum the same chords when you do mess around. Im sure there's chords you think sound really pretty too. Thats where I'd start. From there you'll get scales that relate to the chords you play. In which leafs you to how you want to play that scale. (Ala alternate picking economy sweep.. 3 1 3. Spider walk.. etc) you probably already know whats easiest for you.

When you hit that point where you feel everything is starting to sound the same again. Thats when I go back to the lessons. And Learn new stuff. I go back and forth a lot. And if you want examples of how to play those lessons.. theres the covers again. It goes full circle honestly.

Calvin Phillips · May 21, 2020

Brian Haner Sr. said:
Hi Rute! Interesting question. I think great sound, tone & style grow organically from songs. Stevie Ray Vaughn wouldn't have worked in Queen and Brian May would have sucked in Green Day. The song's style and vibe dictate tone and choice of notes. Every great guitarist can be traced to a song or songs. Work on that. The song is 1000x more important than your chops. What kind of songs will you write? Speed metal or punk? Rock/funk like Red Hot Chili Peppers or Country? You need to answer these questions before you can develop an unmistakable style and sound.
Good luck and keep us up to date with your progress.
Cheers!
pg

Totally agree. Once you KNOW the melody the rest comes together very easily. And you're sense of melody is really good thanks to your blues (it helped me too).

Rute Rodrigues · May 22, 2020

Brian Haner Sr. said:
Hi Rute! Interesting question. I think great sound, tone & style grow organically from songs. Stevie Ray Vaughn wouldn't have worked in Queen and Brian May would have sucked in Green Day. The song's style and vibe dictate tone and choice of notes. Every great guitarist can be traced to a song or songs. Work on that. The song is 1000x more important than your chops. What kind of songs will you write? Speed metal or punk? Rock/funk like Red Hot Chili Peppers or Country? You need to answer these questions before you can develop an unmistakable style and sound.
Good luck and keep us up to date with your progress.
Cheers!
pg

Thanks. The style Id like to write is prog/modern metal. For example Plini and Intervals or Periphery. That type of thing.

Andrew Fernandes · Jul 25, 2021

Rute Rodrigues said:
Sup guys? So I really want make a living in music in my future and I was wondering if Im doing the enough to create my own sound in the future. Im not talking about tone, Im talking about a sound, like for example when you hear Syn you instantly know its him, when you listen plini you know its him, Tim Henson too.
So how do I create that “legacy” ?
I do a lot of covers but that everyone does, so do you have any tips to develop that sound? Would be cool that when other people hear me, they could be able to hear my influences and my roots, but also be able to hear myself as a player and to identify me through my playing.
Any tips?

I think it's just natural whatever you hear in your head and you want to make the melody or chords on the keyboard guitar voice etc. That's you if you overthink it you are not making your sound. I previously wanted to make more pop music because that's what people like but recently when I just said f**k it I don't care, to my ears, I made my best song and I feel it more in my heart with this song. I think my advice would be say "f**k it" and see what happens then you will see some tendencies come alive in the songs you make afterward.

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