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This year I've been attempting to fill up my calendar with gigs for the main band I play with, along with as many fill in gigs as possible. I've already played two fill in gigs so far, and my next one will be in just two weeks! As a guitarist who plays in both cover bands, and original bands, I always find myself in a tone centered dilemma no matter the context I'm playing in.
When I play a fill in gig, my dilemma is:
Should I match the tone of the song as close as the record as possible?
OR
Should I carve out my own unique sound, so as long as I'm doing the song justice.
For the main band I play in, I sort of alter between tone matching, and uniqueness. I know for some songs, the guitar tone simply so iconic that it has to be on point (for example a song like Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd.) Most songs you can just do whatever, but if something isn't right in those special songs, the audience will subconsciously know somethings not right.
A lot of the fun I have in that band comes from carving out my own little sonic place in a decently large band (a 7 peice with two horns, a keyboard player a guitarist, a bassist, and a lead singer who also plays guitar.) We all work to compliment eachother and blend well together. Sometimes its really hard to sound exactly like a record when you really need to boost certain frequencies in order to not get drowned out by a barage of keys, horns, and bass. I also have to be mindful in not drowning out anyone myself. If I have too much bass I'll start taking space away from the bassist and keys player. Mix in the shotty acoustics of whatever venue we're playing, and you have a recepie for a sonic salad mess.
In very rare cases when I fill in for a band, or even audition for a band, I can just ask what I'm expected to sound like. Typically only more professional bands will tell me exactly what they want. Most of the time I'm met with "Just do whatever sounds good man" and I could proceed to create a tone that sounds like bees in a Dr. Pepper can and they'll just be like "sounds sick man!" When the decision is left up to me I simply don't know what to do. This goes into my question of the day:
When you hear a cover band, do you want the songs they play to sound like their originals, or do you want to hear something sonicallly unique?
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Time_Keeper
Most songs have a couple points to hit and as long as you hit them you are free to do whatever you want with the rest of it.
IMO these days if someone is listening to a band they just want to hear your take on the song. If they wanted to hear the original the internet is not far away.