Tone

This page focuses on core tone, particularly distortion tone. Effects placement and impact are discussed individually on their own page, for each kind of effect. While effects are referenced below, they are only considered for how they affect core tone when they are set to be as transparent as possible.

The complete signal chain for a typical rig is

 Live/Recording
 Hands > Guitar > Pickups > Stomps > Pre-Amp > Effects > Power Amp > Cabinet/Speakers > Microphones > Microphone Pre-Amps > PA/DAW

 Jamming/Practice
 Hands > Guitar > Pickups > Stomps > Pre-Amp > Effects > Power Amp > Cabinet/Speakers

Every stage has a significant impact on the tone, and each stage is joined by cables which can also influence the tone.

Hands

This relates to your technique - the quality of your fretting, your picking, and/or other techniques (such as legato or slapping). Garbage in = garbage out. No matter how much top-of-the-line gear you buy, you can't buy good technique. Even the best players can sound good through mediocre gear, but a poor player will not sound good through anything. Practice, practice, practice!

Guitar

This refers to both the quality of the instrument and its setup. Good technique means nothing if your guitar is fretting out. On the other hand if your guitar is set with very high action, it will be impossible to play with speed and good technique. And even with good setup and technique, if the guitar is simply a poor build, with resonating parts and bad joints, it will appear in your tone.

Pickups

Pickups are often an instrumental part of the tone, so be sure to choose good ones for your guitar. There's no universal answer for what to get - the ideal choice depends on your guitar's tone (generally indicated from the mass and type of wood its made from), your desired tone, and your playing style. Guitar manufacturers often outfit low to midrange guitars with crummy, in-house pickups. But even a somewhat high-end guitar might have poor stock pickups. Aside from being deficient in certain frequencies, poor pickups generally have a very poor signal-to-noise ratio. Its usually the first thing I look to replace in a guitar, as it has a very large impact on tone.