dark sound?

When I hear the term "dark" I think of early Black Sabbath, which is desirable if thats the sound your looking for, I guess you could have pickups that sound "muddy" and that would be undesirable.

Thats how I look at it anyway :)

Scott

Think the front pickup of a Les Paul.
Or a Mellow Jazz guitar.
Or thick cymbals.
Dark in musical terms means not a lot of highs in your tone. Sort of like when you turn down the treble on your amp, or if you were to turn the tone control on your guitar.
Depending on the sort of music, and the parts you're playing, it can be either very desirable, or very undesirable.

Dark is more than just the lack of treble tone. It also implies a midrange bump in freq response that gives the notes a tonal roundness. A dark tone usually is associated with the neck pup on a hollowbody and rolled off treble by use of the tone control. Another thing that helps achieve darkness is use of flatwound strings. These enhance the dark tone by accentuating the sharp rise of the note envelope followed by a fast decay and not much sustain. The overall effect is a thumpy, midrange heavy timbre that is somewhat reminiscent of an acoustic bass -- an instrument also thought of as "dark."

Dark is more than just the lack of treble tone. It also implies a midrange bump in freq response that gives the notes a tonal roundness. A dark tone usually is associated with the neck pup on a hollowbody and rolled off treble by use of the tone control. Another thing that helps achieve darkness is use of flatwound strings. These enhance the dark tone by accentuating the sharp rise of the note envelope followed by a fast decay and not much sustain. The overall effect is a thumpy, midrange heavy timbre that is somewhat reminiscent of an acoustic bass -- an instrument also thought of as "dark."

agreed.!

Yeah, that's it!

Thanks for the comprehensible replies! I always find it hard to describe sounds but you did it very well.

I thought a dark sound was bad because when guitarists say some pickups make their guitar sound dark it's usually not a compliment.

Can you recommend artists that have dark sounding guitars? sdolsay mentionned early Black Sabbath. Any other bands?

Maybe: Grand Magus, The Obsessed, Count Raven, Sleep, Candlemass, Spiritual Beggars, Kyuss, Acid Bath

Those are some to me that have dark tones. Maybe, it is just the style of music for me. I love that stuff though!