Ok sir. Thanks for the thought. Im not saying im correct or anything. Its just an opinion im trying to address because i believe in it and im not justifying its the absolute truth because its things are always different in every situation.Tone is not expensive. Tone is in the head and the thought is very general. If you don't have a good tone in your head and find in others good tone you feel frustrated and will believe that expensive gear is good tone. Because you have a piece of crap gear. Rather than concentrating on playing guitar and enjoying physically mentally, emotionally and spiritually. For what steve vai showed good tone is its not in the equipment its in your head. Its just in the sense that Steve Vai needs a big big amp for big hall concerts, sponsors/product promotions for ibanez and with all his gear that works good for him and most especially he got the money and he's in the U.S. He can't play a practice amp and a cheap o'l squier in front of thousands of fans in a big hall. because he is in a situation where he needs his big expensive gear because that works for him in that environment and he can buy stuff.
Other than this is the Philippines and budget is always an issue.For us local musicians this is a big issue. But this is a big problem because the information big foreign artists (which some or most of us are trying to imitate) fed us with this kind of perspective that good tone is expensive because of the expensive gear they have. But again that is the U.S, their currency and salaries are bigger than what we use to have in the end of the month, even a U.S college student can buy 2 stacks of marshalls and dozens of gibsons without any problems. But here struggling amateur to semi pro musicians have low budgets and have cheap squiers and imitations etc. If they are fed with the idea that when you have a 100,000 peso worth of guitar and amp ( which I'am exaggerating ) and your guitar hero's uses those expensive setups, you can have the best tone possible. That is a myth that we, some or most musicians suffer. That's why we keep selling our equipment because its low end cheap and we cant find a good tone with it and becomes frustrated in time when bills become a problem you cant buy gear anymore. The hunt for a good tone is a myth when the answer in dave's opinion is good tone is in the head. Steve vai showed that to dave to make him also realize something and tell the world about it. If you have a cheap guitar and a cheap amp then have fun playing with it and find your own tone i think that makes a guitar hero.
just my opinion and i have nothing against anyone just a freedom of speech actually and not a form of debate. If you disagree its ok. If you agree its also ok. If you don't reply its also ok 
and oh yeah i forgot i'm not much of a steve vai or dave weiner fan. 
Just my opinion: It is true that tone is in the head but for that tone to get into your head, you have to HEAR IT FIRST. Over the years, as I spent money on my boutique guitars, effects and amps -- the minimum standard gets into your head. What I mean by this is that the bar on sound quality and character whether consciously or subconsciously has gone up for me. As a result, ANY guitar equipment and I mean ANYTHING sold by Audiophile, Perfect Pitch, Lazer,RJ, etc. sounds horrible to me. So how do I know this? Simple they all sound so bad to what I have at home that it makes me want to run out of these stores. My Ears cannot stand how they sound. After 5 minutes, there is fatigue in the ears. By the way, for those people and musicians who really know, there is no spirituality unless you have an expressive guitar and good sounding equipment -- it just comes first prior to inspiration. Oh, Steve Vai has tons of guitars more expensive than his stage Ibanez guitars. He also has practice amps that are more expensive than his stage amps so don't restrict Steve Vai to what you see him play on stage.
The only reason that Filipinos in general cannot afford good sounding equipment is because we cannot earn enough. Period. There is no conspiracy between the American artist and American equipment producing companies against the Filipinos -- they even promote more affordable equipment than boutique manufacturers. Because you know why? THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT US. In the same way that you don't care about what the ordinary American buys, they don't care about what we buy because we are a small market with limited buying/purchasing power. In my opinion, to really get into the ballpark world class tone, you really need about P200-P300k spent on boutique amps, guitars, effects, cables, etc. Anything lower is average. What Steve Vai does not tell you is that he has tons of boutique equipment at home that he uses to get that tone in the head. To quote a famous musician from the Steve Vai band, "I think Steve sounded better thru the Bogners than the Carvin's which just sound like [gooey brown stuff]." Now, I don't know about you, but I guess band members of the Steve Vai band have better 'ears' than us and have actually been with Steve for some time to know what Steve sounds like into good sounding equipment and bad sounding equipment. As much as good tone is in the head, I hope that people don't abuse the phrase to justify their cheap bad sounding gear. After all, if all you heard your life is bad sounding guitars and amps, I am afraid to hear whats in your head. To them, I quote the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, "Off with their HEADS!".
