Without getting derailed into a side issue, I would just say that there's probably a lot more variability in mouthpieces, reeds, and embouchures than in horn models. (Parker played on some really crappy, often borrowed horns, but still sounded like himself. It's the player, not the horn.
) But with the many effects pedals for guitars, and the practically infinite possible combinations of them, and the differences in degrees to which they can be implemented, I think electric guitar tones have a
lot more variability. But I've had guitarists tell me that they can easily hear the differences between Fenders and Gibsons, for example.
I'll try to put the basic point a little differently. Most people are thinking of a "reference recording" in terms of one that's been engineered to sound
impressive. But asking that the recording be as
accurate as possible compared to the actual live performance is quite different. Comparing recordings, I can often tell pretty quickly and easily whether a piano, sax, trumpet or string instruments sounds more like the live instrument. With an electric guitar, since there are really many, many different possible ways it can sound, I don't really have any way of knowing what it did in fact sound like in the studio. But, again, most people are shooting for "impressive", not "accurate", so what it in fact sounded like is irrelevant. I really doubt that many rock recordings are live-in-the-studio, or have been for quite some time anyway, so "accuracy"
per se is really besides the point: there never was any actual performance to be reproduced.
