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The other day, out of dissatisfaction with my sound for chords, I hooked things up a variety of ways.
I started with just the Little Jazz. Chords sounded harsh.
I tried going right into a powered speaker; too sterile sounding.
I went into a mixer and then into the powered speaker -- better. I tried the LJ into the mixer and then the powered speaker. It was about the same. Not bad, but not great.
Then, at the end, I tried the LJ again, exactly the same as I had at the beginning and I liked the sound fine.
So, over the course of this session, I went from disliking it to liking it.
Reminds me of experiences where I've plugged in before the first set of a gig and absolutely hated the guitar sound. Then, in set 2, the same sound seems fine.
How do you evaluate a piece of gear if you're going to like the same thing you disliked an hour ago?
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07-17-2025 08:16 PM
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I once bought a Empress effects para EQ pedal and spent hours in my room dialling in ‘my' sound.
On achieving ‘my' sound, I went to uni and set up my gear in the rehearsal room (with band) and to my horror, it sounded awful.
I then realised that messing around with tone, amps, pickups etc.. was a total waste of my time.
A guitar either sounds good stock, or it never will. An amp either sounds good enough stock, or it will be too much trouble dialling it in.
Most importantly imo, the guitar sounding good (stock), is the most important part. I could plug My x700 into a Roland cube, an Evans or straight into an apogee and it always sounded well within the ball park of what I wanted.
I’ve never swapped a pickup in a guitar, changed a cap in a pot or amp and never will and I think I can consistently get a very pleasing tone by sticking to the basics.
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That happens to me all the time. I sometimes quit playing for the night and think the sound was about as good as it could be. The next day I turn on the amp and it sounds terrible. Absolutely nothing has been changed, except my perception of tone. Sometimes I think the sound is terrible, but when I change things, it sounds worse. Psychoacoustic things happen to me. I can usually get in the ballpark, but it can take time to get used to, and appreciate, what I'm hearing.
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I've run into this, too - I have spent inordinate amounts of time dialing in the amp, pickups, strings, even the placement of the amp in the room at home, gotten to something I like, then when I plug in and play the next day I don't like what I hear. My theory is this: there's a feedback loop between your ears and your fingers - the amp and guitar are in the middle of that loop. Assuming that the gear is about the same from one day to the next (i.e. no blown tubes, instantly rusty strings, etc) and you get the gear dialed in then don't like what you hear the next day, either (or both) of two things have changed:
- your playing technique
- your "psychoacoustic response"
When I've run into the "yesterday this was great now it sounds bad" experience, I've found that I can usually get back to sounding great without changing any settings if I make a point of playing with the same mechanical technique I would use on a gig/in a performance vs. something quieter/more tentative/practice-room-style. That is, I play at stage volume* with confident technique as opposed to bedroom volume with tentative, experimental technique. I have learned to make my mechanical technique very consistent in order to produce the tone I want, because I've encountered this enough times to know that the guitar and amp are very consistent - I almost never adjust either one, but instead adjust my picking technique to produce the tone I want to hear.
The "psychoacoustic response" (for lack of better terminology) is my way of saying that listening is a very subjective experience. Anyone who has done any sort of mixdown work knows that the secret to a "good" mix is listening to it on a variety of systems, to find a mix that sounds good on all of them: the studio control room, your car stereo, your home stereo, a cheap stereo, headphones (a variety of good and cheap ones), a shitty boom box, and so on. Likewise, your hearing response can vary from day to day, and the way that you perceive what you hear can also vary from day to day, hour to hour, etc. I'm sure we are all familiar with the kind of ear fatigue that comes with exposure to long periods of high-volume sound. So what sounds good to you after three hours sitting next to the amp might not sound the same when you start over the next day with "fresh ears."
Bottom line, some variation in sonics can be the results of variations in your playing technique in different situations, and some can be the result of variations in your perception. So you adjust your gear and your technique to reach what you think sounds good, and then be prepared to adjust both in response to different situations; i.e. the acoustics of different venues, playing with different people, playing different styles, and so on.
* Stage volume for a jazz trio is not the same as stage volume for a rock trio. Jazz trio stage volume is still louder than bedroom volume, but it's not so loud as to be annoying to neighbors or housemates. I don't generally play at rock stage volume unless there is a good reason to do so, and then it will typically be in a rehearsal venue instead of subjecting my neighbors to a racket.
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Likewise on swapping pickups - I've done it a little with no appreciable differences and I always sound like me. Plus, I've always said that "any amp that makes my guitar louder is a good amp"
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For the most part I always like what I hear unless the room or stage is lousy cause I use gear that is a known quantity, with standardized settings, and then don't make a lot of radical changes to the stuff I'm using over a short time other than small adjustments to what I already have to optimize for room/venue. That way I can narrow down more quickly (at home) whether a new guitar or pedal is going to work well with my rig and assess what, if any, alterations to my amp EQ or and pedal settings are needed. Keeping it simple definitely works best for me when it comes to gigging equipment.
Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Some days, I pick up a guitar and it sounds amazing but on other days the same guitar doesn't thrill me. I have learned not to make decisions to sell based on not liking a guitar on a particular day.
It seems that our ears can be fickle. We just need to accept that. At least I do.
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It's easy to do comparisons and end up with A < B < C < A. I've done it many times. When it comes to gear, the best approach may be players who basically have one guitar, one amp and just stick with it. I realize for many people that gear is a hobby in and of itself, and I fall into that trap myself sometimes, but frankly it never actually helps me sound and play better. I still sound and play like me.
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I think that, pretty much, right there is it. Originally Posted by starjasmine
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We think we know what we like but the truth is most like what they know. Lots of the perception comes from simply the day you're having, how you're able to focus.
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They ran tests that found you have more enjoyment of the same meal, if served on a different colour plate. Originally Posted by skiboyny
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I'm with you here. 90% of the time I like the way my guitar sounds, the other 10% I usually knocked the knobs around setting up and didn't think to check before starting. Originally Posted by DawgBone
I also don't expect some magical tone that will open the skies... I'm not religious about this. I just look for that sweet spot of full, but not so boomy that I'm on the bass players toes.
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I think, as has been previously said, we all feel this on at least a semi-regular basis. I picked up one of my Teles (the one I don't play often) the other day and it just sounded glorious. I assumed it was the new tubes in the Boogie, and was thrilled with both of them. Again though, went back to the same combination of amp and guitar the next day and it sounded fine, but not glorious. I am so far resisting changing the pickups lol
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Room acoustics are crucial for the sound. You need to know your gear and what adjustments the room needs. If you can assess the frequencies which are disturbing and which are lacking, you maybe able to compensate with an EQ. The first step to this is to learn listening and knowing what you hear - then translating it to your gear's adjustment knobs. Originally Posted by Archie
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Your favorite wine may taste different depending on the day and situation. The same with amplified sound. From my sailboat years, I recall that tacking into heavy wind for hours without earplugs caused ear fatigue and irritation. Today, a cab just finished may sound harsh tested late in the evening when I'm tired after a long day, but just right the next morning. In a way, we pay too much attention to the sound when playing alone. Nuances matter less in a band setting, and the bass register is the bassist's airspace anyway.
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I think that’s all very fair and true but; most of this is stuff you can intuit and it’s what we call ‘taste’. Originally Posted by JazzNote
I’m not saying you shouldn't investigate and experiment; that is lots of fun.
From years of investigating however, my takeaway is, the guitar has to be good and a Roland cube with slight reverb and a big mid cut, gets you 95% of the way there, 100% of the time!
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Some don't care that much about their tone and write it off as either unimportant or as a non-addressable variable. Umm.. no. I'm more in the 'obsess over it' camp. And technique? The gear is there to make my technique (soft touch, pick plus fingers) sound good. Not the other way round.
So, while I do play out about once a month, most time is in my living room playing solo. It's a controlled space where nuances can be heard fairly well. What I've found is that gear matters. Quite a lot. Picks, strings, pickups, guitar, processing, speakers. Of these the speaker seems to be the one that gets less attention than it deserves. You would think that with a 4khz low pass it wouldn't matter so much. But in my experience, it does. That being said, the psycho-acoustic thing.. yea.. all the time. Adjust EQ, change pick, repeat.
Side note: Living room to performance space; I find tone translates pretty well from space to space. Maybe just an EQ tweak. Maybe not even that. Bigger spaces and higher volumes require a bit more thought and with reflections, lack of reflections, et al, takes some consideration. Some can just point and shoot.. but I want the best tone I can get.
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Taste the soup, don’t just measure the ingredients
It’s good to try and get front of house. I use a wireless.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Yeah thats a hard disagree from me. Originally Posted by Spook410
No gear in the world can make bad technique sound good.
Good technique can make just about anything sound good.
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“The less knobs you have, the closer you are to perfection” - Archie
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No way dude, this next overdrive I get is going to have me sounding just like Hendrix. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Who said I have bad technique? Originally Posted by pamosmusic
My gear suits my technique. Higher fidelity than most. More suited to low volumes than most. More capable of a nuanced response to soft inputs. Do you leave the settings in the studio the same for every player or do you adapt to how they play? Are some better off with AER or Schertler? Or is it Fender Deluxe's all round?
As for good technique making anything sound good, we will have to disagree on that one. I've just seen too many decent players using awful gear and/or gear that is set up poorly and it sounds like what you would expect: awful gear.
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Don't think anyone did. Originally Posted by Spook410
Nir Felder plays a Mexican Strat so *shrugs*As for good technique making anything sound good, we will have to disagree on that one. I've just seen too many decent players using awful gear and/or gear that is set up poorly and it sounds like what you would expect: awful gear.
Also decent players are … well … decent. And more to the point, awful gear doesn’t sound like anything until someone uses it.
Not saying gear doesn’t matter. Just saying folks tend to prescribe gear when the problem is elsewhere.
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Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Reference to bad technique was yours. There was no reference to using gear to fix bad playing in my post.
As for the old 'gear doesn't matter because such and such plays a (insert cheap gear here)'.. that was beat to death a few hundred threads ago. Usually with a 'Wes would have sounded like Wes playing a tele.. glad he played an L5'.
Gear does matter. Intelligent selection and application of gear matters. Selection is based on how you play, what you play, and how you want to sound. And if you plug into the console and rely on those Peavey PA speakers, that's what it's going to sound like no matter how good you are. Gear won't make a bad player good (though honestly, their cowboy chords might sound great), but it can make a good player sound bad.
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Yep. Just not to **your** bad technique. Originally Posted by Spook410
That was all you.
Once again. Why I don’t venture over to the gear side. Not my cup of tea.
As you were.
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