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Topic: Do you find your pickup judgement changes? |
Peter
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Posted 5 Jul 2003 11:33 pm |
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I often find that I perceive the sound of my pickup very differently while using the same room and gear.
For instance, I usually think my pickup is very mellow in humbucker mode and just bright enough in single coil mode. I haven't been practicing for a couple of days and when I came back, it sounded a lot brighter to me. No physical changes occurred: I have not been to an area with high altitude, nor did I use earbuds etc. The same happens with 6-stringers as well.
Did anybody notice the same thing with their set-up?
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Peter den Hartogh-Fender Artist S10-Remington U12-Hilton Volume Pedal-Gibson BR4 lapsteel-Guya "Stringmaster" Copy-MusicMan112RP-Peavy Rage158- - My Animation College in South Africa
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Johan Jansen
From:
Europe
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 12:54 am
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Peter, yes, your judgement changes, from time to time. Has to do with your condition, fysical and mental,mood, and your expectations of what you like to hear....
just normal 
JJ |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 1:49 am
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I will also add, ambient air presure and humidity will change the air's transmision properties. So you hear differently.
A high barometer and dry air will be much different than a very low barometer and 100% humidity.
Imagine just before and just after a storm.
The world will sound different, and compare those times to a sunny day.
As a mixing engineer I deal with that all the time. Mix one tune one day and the next tune in line the next, and the mixes can be very different.
Even though the two songs are the same keys and same instruments recorded sequntially at the same session. But the MIXING environment has changed. Some times for the better with the control room, sometimes worse. |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 4:13 am
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| Earwax. |
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Paul King
From:
Gainesville, Texas, USA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 4:52 am
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| Peter, I have found through the years sound is different from day to day and room to room. We do not hear the same every day and that is one reason I use a tuner. Some days I could tune and maybe the next day I could not seem to be able to get in tune. I guess it all boils down to being the human factor. |
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Larry Bell
From:
Englewood, Florida
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 5:51 am
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Some days, nothing sounds right. Other days everything sounds right. Our hearing is very dependent on all those things mentioned above. Then, when you change rooms, it ALL changes.
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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps
[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 06 July 2003 at 06:53 AM.] |
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Chris Bauer
From:
Nashville, TN USA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 6:24 am
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Whew! I read the topic title and thought someone had started a dating thread!  |
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Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 7:04 am
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"Auditory Fatique" ...
Kinda like "Olfactory Fatique" ... you know ... when you first walk into a pizza place and it smells so good ... then in 5 minutes "that smell" is gone ..
Can you tell I'm on a diet
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www.horseshoemagnets.com |
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David L. Donald
From:
Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 7:11 am
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Rick Thanks I forgot one of my main bugaboos, EAR fatigue.
I hate to mix a band after they have been cutting tracks, because our ears have been hearing the same signals over and over, ad infinitum, and are somewhat desensitized to those frequencies.
Same, the day after a show I prefer not to mix. I'll do it, but it's better to mix with relaxed fresh ears. it's often the same for playing, but less critical.
This sometimes explains why certain players always play too loud relative to the other players... their ears are desensitized to their own amps sound range. But not anyone elses.[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 06 July 2003 at 08:12 AM.] |
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Ricky Davis
From:
Bertram, Texas USA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 8:48 am
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I used to hear my steel sound different in every room and every club or out door setting...
Then when I dropped the solid state amp sound and went to Tube sound....It sounds the same to me EVERYWHERE....and haven't turned a tone knob on the Amp in over 6 years.
That's just my experience of what I've heard with this subject.
Ricky |
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Bobby Lee
From:
Cloverdale, California, USA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 8:54 am
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Ricky wrote:
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| It sounds the same to me EVERYWHERE.... |
There's pills for that, you know. |
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Jim Smith
From:
Midlothian, TX, USA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 9:12 am
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| I'm with Ricky, although I haven't used a tube amp for almost 30 years. It started when I got lazy and tired of tweaking my amp on every gig. My amp sounds different to me at the beginning of every gig, but I don't change it. By the end of the first set my ears have adjusted and it sounds the same as always. |
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Jon Light
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 9:12 am
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Ricky---although I know how strongly you feel about this subject (Fender, tubes, etc.) and I don't beg to differ with any of it (I'm getting some great sounds right now with an all-tube rack although I've gotten some great SS sounds) but I'm wondering if there could be an element of having arrived at a level of playing at around that same time that leveled out your consistancy of touch and the consistancy of your ears. Within my own lack of day-to-day consistancy in what I hear myself sounding like---or is what I want to hear myself sounding like?---I'm wondering if this quest levels out once one achieves a certain maturity of playing.
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 1:09 pm
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Our perception of sound does change, but when my own does, I don't "surrender" to it. I set the amp where I usually do, and go on playing. Likely as not, my "usual" settings will be substantiated as good-sounding by someone in the band, or someone in the audience. "Getting a good sound" is sometimes like tuning. You can tweak and tweak all night, and be no closer to perfect than when you started.
Set it and forget it...playing's more fun than continual "tweaking", anyway. Those who keep twisting knobs and grimacing are perceived by many others, not as "perfectionists", but as "novices" who wouldn't know a good sound if they had it. |
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Ricky Davis
From:
Bertram, Texas USA
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 8:02 pm
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| Quote: |
| but I'm wondering if there could be an element of having arrived at a level of playing at around that same time that leveled out your consistancy of touch and the consistancy of your ears. |
Jon you have a valid point and I do believe that has alot to do with it.
After years of playing; I do believe a player can sit down to anything and sound like theirself and their sound.
To prove this; here's a short story.
My Good friend Jim Loessberg; always gets me up to play a few on his 65 Wraparound; when I go out to hear him play(as he is one of my favorites to listen to Live...just awesome)
So he wanted to hear his guitar out front while I played it once....>so I sat down and started playing.
He came up to me and said: "Ricky; you sound just like you sound when you play your ShoBud"...
So and Emmons doesn't sound like a Shobud as we all know....but he was saying that I sound the same on his guitar as I do on my guitar.....Go figure.
So there ya have that...for what ever it's worth.
Ricky |
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 6 Jul 2003 8:13 pm
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Here is something I do to deal with tone.
I practice at home with a very small crappy amp with no reverb. If I want to bring more lows and mids into my sound I turn the bass control all the way off and the treble knob all the way up. Then I play like that every day until I have a nice fat tone coming out of the amp. Then I do the opposite. I turn the bass all the way up and the treble off and try to get as bright a sound as possible. It seems to help me train my hands to get the tone I want without fussing around with amps and gizmos.
Other than that sometimes my steel sounds good and other times I spend all night fighting with it.
I hear what Ricky is saying about tube amps. The deal as I hear it is that tubes respond to touch much more than SS so the tone is more in your hands with them.[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 07 July 2003 at 12:31 PM.] |
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