Rig great one night, totally fkd the next..

[thegame]

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook and/or forget if a small toggle switch (bright cap, voicing or gain related) gets bumped, particularly on modded and busy control panel type of amps. Especially if it’s on the back panel

 

[Toneboner]

Ever wake up and all day you feel 1 step behind ? Drop shit? Trip over a blanket, cable or your foot? Lose words? Then some days you are king ….

YESS! I’ve always wondered if other people experience that too. Whole days where people are mean or rude for no reason and I’m ‘final destination’ level accident prone. But then other days when guys are falling over themselves just to open a door for me, I catch every green light, can sneeze on my guitar and Paganini comes out, etc

Keep it simple, back to basics, slow down,,, That’s all sage advice. fr thx

 

[Alpha Stryke]

Everything i do is Fucking spectacular -

 

[Omnipotent1]

Probably humidity and barometric pressure differences. Mids dont travel well through water filled dense air

I was having the same issue as the op & had a high thought that maybe this was the issue.. Turns out it was environment related in my situation … mind blown…

 

[RaceU4her]

I was having the same issue as the op & had a high thought that maybe this was the issue.. Turns out it was environment related in my situation … mind blown…

this is the only way to go if youre serious about toan.

 

[Omnipotent1]

this is the only way to go if youre serious about toan.

LMAO that’s out of my league…

 

[GuitarVacation]

All the outside factors are legit, particularly the power and the sound of the venue room. So many variables.

But I swear sometimes my hearing trolls me. Human error I guess, but how many times has something been dialed in great, like hell yeah, this is the sound for this guitar/amp etc.

Then the next day, same tone at the house, and I’m like WTF? The treble freqs of tone death are poking through, or the other end, OMG blanket over everything, this tone sucks and it will never cut to be heard anyway.

Tone nerding is a road full of malice and disappointments. There is also a negative side.

 

[Techdeth]

People in the room? How you are faced in the room? What other instruments are playing?. Temperature? What song? What is your mindset? It all matters.
Ever wake up and all day you feel 1 step behind ? Drop shit? Trip over a blanket, cable or your foot? Lose words? Then some days you are king …. When I’m “not right”, I go back to basics, play scales, easy licks.. bread and butter to get those right… the tone is important and most people are clueless on tone but they know timing and sour notes so when shit doesn’t sound right, I try to play simple. @Techdeth taught me this; “Dude, for real, keep it simple when things are off, fr”. I had to look up FR. He is right.

I’m always right . If I’m wrong I misspoke . I’m your Zen Guitar Teacher . Young padowan @alund the force is strong in you

 

[Toneboner]

But I swear sometimes my hearing trolls me.

The struggle is real.

UPDATE: Everything sounds glorious again. Different amps, v30 cab, GB cab, boosted or not. 4cm —> axefx or straight in. Measured 121v at the wall so,,, gonna keep an eye on that! Also making shiddy iPhone recordings so I can compare to when/if things turn ugly again.

 

[Beyond Black]

Probably humidity and barometric pressure differences. Mids dont travel well through water filled dense air

Low mids get bogged down, while high mids travel over it.

 

[Racerxrated]

I never have those with a Twin.

It's because you play with very little to no gain. With med/high gain, little things that change become VERY noticeable. When I play my vintage Fenders (Twin, Bassman) nothing ever changes...unless I hit them with a higher gain boost/distortion pedal for some heavier tones. Then they act just like any other gain filled amp in the stable.

 

[DanTravis62]

I wonder if you can use one of those computer UPS backup units? Could be a cheaper alternative? We've used them at work to get stable power to calibrate some of the instruments

I've tried this before, I ended up getting an amp doctor anyways. It's calibrated for vintage style amp use and just works better. 200$ isn't a ton in the grand scheme of things, for gear

 

[VonBonfire]

It's because you play with very little to no gain.

Very little compared to the chugga chugga guys, much more than the average "blues" guy you see today but somewhat less than your average blues rocker. I would call it medium gain. Dimed amp plus a bit of a boost. Enough gain to get sustain but not much more than that or it just sounds like rock guitar. Always had more issues getting things set when I was using a superlead....

 

[Alpha Stryke]

My advice is to get a couple 100 watt vacuum tube Marshalls and start rupturing some eardrums in the crowd.
"Amp modelers" are for people who don't know how to party.

 

[matttornado]

Just adjust the tone controls. That's what they are for. Lots of variables so you'll never get a correct answer. Live with it and move on.

 

[Racerxrated]

Very little compared to the chugga chugga guys, much more than the average "blues" guy you see today but somewhat less than your average blues rocker. I would call it medium gain. Dimed amp plus a bit of a boost. Enough gain to get sustain but not much more than that or it just sounds like rock guitar. Always had more issues getting things set when I was using a superlead....

I agree; my twin is way more consistent than my 68 on a day to day basis. But damn if the twin is soo easy to play; vs the Marshall that show all my mis-frets here n there lol. Which means I need to play the Fender more

 

[VonBonfire]

I agree; my twin is way more consistent than my 68 on a day to day basis. But damn if the twin is soo easy to play; vs the Marshall that show all my mis-frets here n there lol. Which means I need to play the Fender more

I just found that unless I was deep into the superlead's output the EQ and vol controls were extremely sensitive vs just setting the treble knob on the twin to 10 and easily adjusting volume to what was needed. I'm not an educated person on that so maybe there is something internal that plays into it....

Worst case scenario now is I have to subtract a little treble and add a bit of mids or bass due to a concrete stage or other hard material behind the amp or in the venue near to the stage. Versus a plexi....some nights I'd have magic right out of the gate, other nights would be an all night hunt between songs making small adjustments and still never find it. I think I would've likely been better served with a 50 watt plexi, superbass, or even JTM45 in a lot of cases. I've grown to love the Twins though! Power, affordability, reliability, and easy repeatability.

 

[Rackman]

I find there's several parts of it for me:
1) I think it's fruitless to evaluate "tone" of solo guitar unless you plan to play solo guitar. I want to hear it in the mix or at least against some backing track before I have an opinion. I can't count the number of times I thought something sounded great, then heard it in the mix, and immediately turned a bunch of knobs. The opposite direction is true - you tone dialed to play in a mix may sound a bit odd alone.
2) Room and direction effects. Treble in particular is radically different from room to room, and as a function of speaker angle, and whether you're facing towards or away from the amp. I try to set my amps so they sound good as monitors with me facing facing away (the mains feed treble is controlled mostly by mic placement). The amp will sound too bright facing it.
3) I pick harder once I'm warmed up. Big difference.
4) Ear physics effects of volume - things get more scooped as they get louder. This does not translate to mics typically but affects monitoring.

I haven't noticed a big effect with wall voltage as long as it's reasonably close to nominal. I'd expect a rig that relied heavily on power amp distortion might fare differently.

 

[Toneboner]

I find there's several parts of it for me:

All really good points. Top end is usually the first indicator something is amiss,, strident, uncomfortable, unmusical. Directionality is a big factor there. I suspect when I rearranged my space that variable entered the equation. But also, u *know* when something ain’t right. Like the amp is swallowing your notes instead of singing them out. Enter: Technique,, another big can of worms. I take a full 15-20 minutes to warm up nowadays. Having become super conscious of the inclination towards laziness (which we’re all guilty of! unless you’re that effortless a-hole ), at the threshold of my default skill level and where I want to be there’s just no way around 15-20 minutes of focus. If you’re used to a certain skill level, being“off” one day can def make it seem like there’s something wrong with the signal chain. But even with that if a dam power chord feels bad I know there’s gremlins tinkering in my head or amps. Both?

PSA*** deafness sucks,, protect your hearing! Recently hopped on the Ps2a bandwagon and it really helps keep spl comfy for the practice room I’m in. YES it’s a compromise tone-wise. NO you don’t want to become auditory/ neurologically sensitive.

 

[DrewJD82]

My ears hear shit differently day to day and I only learned this after destroying a few mixes. Now I know to just wait a day when I hear way too much or way too little treble, because I know I’m not hearing right.