Slight difference in pitch between Axe FX and unplugged guitar

K

Kapehtal

Member
Has anyone else noticed this? When I play my guitar through my Axe FX and using headphones it sounds slightly higher in pitch than it does unplugged.. I'm not using any pitch shifting in the patch.

Here it is for reference:

View attachment Plexi Normal.syx
 
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Just out of curiosity, what possible difference could this make? I assume when you're playing you hear differences as the headphones are not loud enough to drown out the acoustic behaviour of your guitar.

Are you having any problems in either: recording and/or band situations if your guitar is tuned correctly?

Every set of headphones has EQ that will sound somewhere in between crappy and decent (I haven't found any that sound absolutely perfect...but I haven't spent $600+ on cans...)

I suspect you're hearing some phase things going on there, and your ear interprets them as 'pitch'. Just a guess.

R
 
It's just something I've noticed and was curious about. I don't hear the unplugged sound of my guitar when using headphones so it doesn't affect my playing in any way. I'm using Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones.
 
Pitch of singing and music seems to change as you put headphones on - it's a psycho-acoustical affect of using headphones - maybe that's what you are picking up on.
 
Are you talking about a change in pitch or in EQ? The Axe won't change your pitch at all unless you're running a pitch shifter.
 
Just throwing this out there: If you are indeed talking about pitch, maybe you're experiencing ghost notes (as intentionally modeled). You could try setting "power type" to DC in the amp block. Also, if you have a 7 string, standard tuning will land the low B around 61-62hz. Regular 60hz hum can get bad (depending on the guitar/pickups), mix in near that and throw the ear off... it used to irritate me years ago.
 
The perception of pitch is a strange thing. When I chew, I perceive the pitch of my surroundings to increase as I apply pressure with my jaw. Pitch only appears to rise when the derivative (change) of the pressure of my lower teeth against my upper teeth is positive. Constant pressure gives no pitch change, nor does releasing pressure. Strange, but true. As I eat, a sine wave will sound like it is pitch modulated.

My mood can affect my perception of pitch, as can my level of stress, tiredness, etc.
 
If you have any type of recording setup, record along with something that is in standard tuning.
Quick and easy way to see if your tuning is good.
 
steadystate said:
The perception of pitch is a strange thing. When I chew, I perceive the pitch of my surroundings to increase as I apply pressure with my jaw. Pitch only appears to rise when the derivative (change) of the pressure of my lower teeth against my upper teeth is positive. Constant pressure gives no pitch change, nor does releasing pressure. Strange, but true. As I eat, a sine wave will sound like it is pitch modulated.

My mood can affect my perception of pitch, as can my level of stress, tiredness, etc.
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Maybe the resonate responses of the/your cochlea are changing slightly while you do that.
 
No, not very loud at all. Cliff posted that it's something called the headphone doppler effect but his comment is gone now. So maybe that's not what it is going on. Either way it's a little annoying as a guitar player but I would imagine it would be even more so for a singer!

Other weird pitch phenomenons I've experienced are hearing things slightly sharp after a night of drinking and hearing 2 slightly different pitches between my own 2 ears.. how weird is that?
 
Kapehtal said:
No, not very loud at all. Cliff posted that it's something called the headphone doppler effect but his comment is gone now. So maybe that's not what it is going on. Either way it's a little annoying as a guitar player but I would imagine it would be even more so for a singer!

Other weird pitch phenomenons I've experienced are hearing things slightly sharp after a night of drinking and hearing 2 slightly different pitches between my own 2 ears.. how weird is that?
Click to expand...

I gave you the wrong term. It's related to bone conduction. I forget the technical term.
 
By any chance are you listening to the headphones while they're just sitting in front of you and not actually on your ears. Whenever I can hear the audio coming from my headphones and they aren't actually on my ears they sound like they are in a different tuning.
 
I worked in a well-known London nightclub with a very large sound system as sound engineer for several years. One of the phenomenon I noticed was that if we went backstage (through two heavy doors) the singer's vocals would be perceived as out of tune. I assume the speed of sound had been skewed through travelling down a corridor and through two doors. There was also usually a significant temperature differential between the hot venue and the green room.

Of course it might be a quantum effect - once unobserved the singer returned to their usual crappiness...
 
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