The perception of bad tone.

biggness

biggness

Power User
I have noticed, through the years, that it is a common reaction, for myself and close friends, when playing a particular type of tone and changing to another tone in the same type, that upon first listen, it is not uncommon to think that it sounds bad. Well, not so much bad, but maybe not as good as the previous sound? Though after a few moments of playing, or starting with that particular tone instead, it sounds great. So much so, that if you swap to the very first tone mentioned above, it is now the one that sounds bad. Which you can hear here, where I have posted several presets of some high gain amps that are not in my common rotation: http://http://forum.fractalaudio.co.../88574-biggnesss-biggtwnage-extravaganza.html

I am not so certain, but I think this can be attributed to the Mere-Exposure Effect (Mere-exposure effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), which pretty much says "The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. The effect has been demonstrated with many kinds of things, including words, Chinese characters, paintings, pictures of faces, geometric figures, and sounds."

So really, as a side note, you like the tones you like not because other tones are bad tones, you just psychologically prefer them. Try branching out and expanding your palette of tones. It will only increase the pleasantries of life for you. :)
 
Tone is so subjective. I recently joined a new band and the other guitarist (current member) and I get along pretty good. He wants me to have a tone similar to his JVM tone. While I think his live tone was pretty muddy actually, I still entertained the idea of changing my tone a bit. Ended up changing to the friedman and tweaking it so its not to muddy and I kind of like the change. So even though I disagree with his idea of tone, still it led me to explore something new.

Best part with the axe, is the FOH tone lies much more in your hands. I think people overall tend to be over critical and think they know tone more than they do. I'm guilty sometimes. To me, in the mix, no harsh highs, and no muddy lows is about all I need.
 
a very quick and dirty tone test is..

when at what you think is a reasonable level, do you vanish and can only be heard if you are seriously high in the mix??
so you're either almost "not there" at all, or blowing everything away..

if so... your extreme lo's and hi's are far too strong and / or you're also lacking mid's..

remember that EQ is "relative".. so cutting the low end will have the same effect as boosting everything else..
so when correcting overly strong lo's / hi's, you may well find that your mid's recover without needing much or any extra help..

EDIT: there is of course the other end of things that we all would like to avoid..
and that's just to plain suck
the solution to plain suck is to start over with a Herbert ch3 and 5153Red and then blow everyone away with too much volume..
but this time it's not due to poor EQ, it's a penis extention.. plain and simple ! !
and we all like those right ! !
 
Last edited:
I firmly believe the reason many if us are chasing an "ideal" tube tone is because the players that emotionally speak to us used tube amplifiers.
It is likely to be a new generation that has played more through modellers than actual amps that will determine the tones of the future. Chasing a vintage Plexi tone will only be applicable for the younger players who still listen to classic rock.
 
I think is more related to harmonic content. I had a Masotti X3M. Each channel is absolutely wonderful. When I switch from Lead to crunch, for a second it sound like shitty... no tone, dull, no harmonic! Go to clean, the same! Back to crunch from clean and... yes... wonderful harmonics! :) It's not the sound per-se, but the comparation with previous one.
 
Ever been riding in your car with the radio barely audible. A song comes on and you think its one song only to turn it up and discover it is a totally different song. You heard the first song because you wanted it to be that song, even subconsciously. Our ears can play tricks on us. Sneaky buggers!
 
If the gain is up and no freqs jump out at me in a really annoying sort of way, it's a good tone & we're good to go. If it also responds well to playing, it's a great tone and I get a chubby.
Triptik Modern + German tonestack, best seks in the AFX, IMO.
 
luke said:
How do you explain the divorce rate if the Mere-Exposure Effect is valid?
Click to expand...

It would seem that the opposite of the Mere-Exposure effect is the old saying that "Familiarity breeds contempt". I submit that both phenomena are not phenomena at all, they're just reactions to stimulus based on previous experience.
 
I agree with the op, I had this happen last night now that I think about it.. I was jamming on the new AFD model and had a happening tone, played on that for about 30 mins, switched to my recto patch and didn't like it.... about 10 minutes later I liked it.
 
dpeterson said:
I agree with the op, I had this happen last night now that I think about it.. I was jamming on the new AFD model and had a happening tone, played on that for about 30 mins, switched to my recto patch and didn't like it.... about 10 minutes later I liked it.
Click to expand...

for this I blame a subtle combination of drugs and simply being fickle
 
biggness said:
I have noticed, through the years, that it is a common reaction, for myself and close friends, when playing a particular type of tone and changing to another tone in the same type, that upon first listen, it is not uncommon to think that it sounds bad. Well, not so much bad, but maybe not as good as the previous sound? Though after a few moments of playing, or starting with that particular tone instead, it sounds great.
Click to expand...
And then there are the folks here who audition IRs by scanning through them 1 per second without even tweaking the amp. I mean... Great if this works for you, but I guarantee I would hate 100% of them using this method.
 
mr_fender said:
Ever been riding in your car with the radio barely audible. A song comes on and you think its one song only to turn it up and discover it is a totally different song. You heard the first song because you wanted it to be that song, even subconsciously. Our ears can play tricks on us. Sneaky buggers!
Click to expand...

Actually, yes. I get that sometimes. When the volume is that low, mixed with wind an road noise, sometimes you don't know what you're hearing.

This is not a direct reply to the OP's point, but overall I'm skeptical of most guys idea of good tone. (most.. not all. )
Great stage/live tone (or tone in a mix) is very different than good bedroom tone, and so many people dial in tones at home that they have no clue what it sounds like from halfway deep in the crowd at a nightclub. I mean, many times they never get to hear their own mix, unless they walk out there with the crowd with their wireless and play and have that "oh wow, I sound like crap in a blender" moment.

3 things fool us when dialing in tone. 1) F-M. You all know all about this. 2) The fact that when you listen to a recording, you hear a mix of the bass and guitar, plus cymbals and mastering which add airy high end to tracks, and it tricks you into thinking the guitar has all that low end and extreme presence in it. Listening to isolated guitar tracks is a real eye opener as to what guitar tone is really supposed to be like in order to work in a mix. 3) Reverb. Designed to replicate echos in a large room (or hall, or canyon!) Dialed in using dry headphones, or a 10x10 room, then taken to a hall or large room that has it's own built in reverb... = washy mess.

Bedroom tone is awesome... in a bedroom. Not so awesome in a live band setting.
 
Rook said:
And then there are the folks here who audition IRs by scanning through them 1 per second without even tweaking the amp. I mean... Great if this works for you, but I guarantee I would hate 100% of them using this method.
Click to expand...

ahh.. that's where I'm going wrong then.. lmao
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom