My Mark IV and I had a fight last night.

[markwayne]

The point is my ears at gig time are not neccessarily rested. I've been up all day. It's not a matter of "getting used to" a tone that is not a good tone. It's more a matter of your ears processing the same tone in the manner in which you are accustomed. I've got really nice old Zildjian cymbals, ain't tradin' for new ones any time soon, and my point is they don't change from one night to the next. You make some good points about the number of people in a club ( humans are great sound deadeners) and yes, AC voltage will vary from minute to minute at any outlet you plug into but, if your triaxis sounded good except on "off nights" what do you think it was doing differently on those "off nights"?

Well, my point is that, perhaps, my Triaxis never sounded that great on the "on" nights and, since the interface didn't encourage a lot of tweaking while playing, my ears just got accustomed to the problems. The only way to be sure would be to go back to recordings made on those nights where they exist. When I have had the occasion to do just that, I often find that the tone was not as bad as I remember but was still not what I hear in my head as my benchmark tone. However, on rare occasion I'm pleasantly surprised at how much better things sound that I remember so your theory holds water for those nights. My problem with my tone on those nights was probably more emotional or mental or just not feeling in the zone or what-have-you.

None the less, these days I tend to do much more tweaking at the start of the night when my ears are still capable of distinguishing great tone from okay tone. And I feel that I've become much better at pin-pionting and mitigating the things I don't like as the variables change over the course of a night. This way I feel I can come closer to the tone in my head instead of just accepting what my amp is doing at any, given moment and waiting for that sound to grow on me. I would love to find a rig that was truly set and forget, but I've never found one.

And I didn't really expect you to sell your cymbals , but I do think that (knowing how the human ear works) that sharp, woody attack followed by those dense, "harsh", midrange overtones that pretty much define the sound of a thin piece of metal being struck hard by a piece of wood will always sound different once your ears have notched out the most aggressive of those mid-range frequencies. (And the human ear makes those adjustments pretty quickly.) In fact, continuous exposure to those frequencies over a long period of time can cause permanent loss at those frequencies. Guitarists are familiar with this as well. Many of us tend to feel we have to turn up a lot towards the end of the night as our ears have begun to shut down a lot of upper mid content (for self-preservation) and that's where our "cut" factor lives. That's the point at which I try to stop tweaking as I know I'm no longer capable of hearing things correctly.

Wayne

 

[MBJunkie]

Everybody's right IMO! :lol:

Seriously, I find it interesting that a drummer will notice big differences in sound using the same cymbals day to day, place to place. Most guitar players feel that way with their guitar/amp sounds as well. The biggest difference is that cymbals do not have tone knobs while guitar amps do.

It is normal for a guitar player to be perfectly happy with his/her sound while practicing at home, and hating that sound (or at best realizing that it does not cut through the mix while playing live (rehearsing or at a gig). At least this is my experience, and I feel most would agree with this statement.

Here is my biggest point.....During some gigs, I have felt that I had the absolute best guitar tone dialed in with my rig.....and it MIGHT have been, but there is no possible way that I would know that for sure as I had no way of hearing the front of house mix. Only those players that have the luxury of using inner ear monitors with the FOH mix can possibly know how their cymbals or guitars or keys, bass, vocals, etc....sound to the audience.

While it is true that recording the live gigs should be the answer. However, even this isn't as it depends so much on the situation of mics to the amps, drum kit, etc.....and it is even a bigger mystery if everybody is using PODs, etc...that go directly to the house.

I still like your post Xqzdust, but also admit that I have at times had to convince my seasoned drummer that he wasn't hearing gremlins in his ear as well! :wink:

markwayne, you made good points as well....slam away at me!

 

[Xqzdust]

Well, my point is that, perhaps, my Triaxis never sounded that great on the "on" nights and, since the interface didn't encourage a lot of tweaking while playing, my ears just got accustomed to the problems. The only way to be sure would be to go back to recordings made on those nights where they exist. When I have had the occasion to do just that, I often find that the tone was not as bad as I remember but was still not what I hear in my head as my benchmark tone. However, on rare occasion I'm pleasantly surprised at how much better things sound that I remember so your theory holds water for those nights. My problem with my tone on those nights was probably more emotional or mental or just not feeling in the zone or what-have-you.

None the less, these days I tend to do much more tweaking at the start of the night when my ears are still capable of distinguishing great tone from okay tone. And I feel that I've become much better at pin-pionting and mitigating the things I don't like as the variables change over the course of a night. This way I feel I can come closer to the tone in my head instead of just accepting what my amp is doing at any, given moment and waiting for that sound to grow on me. I would love to find a rig that was truly set and forget, but I've never found one.

And I didn't really expect you to sell your cymbals , but I do think that (knowing how the human ear works) that sharp, woody attack followed by those dense, "harsh", midrange overtones that pretty much define the sound of a thin piece of metal being struck hard by a piece of wood will always sound different once your ears have notched out the most aggressive of those mid-range frequencies. (And the human ear makes those adjustments pretty quickly.) In fact, continuous exposure to those frequencies over a long period of time can cause permanent loss at those frequencies. Guitarists are familiar with this as well. Many of us tend to feel we have to turn up a lot towards the end of the night as our ears have begun to shut down a lot of upper mid content (for self-preservation) and that's where our "cut" factor lives. That's the point at which I try to stop tweaking as I know I'm no longer capable of hearing things correctly.

OK now we're getting down to it. If your Triaxis wasn't that great then of course "you be tweakin'"! :lol: (sorry, couldn't help myself) I'm thinking, based on your description of cymbal sound, that you thought I meant crash cymbals. I should have been more specific and said my ride cymbal would sound dull and dead with no brilliance. Have you ever played in a room with such weird acoustics that you had trouble finding the other instruments in the mix? Eventually you adjust your listening so that it all makes sense.

I agree with you about your hearing being better earlier in the evening but it's not self-preservation, it's damage. When your ears are exposed to high sound pressure levels the cilia in the ear lays down. This is the "shutting down" your describe. The cilia stand back up after some rest, but over time they lose the ability to stand up again. When they stop recovering it's called tinnitus! Please protect yourself from this! The ensuing hearing loss is, in fact, in the range of human speech or upper mid-range. My Dr. said mine was like a blueprint for high-level hearing loss.

I think we probably agree on this but we've been talking about two different things. Hearing versus listening. Two different things, no?

 

[MBJunkie]

HUH??? Sorry, I couldn't resist xqzdust.

Back to the original poster. Yes, with the IV (and probably many other amps including other brands), it is possible to go from....that is a fantastic tone...to....that doesn't sound good at all while using the same guitar and amp settings and even at the same location (i.e. at home, for example), but at a different time.

I find that the "differences in sounds" that I perceive are largely due to the positioning of my ears relative to the amp mostly, and secondly our ears do adjust to sounds as others have posted. Firing up the amp the next day will probably sound different compared to how your "ears adjusted" to the final amp settings of your sound the day before.

Also, the "hearing hangover" concept that is mentioned in the manual is very true as well. Try playing channel 3 set to your liking, for example, withot GEQ engaged for a while. Then play channel 3 with GEQ engaged (V-curve if you wish to your liking) for about 5 minutes or so.....then cut off the GEQ with the same channel 3 settings.. Clearly, the non GEQ sound will sound flat in comparison....to the point you may feel the non-EQ sound sucks (even though you had it set to sound great without the GEQ previously).

Neither of the settings sounded "bad to you" at least at one point during the same session.

I feel that your original post is great, and somehow got lost in the thread. I am glad that you were able to "find a sweet with your IV"! Over time, I have found several with this great amp!

 

[billboogie]

If you really want to open up a can of worms on this subject try this.
1st, Set and tweak untill you are happy and in sonic heaven.
2nd,BLOW YOUR NOSE!
I stumbled on this when I was tweaking one night. I found what I was looking for tonewise, went upstairs, blew my nose (which cleared my ears) went downstairs to resume playing and HOLY BRIGHTNESS! I had to start all over again. The difference was astounding! Now I always make sure my ears are as cleared out as can be before I go play. You don't have to have a cold or anything because ANY blockage is going to affect how you hear something. So give yourself a fighting chance and blow your nose :lol:

 

[Xqzdust]

This could explain a lot about guitar tones in the seventies and eighties! :lol:

 

[billboogie]

:lol: :lol: :lol: