Tone Confusion and Frustration

[jjboogie]

When I am not on tour with my main band I do local gigs with my wife's band.

I use a Lonestar Special with a 1X12 extension cab

During rehearsals in our rehearsal space I got my tone dialed in perfectly! Everything feels awesome!

I get to a any local pub or club and my tone sucks and feels awful to my own ears?

Most local clubs I really don't have much time to tweak because its set up and play fast kind of situations.

Should I switch to the LSC? I admit our rehearsals are lower volume than gigs


What is the deal?

Anyone else experience this?

 

[lonestarpaul]

Yeah, I think this is a pretty common problem and it's all about how different environmental situations affect sound waves coming from audio sources (your amp in this case). I think the best way to deal with this is to find and set your sound at a stable and usable volume (for example, the one you use in rehearsals) with speakers in front of you at about 4 or 5 feet from your ears (*). Then you can simply use a mic in front of your amp when you play on stage (a Shure SM57 would be a good choice) so you can adapt THAT sound to the specific room working on the soundboard (luckily with the help of a sound engineer or by yourself if you don't have one), without wasting the tone of your amp.

Playing live I realized that the best way to avoid frustration and madness is to mic every instrument (especially guitar amps) even in small venues and let almost every sound pass through the soundboard. That allows to control all the sounds and the overall mix without the need to find a new suitable equalization on the instrument everytime.

(*) It's important to keep your head aligned to speaker(s) because if you keep your amp on the ground while you play standing up, your ears will perceive a noticeably different tone from what it actually is, often darker and muddier so you'll instinctively tweak treble up (which is not so good for live situations) and make other adjustments that could make your tone unusable in a concert.

Hope this helps :wink:

 

[djw]

JJboogie, how would you describe how your sound changes?

I find that I also get into trouble onstage when I start compensating with treble and gain and whatnot... room conditions (or worse, outdoor venues) can throw everything off. In situations like that I end up wondering: "Where is the real version of my sound??? Am I actually hearing things correctly in rehearsal?" (This is why there are Marshalls -- you can turn it on and forget about it)

My first performance with my LSC was a shocker because we were in a large venue and I needed to turn up a bit -- and my clean tone almost completely disappeared. Everything turned to mush. I couldn't get it back at all... I switched from 50 watts to 100, dialed the Gain almost all the way back... no dice. I played the whole show with an amp that had only a Compressed Dirty, and More Dirty. Later I realized I'd gotten used to using the Tweed setting, and that as sweet as it is, it won't hold a real spanky clean above 9:30.

I suspect the LSS is fairly sensitive to volume changes, too, even without the variac. It's so silky smooth and responsive, I'll bet it really compresses at higher volumes. The LSC definitely has headroom (except on Tweed!), so in situations where you aren't miked you can still get a good, beefy clean. That's expensive, but it'll work.

I've also heard that a good way to poke through is to judiciously increase the Presence, and let that guide any other tweaks you might make. Unless you're unmiked in a large venue, you probably should have enough power in that LSS to poke through... remember that the Treble also adds gain, whereas Presence decreases compression, so this might be a counter-intuitive way to keep things clean while maintaining some sparkle.

 

[Mork]

Hi JJ,

Stop looking for an excuse to buy that classic!

When I bought my Special the sound at rehearsal was sublime, but at the first show we did with it, the extra volume needed darkened the distortion and the clean headroom faded away, hence I bought the classic. The classic has that extra headroom, and when we play small venues I don't mic it up and it sounds great. For larger shows it's mic'd up and still sounds great (as long as the monitor mix isn't drowning the guitar out). I don't tend to tweak, I use it at the same settings for both rehearsals and shows.

 

[c.t.d-nicke]

When I am not on tour with my main band I do local gigs with my wife's band.

I use a Lonestar Special with a 1X12 extension cab

During rehearsals in our rehearsal space I got my tone dialed in perfectly! Everything feels awesome!

I get to a any local pub or club and my tone sucks and feels awful to my own ears?

Most local clubs I really don't have much time to tweak because its set up and play fast kind of situations.

Should I switch to the LSC? I admit our rehearsals are lower volume than gigs


What is the deal?

Anyone else experience this?

jjboogie

If you care to read a pretty long thread or just the first post... interesting all the way!

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=470956

Maybe this will point you in direction. I have not tested this yet my self but as soon I get hold of the proper stuff I'll sure dig in to it!

 

[Leroy the Massochist]

jj

Keep tweeking as I have the opposite experience. I find in rehearsals my sound is dark and channel 2 is a bit muddy but live the blanket comes off and there is more sparkle and less gain. (There was a period where I could not get a clean at any volume and channel 1 was compressed, can't remeber what was happening I think Chanel 1 Gain was two low and the gain on the back too high)

I have mentioned before but the best thing I have done with this amp after reading someone elses thread about lending there amp to a pro is to run the solo volume at full, I think that is at about 5 oclock and the normal volume at 3. I then use the master as my volume control and like it at about 10. Unfortunately it is too loud and I have to drop it back to 9. This set up gives the amp a real glassy feel.

I also now use Channel 1 for my Les Paul and its volume control for clean and set up channel 2 for my telecaster and I have that channel set pretty clean eg I can do James Brown stuff on Channel 2. If I need absolute clean Tele on Channel 1 and absolute jangly clean at volume on the Les Paul, not going to happen use a Tele (or maybe if you had a Gold Top with P90s.

Also watch out for that gain control on the back of the amp.

Cheers

 

[jjboogie]

I have been finding that at rehearsals my tone feels warm, thick and smooth and then at gigs it sounds thin, harsh and not smooth.

Interesting idea with the solo button.....I will have to try that out to see how it sounds.

And i am not sure what you mean about a gain knob on the back. Can you explain?

Thanks
JJ

 

[Leroy the Massochist]

The loop knob on the back adds gain. If you have it up too high and the gain on Channel 1 too low you can end up with too much compression and you may not be able to get a clean sound at band volume.

 

[av8or3]

The loop knob on the back adds gain. If you have it up too high and the gain on Channel 1 too low you can end up with too much compression and you may not be able to get a clean sound at band volume.

News to me, will have to check that out! There is a tube in that circuit to help with long cables, ect. And I suppose it could add gain. I've always just kept mine at about 12:00 'cause it looked "right" :lol:
See ya Jim

 

[Octavarius]

I've always thought that it's best to tweak when sitting right infront of the speaker. After all, if you mic it up, that's what the mic is going to "hear". Which generally is a much brighter and defined tone than you'll hear when standing up (assuming you have a combo on the floor).

If you don't mic it up, I'd stand a few feet away and try to move a bit around hearing how the sound changes. I usually try to set up as quickly as possible, then have a bit of time for tweaking. After a while, you'll find a few "key controls" that you alter from venue to venue.

 

[toneguy86]

I have experienced similar things. There are two things I would say: First as others have said, if the amp is not pointed at you, there will be a noticable difference. It does sound darker. In fact, I find that I end up turning my master up higher to hear it. Two solutions are to always play with the amp up so that it points towards my chest or to use a tiltback stand. I just got one of those cool little standback amp stands. I am using it for rehearsals and gigs and putting a mic on it when I gig. The standback also keeps the amp in contact with the floor which helps maintain low end response. I honestly feel like the amp sounds the same in most places and I tend to feel comfortable with the tone in most settings without much adjustment. All I ever do is is roll the treble down some on my bridge pickup if things seem a little bright. I really never have to do that much though. For bigger stages where I have good monitoring, I turn the amp up a bit and let the sound guys adjust with the PA and bring a fair amount into the monitors as well. Everything tends to sound great.

I do run my treble at nearly 3:00 on both channels, my mids at about 9:00 and bass on both at about 11:00. The presense on both channels is always at between 11:00 and noon. I never run it higher. That is where the shrillness tends to come from on this amp. I also always use the thickest setting. It gives me a lot of low mid thump.

Not sure if this helps. It may be very different for single coils or a tele. I use P90s or humbuckers in mahagany/maple top guitars.

 

[Toowoombaus]

The tone sucks to your ears? Don't think that will change by using a LSC!

I own a 50/100 watt 1x12 combo and after my last two gigs I've decided THAT'S IT! I AM FINISHED! I am selling this and I will never play through it again. EVER!

The clean channel is pretty good, except that I have to set the bass at 3 and the mid control (a low mid, ahhh... mud would be a little more accurate) is almost inaudible, but overall it is a very good clean tone. It's not as nice as my recapped 1968 Princeton Reverb but still very nice.

The dirty channel? Forget this! What a Mush-ball! I absolutely HATE this channel. This EQ is a joke! The thick, normal, thicker switch is very subtle and contrary to what the manual says (Yes I read it) there is no way I could ever think of the thick setting as a "classic British style response" or "PLexi" switch! At higher gain levels it is so compressed there are no dynamics It just feels dead.

By the way I have a Tom Anderson drop top, a Gibson Les Paul, and 1963 Duane Eddy Guild. All sound Sub Par on the dirty channel.

I should have listened to all the people on this site who said it was a "dark amp", who said "it won't cut through live", who said "do the Reeder mod, keep the bass control at 3" But NO I bought it anyway because I had two studio preamps back in the 90's and liked them.

I shouldn't have to run a F___ing parametric EQ in my effects loop to compensate for the inherent tonal problems this amp has! This is Not Right!

As far as the original post live gigs are so unpredictable for a great variety of reasons but sometimes the sound can be good. I have never had a good show with this amp in the four months I've owned it I have played about ten gigs, in clubs, bars, outdoors daytime night time and never a good tone live. Not even a t rehearsal! I mean it's O.K. but always a struggle to hear myself.

Maybe I'm just not a hot rodded Fender kind of guy, maybe for dirty sounds I like something a little more bright, less low mids, more cut.

As I'm writing this and ranting away I realized why I got rid of my Boogies before... Yeah... The same reason! Woah...

Well I just received my Rivera Venus 6 last night and did extensive test A/B ing the amps. Suffice to say the Lonestar is now in the garage not my studio. Just bought a pre Peavy Handwired Budda from 1997 and it should be here next week. I look forward to better tone from my amps.

Goodbye Boogie!

 

[djw]

The tone sucks to your ears? Don't think that will change by using a LSC!

I own a 50/100 watt 1x12 combo and after my last two gigs I've decided THAT'S IT! I AM FINISHED! I am selling this and I will never play through it again. EVER!

The clean channel is pretty good, except that I have to set the bass at 3 and the mid control (a low mid, ahhh... mud would be a little more accurate) is almost inaudible, but overall it is a very good clean tone. It's not as nice as my recapped 1968 Princeton Reverb but still very nice.

The dirty channel? Forget this! What a Mush-ball! I absolutely HATE this channel. This EQ is a joke! The thick, normal, thicker switch is very subtle and contrary to what the manual says (Yes I read it) there is no way I could ever think of the thick setting as a "classic British style response" or "PLexi" switch! At higher gain levels it is so compressed there are no dynamics It just feels dead.

By the way I have a Tom Anderson drop top, a Gibson Les Paul, and 1963 Duane Eddy Guild. All sound Sub Par on the dirty channel.

I should have listened to all the people on this site who said it was a "dark amp", who said "it won't cut through live", who said "do the Reeder mod, keep the bass control at 3" But NO I bought it anyway because I had two studio preamps back in the 90's and liked them.

I shouldn't have to run a F___ing parametric EQ in my effects loop to compensate for the inherent tonal problems this amp has! This is Not Right!

As far as the original post live gigs are so unpredictable for a great variety of reasons but sometimes the sound can be good. I have never had a good show with this amp in the four months I've owned it I have played about ten gigs, in clubs, bars, outdoors daytime night time and never a good tone live. Not even a t rehearsal! I mean it's O.K. but always a struggle to hear myself.

Maybe I'm just not a hot rodded Fender kind of guy, maybe for dirty sounds I like something a little more bright, less low mids, more cut.

As I'm writing this and ranting away I realized why I got rid of my Boogies before... Yeah... The same reason! Woah...

Well I just received my Rivera Venus 6 last night and did extensive test A/B ing the amps. Suffice to say the Lonestar is now in the garage not my studio. Just bought a pre Peavy Handwired Budda from 1997 and it should be here next week. I look forward to better tone from my amps.

Goodbye Boogie!

Uh... welcome to the Boogie Board!

 

[Toowoombaus]

Ha Ha! Thank you!