Getting your Sound

[Soloist]

I agree with you DJC, there is NOTHING like playing at high volume. The guitar reacts differently, you play with a softer touch and hear every nuance. Light pick scrapes, fret hand slides, pinch harmonics hammer ons, pull offs and heavy palm muting all sound killer at that level. Sometimes it just seems "effortless"  but sounds so percise and flawless.
Arena level is where it's at for me  :headbanger:

[rnolan]

Ahh kindred (going deaf  ) spirits LoL.  I played as loud as I could from the get go, my dad (mining engineer back then) brought home a SPL meter one day (he was worried about my hearing (and rightly so)), 1 foot off one of my speakers was 124db, and I used to put my right ear on the grill to hear it even louder. Having to learn to control such dynamics leaves one in good stead (IMHO), you also have to learn lots of "shut the guitar up" techniques which just become 2nd nature.  At the end of a song, this is were the midi CC master vol on the MP2 is your friend. But you do have to be in balance (to some extent  >:D ) with the rest of the band, there's a live volume (and for me it reasonably loud) that you shouldn't bother playing under. Just takes all the energy away  .

[DannyjoeCarter]

I knew there would be a few of you on here that liked it crazy loud 
And Richard - you are the king! 124db is Hell Yeah wake the dead volume for sure 

[rnolan]

What was that DjC, I can't quite hear you... hey it was lots of fun  >:D , but has it's down side  .

[rabidgerry]

Jeez you guy's experience is totally different from mine.

Most gigs the sound onstage is terrible.  This something I can't enjoy.  iT was something I have learnt to deal with over the years.  1-10 gigs I must be actually able to enjoy the sound I have onstage.

I agree with you DJC, there is NOTHING like playing at high volume. The guitar reacts differently, you play with a softer touch and hear every nuance. Light pick scrapes, fret hand slides, pinch harmonics hammer ons, pull offs and heavy palm muting all sound killer at that level. Sometimes it just seems "effortless"  but sounds so percise and flawless.
Arena level is where it's at for me  :headbanger:

Total opposite from my experience, you can't hear a thing.

My touch goes super heavy when I play loud with the band.  And it's generally because I cannot hear myself properly.  I noticed the other day one of my guitars I was playing in my home studio and recording with plays like a dream in that situation, where as when I took it to the practice room to play, it was awful.  Why?

Because my action was low and in the studio that is fine as I'm able to play light.  However playing it at loud volume I just was not able to play light at all and therefore had horrible tone with the same axe as I was getting too much buzz.  And then I noticed a guitar I took on tour with me was set up with a much higher action.  And now I realize why this is!!  Because clearly live I'm so much more heavy handed because it's so difficult to hear myself at gigs.

Totally different experience then from you guys 

[Dante]

Forgive me, I have been busy lately, but I wanna chime in here. My hearing suffered a great amount of hi freq damage from working on an airplane for 6 years, flying all over the world as a kid in the U.S. Air Force. I cannot withstand a cymbal crash or loud rim shot, it kills me. I am very careful not to subject myself to these situations.

Most times, at home, I crank my amp in the bedroom and play along with the music in the adjoining TV room. (I live alone, so I can do this) I have the pedals just outside the bedroom door, and I'm far away enough that I can play the stereo pretty loud (not gig levels).

To get a REAL idea of gig sound, I mic my cab & play with headphones. The rig is at gig volume, again, I live alone. I play gigs with in-ear-monitors anyway, so this is a very accurate representation of my 'live' sound. When playing through headphones, I can easily compare my tone with the overall mix of the recording I'm practicing with. The dogs hate it, but it gets me much closer to real-life tones. We use a Presonus mixer that has a free iApp to control our individual mixes, so I have my guitar and my vocals cranked, the other vocal mics mixed, and the keys turned down more to hear myself. It's a great tool.

Our key player (who owns the Presonus mixer) saves all our personal settings. Each time we play at the Opera House, our mix is already done. Each time we play at the sports bar, the mixer is dialed in for that cavernous space. It works great, and you control your own volume in your ears. Trust me, my ears still ring, they have forever, but it's much nicer than standing next to a crash cymbal that's being treated like a punching bag.

[rnolan]

Hey RG, it's hard to get the balance right on stage, and like you I play harder (than I otherwise would) when I can't hear myself properly. While I still play quite loud, I also need to be in balance with the rest of the band, I don't like being too loud and not hear the other instruments. I also try to get my cab(s) up so they open up on my ears and not my knees, thus I play softer and I don't get hassled to turn down (story of my life  ).  At rehearsals (and some small gigs) it's not too bad as we control where things go, and I put quite a bit of energy into everyone having a good sound where they are standing.  On stage, you get what you get (depending on the gig/stage/PA etc). Probably the best sound at a gig I had was a B&S in Yass on the back of 2 semi's (so there was decent stage depth). I was using a Yamaha quad box (wired stereo and stereo micked) as far back as I could get it and up on a road case.  I had 2 banana wedges (2 x 15" + horn) in stereo to myself, side fill (I was on stage right so close to the side fill) and the monitor engineer was a mate of mine, we spent 40 mins tweaking the foldback just the way I liked it  :whoohoo!: , then had a great sweet spot.  Other times (particularly on really wide stages), I'd get snare (and vox) in my monitor (if I got one at all LoL) and then you do the best you can....

[Orkun]

I generally use this;
Gain: 7
Bass: 9 or 12
Middle: 4 or 6
Treble: 1 or 2

Also sometimes I add a little chorus.

[DannyjoeCarter]

What was that DjC, I can't quite hear you... hey it was lots of fun  >:D , but has it's down side  .

  Yeah I feel and hear what playing at this level has done - but it's so much fun  ;D

[rabidgerry]

I cannot withstand a cymbal crash or loud rim shot, it kills me. I am very careful not to subject myself to these situations.

same for me

Trust me, my ears still ring, they have forever, but it's much nicer than standing next to a crash cymbal that's being treated like a punching bag.

Thankfully not the case for me!  Which is why I wear the musician earplugs.  However this is partly what has made me question the Hi end of my guitar at loud volumes.  With the ear plugs I can adjust the end, but then if I take them out it sounds like I've dialed in tooooooo much.  This is why I was asking about a safer way to try adjust your tone, then crank up the volume with the tone still set to the way you want it.

Perhaps when I adjust with the plug in it is accurate and it's just my ears cannot take the hi end when I take them out so I feel I need to turn it right back down again.

I know my ears have suffered damage but thankfully not as much as a lot of guys.  My ears are just sensitive which is a dam sight better than ringing constantly which would actually drive me mad!

BTW ginkgo biloba helps with tinnitus.  I take it regularly and when I had a bit of tinnitus it definitely helped.  I just take it now for blood as I have raynauds disease which affects circulation in my hands and ginkgo biloba can help with that also.   

Hey Richard,

I lso get my cabs up as high as I can, if possible at gigs.  Some sound men understand and some do not and think I'm being awkward.  At our rehearsal room my cabs are up high of the floor also.  However I have major issues when I turn reverb on now days in the room as I just get insane feedback.  Not sure if this is just on one guitar or not.  It's a new issue and a pain in the ass!!!

[rabidgerry]

Did something interesting today,

came into rehearsal, dialled up a little bit of loud volume.  Turned the gain way down and the treble to zero on the pre and lo end on the pre down the 0 which is in the middle for my rockmaster BTW.

Dialled in from scratch.  Basically what I ended up with was I reduced the mids on the pre to about minus 1 but I had pulled the mid shift on it which offered up a completely different throatier sound.  Then I put back the level of gain I wanted (ended up at the same place as I always have it), then dialled in the lo knob then the treble.

I got something clear and less muddier than before.  Then on my guitar amp I added a touch of thump with the resonance knob and then a bit of presence using the presence knob and definitely improved the sound.

And the even bigger thing!  I did that without ear plugs.  So when I got the ear plugs in guess what???  The tone and sound was pretty much the same as without the plugs!!  So then I cranked the volume to proper levels and I got a little more of the speakers thrown in.  All in all a lot better.  So actually dialling out some mids on my preamp worked a lot better for my tone, it kinda cleared it up and made it less muddy. 

My rockmaster has a -15 (centre 0) 15+ scale so where I have the knob now is about minus 1 but with the body pull shift engaged.  Sounds a lot better.  It's may be lacking a little 800hz but I could dial that in using my on-board EQ on the Boss GT5.

Also it appears that Peavey Rockmaster still had the original tubes in it.  I replaced them with 4 JJ'S today also.  May roll some tubes in it in the future as I have a nice cocktail going on with my studio rockmaster.

[MarshallJMP]

When you get older it's normal that the freq range of our ears goes down.
When you're 50 (like me) you should still be able to hear 12kHz (I can still hear 13kHz).
40 ==> 15kHz
30 ==> 16kHz
24 ==> 17kHz
20 ==> 19kHz

So this means that your hearing starts to decline when you pass 18.

[rabidgerry]

yes but that degradation speeds up if you subject it to things like cymbal crashes all the time.

It's not normal for your hearing to get trashed by loud music all the time.  Natural degradation is a whole other ball game, and it's different for everybody.

[Soloist]

Hey RG, glad you found a better tone. From my experience mid's make the tone, scooped mids 80's metal, boosted mids 80's glam and then everything in between. For setting up my mids on preamp presets I use this piece of advice given to me by George Lynch (yes I actually met him back in 91).  George uses this trick in the studio as well as live, boost your mids with an eq before your distortion then depending on what tone you want add or subtract some at the preamp. Finally to fine tune it add or subtract a ltitle more post amp either with fx eq or at the mixer.
I leave the pre distortion eq on all the time even for cleans. My modded boss GE7 looks like an upside down smiley face with 100 and 6.4k flat at zero. 200 and 3.2k at +2. 400 and 1.6 at +5. 800 at +8. On the MP1 my mids are between -2 to -8.
It seems like alot of excess but according to George when you boost the mids prior to the distortion it hits the amp as a harder signal causing the amp to react differently, then as you dial some out it doesn't sound flat and dull like it does if you scoop the mids only at the amp. If you get a chance try it and see what you think. You may not like it, or you may love it :headbanger: I love that 80's Hard Rock and metal tone so for me it works!

[rnolan]

The hearing loss thing is all related to the amount of exposure (volume and time) at various frequencies.  There's lots of graphs/research etc on it, my dad used to show me them all the time (industrial deafness), eg at 2.5khz @ 120db causes permanent damage after 5 mins exposure (or is it 3.5mins  ).  Then you have to leave time for your ears to recover before repeated exposure etc... Also the longer the exposure the longer the recovery time, you ears come back, but if there's been damage, they don't come back fully...