I hate the way my gear sounds today ...

YES!! I need a whole nuther rig right now. Dang it.

 

Yea I occasionally find myself saying "whats going on?" with my usually great sounding gear, still cant put my finger on the factor though..

 

I feel like that today. I redid my pedalboard and something is funky. Despite not wanting to believe it, I have come to the definitive conclusion that the fewer pedals, cables, etc that I use, the better the tone. Thinking of downsizing.

 

DONT DOWNSIZE! what blasphemy! ha, just get an 8 to 12 way true bypass looper and that way if you dont use it, it aint in the signal path, and the route is short, one day you'l miss one of the pedals!

but hey, not my desicion, ha

 

It happens. Some stages/rooms just sound bad no matter what you're playing or how you set it. Sometimes it's just a change in the weather. Step away, come back tomorrow. Don't do anything rash. I've made that mistake waaay too many times

 

That happens all the time and funny how today my rig didn't sound as blissful. It sounded great yesturday and everything was the same...

I'm sure its my ears today.

We'll try again tomorrow...

 

Yep, that's when I crack open a few brews and go do something else. Then I come back once I'm a little toasty and you'd be amazed how much better it sounds.

 

This usually happens at least once every couple of weeks. Most of the time I am very stoked with my rig but there are days that it just sounds like ass and I think about selling everything and starting over from scratch. Thankfully I have never done that though I have been tempted. I bet your rig will sound completely different tomorrow. It's just another crazy phenomenon that we guitarist experience.

 

Might have a sinus infection coming on. I lost my blackface Vibroverb to a not yet diagnosed sinus infection. Boy, I miss it. Had I been well, a different amp may have gone up on the block!!!

 

blame it on the tubes.. i think they're effected by the weather... or even your mood.


*cosmic*

 

Sometimes it's a sign that something's actually wrong. It might not be just how your ears are hearing that day.

Quite a few years ago, I had just set up my gear on stage at a gig and started trying everything out. My clean tone sounded really bad - very midrangy and boxy with no high end "chime". I checked the knobs on my amp - they were set properly. I checked my guitar - nope, not that, since the volume and tone knobs were turned all the way up. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Maybe a tube had gone south? Eventually, I realized my wah pedal had been turned on. (Vintage style wah pedals having no status LED seems like a silly anachronism nowadays.) It was boosting a large frequency response spike in the midrange and making my clean tone sound so bad.

 

I think the rig thing happens to everyone. I do know that as soon as I start considering selling a pedal I might as well put it on the chopping block because within a week it's going to be a goner. Never had one that made it yet after that first thought creeps into my mind.

 

Sometimes i miss the simplicity of a rack system

 

You guys need to practise more and worry less about the gear. Buy an acoustic.

 

Absolutely...have been going through the same thing for some time now.
I thought I was getting some great sounds, but over time, I kept changing things, and seemed to be in a slump where no matter what pedals I used, I wasn't getting where I think I had it before.

I'm not saying "drop all pedals", but...when it gets like this for too long, I like to go back to guitar->amp, spend time on that alone (and often find that some satisfying stuff...but not always..). If I can get that sounding great then carefully add one pedal at a time, stop and go back when I feel it degrading again.

Usually, after just guitar, I tend to add...fuzz...play with different ones, see which grabs me, then wah, then OD, then delay...from there I might stop or might add chorus or one other thing..

This happens over a few days.

Some days you just hear the bad in your tone, somedays uninspired too, so if I find it sounds like crap one day....I wait and see how it sounds the next couple...it might just be me, my ears, etc. for a time.

 

This has happened to me so many times, that by the time I got to your second sentence, I immidiately thought "it's his wah on..."

Yet, when it happens to me it can take a lot longer to diagnose

The REAL problem is when the wah is in an "almost normal" position...if it is toe or heel or close to either I recognize it instantly, but if it is somewhere in there that is not to bad I have spent time turn off all pedals, adjust amp over and over...and ALMOST get a normal sound.

And yeah...and LED ought to be required! They aren't listening to us at the factories...

 

I'm learning that patience is indeed a virtue, still working on that one!! It's not like I haven't figured this out, but a tube amp needs to be good and hot before givin up the goods. And i've noticed in my case, not just on standby. When I rehearse alone I don't think it ever really gets warmed up. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 songs. But ya, it goes like that with tones. I've also found my playing and perception of it are usually the biggest issues.

P.S. The Wah thing has got me a few times!! The first time it took me a while to figure out. Even the drumnmer called me a dumbass!!

 

I always recognise when a wah is on, no problems, but my BOSS VWah caught me out on new years eve. The drive knob for the built in drive sims had been knocked on, resulting in a sim of a BOSS OD1 activating with the gain on 0.1....
Killed my sound for the first few songs.