The Steel Guitar Forum

My tone seems to change quite often even in the same room with nothing touched or moved from one day to another. Sometimes i think its possible a cord or patch cable could have a little short but maybe not show up when i test my cables. I wish i could figure this out. I played Sat and sounded decent and went to the Hummingbird Jam with the same settings and my system sounde like a million dollars. But like i said at home with nothing moved it seems to change with nothing moved or touched. How many of you experience this???

Thanks,
Gary.

Some Days Or Nights Things Sound Differnt Could Be The Way We Hear It. I Think We All Have Thes Times. SONNY.

Gary, humidity changes the tone a lot, physically in the guitar itself, and also changing you physically. Barometric pressure also affects your hearing, some people more than others. Hope you're doing well, JimmyP

gary....happens to all of us (i hope)
i use the same steel. amp, and settings everywhere i play. (old zum, ltd400, and a delay stomp box).
some nights it sounds so good i can't even screw up!
other nights i can't play one string in tune. and of course, the louder it gets in a club, the worse the tone gets...like jim and sonny say, sometimes your hearing is just different, or your body isn't on top of the task. the way i deal with it is just do your best each time, there will be a great day coming up!

Atmospheric pressure is changing daily, it affects your amp, guitar AND your ears!

It would be very unusual if you tone didn't change often.

Bobbe

temp. changes the pick-up as well and it doesn't take much to change the ohms either





TOMMY YOUNG
MAX-TONE MODIFICATIONS
WHEN YOUR GUITARS TONE HAS TO BE ITS VERY BEST

Voltage fluctuation. It has a huge effect.

Gravity fluctuation. It happens this time every year when Mercury is in retrograde.

Acid reflux (uation). If your stomach doesn't feel right, your ears don't hear right.

Seems like so many things can flux up your tone but the thing that bugs me is when you are sitting there on the stage, none of the other guys are there yet and you have this tone from heaven.

Then the band kicks off and your tone sucks worse than finding out there's a Gay rally at the club that night.

I told my wife I would be playing music this weekend and her tone changed almost instantly.

Ceiling fans will definitely make a change in what you hear, I don't know if you have any of those.

Room density is a big factor. As in amount of people or lack there of. You sound check to no one there then, (one hopes), the room fills up and the density changes. Also humidity or humility make a difference.

CAB

One night I had a cold and one ear stopped up. I lost all the bass tone until the ear opened up then things went back to normal.

My tone seems to go from crappy to crappier and back again.

If your strings are good, and your amp settings hasn't changed, just play it. You might only have 1 out of 100, that can hear any difference in tone. Same goes for a bad note, or forgetting the tune for a few measures. Just fake it then. Only you, and maybe the band knows you goofed. Just don't stop.

I have heard that being considered "arrogant" and being perceived as a" bully" can impact one's tone immensely.

If it's cold, I don't feel like I sound as good. If I'm tired, I don't sound as good either. Lots of things change.

Several factors come in to play (no pun intended).

Where you sit in a space effects the reflected sound and the phase cancellation which reflected sound creates. So where you are in a roon makes a lot of difference with regard to how good or not the sound will be to your ears.

Cables can develop intermittent anomalies do to shielding, fatigue of individual wire strands, and even fatigue at the solder joints.

Humidity effects many components in the signal chain including the guitar, speaker cones, wire insulation (in some cases), and older capacitors can get flaky when the humidity goes up or down.

The ambient sound pressure level where we are or were recently can effect the way in which we perceive sound, tone, and equalization. I actually bring ear plugs to certain venues (which also wreaks havoc on perceived equalization) because sometime they just run the sound system too loud.

Some speakers and speaker units are very poor at producing full audio spectrum balance at low volume levels (usually: the heavier the coil/cone the the more prone to low volume spectrum anomalies). So a speaker dialed for a large room may sound much better than it will in a very small room in ones home.

The acoustical properties of the space also does effect the realized equalization curve. For example hard cinderblock walls in a squarish room can really improve bass response over a similar speaker outdoors (with no walls at all). Carpeting over a wood floor, or a painted poured-concrete floor in otherwise similar rooms will realize very different EQ curves.

Human bodies and furniture can effect the EQ curve of a space. The more bodies (by density) the more soft tissue you have to soak up specific frequency ranges.

Also how quickly your ears adjust and equillibtate when barometric presssure changes will effect your hearing and how you preceive sound.

There are many other factors. But you are correct that what you hear and how you hear it is not constant when all other things may appear to be the same.

Hey, talk about tone changes! I can sit in my living room and just be happy as can be with my playing and tone. However, while visiting Steel Guitar Nashville and setting in a chair listening to Bobbe Seymour play his Emmons live and then he says, "OK, here, try this Emmons and see how you like it". Then he proceeds to set in a chair facing you with his arms folded looking at you and you have only been hacking at it for about 3 years! My tone and everything else went to hell in a hand basket!!
For some unknown reason, I just could not get the same tone out of the guitar that he could.
Wally

It's mainly that the tone gods are fickle. Sometimes they favor you...and sometimes your'e on their s#*t list!

Michael Johnstone wrote:Gravity fluctuation. It happens this time every year when Mercury is in retrograde.

I knew there was something wrong this week.

it's because it's a solid state amp....
Get a tube amp and never have that trouble again; plus your steel guitar will now sound like a steel guitar and not some sytheziser.
Ricky

It's the light reflecting off your guitar.When it bounces off it sucks the tone away with it..That's why "BLACK" is better.Doesn't reflect as much..
This has been provin in many studies..

But Papa Joe, Black reflects heat. Which would mean that when you play the hot licks on a black guitar, they don't SOUND as hot as from a white or red one....
hm...