I was told my tone was too thin...

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fleezinator
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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by fleezinator » Tue Nov 02, 2021 10:46 am

marqueemoon wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:07 am
If you’re running direct via a Helix and playing primarily in the same building over the same sound system why not just bring a long cable next time so you can hear what the audience hears for yourself and tweak a preset for this guitar accordingly?
True. The thought has occurred to me in the past to have him record off the board as we can all listen back as reference but 1) he's usually swamped the morning of 2) not sure if he has the means to do so 3) he might take offense as he could take it as a comment on his work.

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øøøøøøø
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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by øøøøøøø » Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:05 pm

fleezinator wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 10:41 am
øøøøøøø wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 10:02 am
Changing the max resistance of the pot moves the resonant frequency of the system. It’s not quite as simple as “less treble bleeds off to ground,” (but if that’s a useful shorthand to you, it’s probably not going to hurt anyone!)
I'm gonna potentially show off my ignorance here in the hopes that I'm picking up what you're putting down. Is this generally what you're saying?

Image
Sort of, but I had my facts wrong, and want to correct what I said earlier.

I think I had it backwards—changing the capacitance is what moves the resonant peak as you illustrated (except generally the resonant peak occurs a bit before a natural rolloff as the pickup runs out of bandwidth)

Changing the volume pot value will increase the amplitude of the resonance—a sharper peak.

In googling to fact-check myself, I found this helpful graphic:

Image

It’s described as a Stratocaster pickup with 470pF of capacitance and varying amounts of resistive load.

Cable capacitance is significant here—to obtain the 470pF used for the experiment graphed above, you’d only need about ten to twenty feet of decent-quality cable. Old coily cable is more capacitive than that, some super high-end cables slightly less-so.

This is the same experiment, but with a constant 10M resistive load and varying capacitive loads:

Image

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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by marqueemoon » Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:20 pm

fleezinator wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 10:46 am
marqueemoon wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:07 am
If you’re running direct via a Helix and playing primarily in the same building over the same sound system why not just bring a long cable next time so you can hear what the audience hears for yourself and tweak a preset for this guitar accordingly?
True. The thought has occurred to me in the past to have him record off the board as we can all listen back as reference but 1) he's usually swamped the morning of 2) not sure if he has the means to do so 3) he might take offense as he could take it as a comment on his work.
I don’t agree with #3. You’re considering swapping pots and caps in your guitar to please this person but are worried about offending him by asking to hear for yourself what he’s hearing so you can help address the problem?

This seems like a “help me help you” situation.

My only other gear-related comment is Jazzmasters can get hashy sounding with some overdrives, particularly some flavors of “transparent” overdrive. A pedal that sounds great with a Tele even in the bridge position can sound like hot garbage with a JM.

I lke a Klone for the overdrive job with a JM as even at its most stabby it doesn’t get too harsh.

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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by fleezinator » Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:50 pm

marqueemoon wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:20 pm
I don’t agree with #3. You’re considering swapping pots and caps in your guitar to please this person but are worried about offending him by asking to hear for yourself what he’s hearing so you can help address the problem?

This seems like a “help me help you” situation.

My only other gear-related comment is Jazzmasters can get hashy sounding with some overdrives, particularly some flavors of “transparent” overdrive. A pedal that sounds great with a Tele even in the bridge position can sound like hot garbage with a JM.

I lke a Klone for the overdrive job with a JM as even at its most stabby it doesn’t get too harsh.
That's fair, I'll preface the ask with that in mind.

As this was my first time playing out the JM, I didn't take the time to dial in my main patch to accommodate these Novaks, which in retrospect was a dummy move. That patch was built around my tele & strat so the thought was another single coil guitar should run thru this fine :derp:

Interesting to read about JMs & some types of ODs. I'll have to give that part of the signal chain some thoughtful play. Thanks!
øøøøøøø wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:05 pm
In googling to fact-check myself, I found this helpful graphic:
I'm trying to wrap my head around this knowledge bomb & will marinate on it some as this is outside my wheelhouse. thx!

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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by jorri » Wed Nov 03, 2021 5:29 am

So if you have a Helix and since you asked, you can boost lows and mids.
I am not familiar with the device but can you put a setting change as a preset on the 'amp' when you switch guitars? Or a graphic eq emulation?

Well, i would say giving a list of frequencies to boost can be a mistake as it depends whats 'missing'. But lets say youve scooped the mids and ran through a bright channel for a p90 and now we are discussing potentiometer changes doesnt make much sense- eq it.

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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by gibs » Fri Nov 05, 2021 9:12 pm

fleezinator wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 6:04 pm
adamrobertt wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:53 pm
parry wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 12:00 pm
On swapping pots...

is that what switching from 1 meg pots, to 250k would do though? Thicken up the tone?
I've always understood it to be the opposite. That 1 meg pots was like drinking from "Teh TOANZ" firehose and 250s were like a trickle used to reign in hotter pups like humbuckers, etc...
The higher the resistance, the more high frequencies you get. The lower the value, the less high frequencies you get.
This is my understanding of it tho I'm not sure how much different introducing 250k pots in this case would be different than dialing in a 1 meg pot down to 2 or 3. I'm guessing either case is they both act as a low pass filter and don't really do much to 'thicken' sound as it's subtractive.
alexpigment wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 5:36 pm
To the OP, it might be worth researching a more overwound bridge pickup. I'm a fan of making the bridge at least 1-2k hotter than the neck, assuming the same general construction between the two.
I've read that the JM-Fat is a popular bridge to pair with the JM-V neck to get more balance. I'll have to seek out sound demos.

Thanks for the input thus far. I think I'll need to spend more time sculpting some frequencies in the Helix specifically for this guitar as is. I know not one size fits all when it comes to pairing an axe with an amp/amp model and I haven't really exhausted any of the options immediately available to me in the box. Funny thing is even if I get this dialed in in isolation, I know the sound guy is ultimately gonna manipulate the signal to fit the mix anyways.

How do you all go about shaping your tone? Is it different for a live context vs recording? Seeing as the Helix's sound is modeled to emulate a recorded sound as if you're in the studio vs sitting in front of an amp, that changes things too. Since I can't replicate the signal coming off the PA at church, would I be better off monitoring thru headphones, my studio monitors or an amp as reference?
At the 57second mark is a nice quick demo of the fat and V, no personal experience, but I thought the bridge sounded pretty full in the vid.

https://youtu.be/Bn2a3u5f78M

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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by DrQuasar » Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:51 pm

Did you try that thing where you pretend to fiddle around with knobs and then ask if that's better? That works sometimes too. :P

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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by fuzzking » Tue Nov 16, 2021 1:05 pm

first of all what is 'tone'? nothing but a common disnomer. Was 'your tone' too harsh, too thin, too trebley?' What did the sound guy mean to say? Can he even communicate? There is no such thing as 'tone' (well, there is, but it's about timbre and such, afairc... I will stand corrected by Brad) Anyway, try some 250-500k pots. Easy fix.I promise the guitar will blend in much better with the choir and soundguy won't have to move a finger (seems like what he's used to... not moving a finger). Praise.
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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by fuzzking » Tue Nov 16, 2021 1:14 pm

DrQuasar wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:51 pm
Did you try that thing where you pretend to fiddle around with knobs and then ask if that's better? That works sometimes too. :P

Okay, short story: so I got paid for playing some records on new year's eve. Quite exhilarating and funny. Bar owner/sound guy pushed me off my mixing desk, had fun for 5 mins, and then I claimed I blew it. They fucked up the P.A. whatever. After 5 mins of booing from the crowd, I managed to at least plug in my phone so there would at least be any kind of music playing. When people started dancing again, 'bar owner' came back, started fiddlling with defunct controls and said"yeah Mike, that's how you do it! you gotta learn!". Shit wasn't even connected. Stories like these x 1.000.000.

(edit I used to work for TV and it's even worse there.

'Thin tone', what does that even mean?
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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by fuzzking » Wed Nov 17, 2021 1:38 pm

'tone' is a common disnomer. hope you'll have it sorted out, and hilariousness might happen... anyway, communication is KING
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Re: I was told my tone was too thin...

Post by luau » Thu Nov 18, 2021 5:55 am

DrQuasar wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:51 pm
Did you try that thing where you pretend to fiddle around with knobs and then ask if that's better? That works sometimes too. :P
Or turn the bass all the way down, the treble all the way up, and ask if that's better. Then put it back the way it was and ask again.

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