Is it my ears or can YOU hear it too?

Quote from V8guitar

Honestly.......I think if you listen hard enough to any high gain sound you can find artifacts and issues, particularly if you isolate the guitar sound.

True.

Quote from Hudiluma

Dear AdamMassacre1981!

I know exactely what you are going through, but I agree with V8guitar. It is a bug that is planted and you have to get lost of it. How? Well I have a certain favorite Mars profile for a moderate gain sound, that is depending on my daily mood sometimes a bit too harsh. Everytime that happens I noodle a while with an even more harsh JSX profile, which I like too, and than switch back to the Mars. This is maybe foolish, but for me it works most of the times.

Anyhow it is not the worst decision to have a propper setup of your axe's

All the best to everybody out there!

I think this highlights another point....there are times when I think my guitar sound is amazing and other days sounds pants....

Sometimes it can be explained by the room, speaker placement which all do make differences BUT sometimes I experience this when I have changed nothing. My view ( totally unscientific) on what influences our sound, in order:

1) Your perception

2) Your fingers

3) Speakers

4) Listening angle

5) Amp ( assuming its a similar genre of Amp - obviously a 5150 vs a Fender Blackface would put this to the top of the list)

6) Pickups

7) Guitar itself

Other stuff

Now, of course, we can argue to move any of those but my point here is we often focus on the wrong things when tone chasing.

AdamMassacre1981

Please don't use Soundcloud when you want others to comment on issues related to sound. Soundcloud is known for producing digital artefacts. I'm not saying that you're hearing something that's not there. But you will make others hear stuff that is NOT in your recordings.

Thanks, GS

Quote from V8guitar

I think this highlights another point....there are times when I think my guitar sound is amazing and other days sounds pants....

I have been writing a VST (tired of saying it), and I dialed in a certain sound that is close to perfect for me for heavier stuff. Its that magic setting that no matter what you play, it sounds amazing. So you can just write riff after riff all day long.

And 1 out of 4 times I use that sound, it sounds like trash to me.

In my case, my monitors are adding a touch of distortion. So their volume is key to getting it to that perfect spot. But some days it still just sounds bad to me. On those days I just do what V8guitar says by putting my head down and just playing.

I really like Hudiluma idea about switching to a worse sound and coming back. This is a great idea.

Quote from RosboneMako

And 1 out of 4 times I use that sound, it sounds like trash to me.

Phew, its not just me then

Quote from AdamMassacre1981

Yes! sometimes i really dig a certain tone and it sounds killer! Everything is just vibing but a few days later i hear it and that vibe has gone and i kinda hate it and wonder what the hell happened! This happens with A LOT of profiles and then i start to think well if this is happening a lot with a lot of profiles then surely its some kind of malfunction happening with my gear and then i start altering things and turning knobs and reconfiguring cables and moving monitors and buying new interfaces and crying to the lovely chaps at Kemper that my unit is broken...Jeez. Im so glad you dudes are saying this as i felt so alone in my dilemma and my brain was exploding in frustration.

There IS a light at the end of my nightmare.

\m/

The advantage with any digital gear is that it really doesn't alter...no fluctuations due to valves, or difference in mics and mic placement etc....that has helped me because I can assure myself that it is my ears and perception not the unit....so I plough on...I leave it and just play.

I used to 2fiddel with my sound duirng a gig all the time with my ENGL...I though volume was dropping, sound changing....it was of course my ears being dulled after 30 mins at 110Db....so I even knew that but it didn't stop me as I was convinced other factors were at work..

Now I never touch my rig because I know it can't change, its like a revelation!

Hope that makes sense...

Our brains adapt so fast. Thats why we can listen to music on massive perfect speakers or an old hand held AM radio. Our brains convert it to music and balance it out. But when we go from one sound to another real fast, our brains go "bruh, this aint right". It takes you shutting off your brain and playing for like 5 or 10 minutes before the small EQ differences get adjusted in our brains.

As V8 said, that is why a Kemper is so good. You logically know it is right. It has to be your ears or your amplification that have changed.

But man is it hard to just let it go and not start tweaking. Is there a name for this? Like we have GAS. Is there some other slang for constantly tweaking knobs?

Quote from RosboneMako

Is there a name for this? Like we have GAS. Is there some other slang for constantly tweaking knobs?

No formal term but we should create one....

My suggestions are:

• I.K.T. - Irrelevant ( because its not really needed) Knob Twiddling
• S.M.C - Selfish ( because you think your sound is the most important, regardless of the fact you are already drowning everyone out) MidGig Changes - because its all about you
• N.H.W.M.S - Never Happy With My Sound
• N.R.F.N.S - Never Ready For the Next Song - because you are bent over your amp messing with sounds and the band can't start the next song...so band and audience are waiting whilst you are in your own little world that your guitar sound must be changed or the apocalypse will start
• I.N.T.L - I Need To Be Louder - the implication that every song you turn up just to be sure that everyone in the southern hemispshere can hear you, regardless of the rest of the band or the detailed sound check you went through.
• T.W.A.T - just being a twat

Any others?

Quote from V8guitar

No formal term but we should create one....

My suggestions are:

• I.K.T. - Irrelevant ( because its not really needed) Knob Twiddling
• S.M.C - Selfish ( because you think your sound is the most important, regardless of the fact you are already drowning everyone out) MidGig Changes - because its all about you
• N.H.W.M.S - Never Happy With My Sound
• N.R.F.N.S - Never Ready For the Next Song - because you are bent over your amp messing with sounds and the band can't start the next song...so band and audience are waiting whilst you are in your own little world that your guitar sound must be changed or the apocalypse will start
• I.N.T.L - I Need To Be Louder - the implication that every song you turn up just to be sure that everyone in the southern hemispshere can hear you, regardless of the rest of the band or the detailed sound check you went through.
• T.W.A.T - just being a twat

Any others?

P.K.T.D.S. Permanent Knob Twiddling Distress Syndrome, your distress and everyone else’s

Quote from V8guitar

No formal term but we should create one....

My suggestions are:

• I.K.T. - Irrelevant ( because its not really needed) Knob Twiddling
• S.M.C - Selfish ( because you think your sound is the most important, regardless of the fact you are already drowning everyone out) MidGig Changes - because its all about you
• N.H.W.M.S - Never Happy With My Sound
• N.R.F.N.S - Never Ready For the Next Song - because you are bent over your amp messing with sounds and the band can't start the next song...so band and audience are waiting whilst you are in your own little world that your guitar sound must be changed or the apocalypse will start
• I.N.T.L - I Need To Be Louder - the implication that every song you turn up just to be sure that everyone in the southern hemispshere can hear you, regardless of the rest of the band or the detailed sound check you went through.
• T.W.A.T - just being a twat

Any others?

LOVE that list !

T.A.D.C.A.T

aka : The Audience Doesn't Care About Tone

Great list so far

I like the one that mentions being louder. Every change that makes it louder always seems to sound better no matter what.

I don't know if this helps.

I play clean and edge of breakup only (nowhere near the high gains you play) but I had a similar problem, I hated how my tone broke up in an "ugly" manner. (kinda digital artifacts similar to your example)

It bothered me for years, I was faulting my sound card and monitors and... everything else in between.

Then one day I was on the Sheptone pickup site listening to demos of pickups and I noticed that most of the recordings

had the same "ugly" breakup... except for the Blue Sky model, that one sounded very smooth, so I ordered it and my problems went away.

The Blue Sky pickups are not for you they are super low output PAF style but maybe there is something similar in the high gain world.