Am I going tone deaf???

jester

jester

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Hello guys,
I have recently come across the following problem: In one of the spaces we play, I have trouble with hearing the notes I play properly. It sounds as if every note I play is out of key with the guitars and voice! Guitars and voice sound good together, but the bass sounds completely off! It is very annoying and stressful to play like this, at first I thought there was something wrong with me. I am guessing for some reason I am hearing higher overtones as the main note. Has anyone of the seasoned players around here had a similar experience? Any tips on what might be wrong? The bass is properly set up and intonated.
Thanks.
 
Can you give us some more info such as if you are playing chords, something new, playing roots against guitar chords? Are you sure the guitar is tuned right? Geetar playing right chord compared to your chords or appegios? Maybe your are getting some echo off the walls?
 
I play basic stuff, many songs that are straight rock with 8ths and lots of root notes, and there's a great mismatch with the guitars and voice, which sound great together. Both our guitarists have tuners and tune regularly, I have checked my tuning as well, last time it was mid-gig. The bass intonation is also very good. The sound guy always asks me to lower the bass on the combo i use as a monitor because he mentions a standing wave that is created in the room, he says if I don't cut bass things rattle in the venue. The venue is deep, not wide and the ceiling is much lower over the stage. If it's an echo or standing wave, is there anything I can do about it? It's a nightmare playing like this.
 
Have you checked the tuner's calibration? Sometimes you can change it by mistake. Be sure it is 440

Sometimes, some weird harmonics comes back because of the room, and you have this feeling that everything is out of tune. It happened to me a lot of times, hihi :-0
 
Like Flo said, check the 440. Other wise try and notice the if it is specific notes(frequencies) that are matching the natural frequency of the room and try to narrow that down if the case. Then you at least know the note and location doing it and you can try and stay away from it or play some tastey lines instead of roots hitting the frequency or in the last result just bear with it. there is an app for I phones that show the frequencies and most prevelant so you can cut the one that is cutting it such as feedback in monitors/pa or maybe in this case but not sure.
 
You say that your bass is set-up and intonated correctly but are the guitarists? Have you all tried tuning using ONE tuner, this would eliminate any issues with duff tuners.

Is this problem specific to one venue/location?

Have you tried using an isolation platform for your combo/cab; I use an Auralex Gramma Pad (GRAMMA Isolation Riser - Acoustic sound isolation products from Auralex Acoustics.) and it has (almost) revolutionised the consistency of my sound. The GP is basically a foam based plinth that helps eliminate floor coupling issues with your sound and it DOESN'T remove all of the bottom end from your sound as I feared it would. A beer crate will almost do as well as a fancy expensive GP! LOL
 
A fan or air conditioner in the room can sometime throws off pitch perception...
 
Florin said:
Really? How?
Click to expand...

It has to do with the sound waves reflecting off the fan blades as they move. I discovered this as a little kid. The easiest way is to talk into a fan.

Like this:


This guy is doing it from the front, but I think it's easier to do it from behind. Try it! It can actually be quite entertaining, hehe. Works for ceiling fans too!
 
Haha, you make me buy a fan.
Or I will try with the car's fan.

BTW, you know on the car's cooler jar it says to not open it when it is hot? I've seen yesterday why. A friend of mine did it, and he has terrible burns on the hand. Ouch!!!
 
The hissing sound of air from a fan or similar device creates white noise and because white noise contains a wide range of frequencies it can mask other sounds.
 
Gastrok said:
The hissing sound of air from a fan or similar device creates white noise and because white noise contains a wide range of frequencies it can mask other sounds.
Click to expand...

It's quite possible this might be a culprit, I think the air condition vent is right above me.
 
Florin said:
Haha, you make me buy a fan.
Or I will try with the car's fan.

BTW, you know on the car's cooler jar it says to not open it when it is hot? I've seen yesterday why. A friend of mine did it, and he has terrible burns on the hand. Ouch!!!
Click to expand...

Everyone does that once in their life.It's good to get it out of the way ;)
 
jester said:
It's quite possible this might be a culprit, I think the air condition vent is right above me.
Click to expand...

I was experiencing this same phenomenon about 4 months ago.... I was jamming with this metal band and we were playing in a garage "studio". They had an air conditioner blasting and of course the concrete floors.... two guitars whaling at full volume and my ears couldn't handle all the frequencies. My bass sounded like every note was out of tune and I kept stopping cause it was screwing with me. We all tuned with the same tuner and it just didn't sound right. None of the other guys heard what I was hearing so that bothered me even worse. As soon as I got home, I plugged in my bass just to make sure I wasn't going tone deaf.... sure enough everything sounded fine. Our bodies have a great way of telling us when it's being overloaded (weight, volume, stress, etc) and that day the volume was definitely overloading my senses. I haven't jammed with those guys since then and my eardrums thank me daily.
 
ALB said:
I was experiencing this same phenomenon about 4 months ago.... I was jamming with this metal band and we were playing in a garage "studio". They had an air conditioner blasting and of course the concrete floors.... two guitars whaling at full volume and my ears couldn't handle all the frequencies. My bass sounded like every note was out of tune and I kept stopping cause it was screwing with me. We all tuned with the same tuner and it just didn't sound right. None of the other guys heard what I was hearing so that bothered me even worse. As soon as I got home, I plugged in my bass just to make sure I wasn't going tone deaf.... sure enough everything sounded fine. Our bodies have a great way of telling us when it's being overloaded (weight, volume, stress, etc) and that day the volume was definitely overloading my senses. I haven't jammed with those guys since then and my eardrums thank me daily.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your comment! I have a similar situation, two loud guitars and one LOUD drummer really close to me. It seems it is a matter of psychoacoustics and sensory overload as you describe. I ask the guitarist in front of me if he hears the out of tune notes and he tells me everything sounds fine to him, very frustrating!
 
When stuff like this happens, my eyes water from the pain, lol.
 
I have seen people burned and scarred real bad from hot coolant.the worst damger is you could get some in the face and get blinded.please becareful when working on your car it's easy to get lax and end up hurt real bad'
 
I just had this revelation. Last time we played our two guitarists had their cabs facing each other. This could cause some serious amplification/cancellation of frequencies. I 'll ask one of them today to put his cab behind him and not to his side, we 'll see what happens.
 
Same problems here. Sometimes I think someones off key terribly during a gig, I stare around, but nobody seem to notice but me. While tuning everybody's okey. I guess the same thing as people tell above.
Same with my bass amp sometimes. I hear certain notes louder on a certain position, but my bandmates don't hear it. If I do two steps to the front it's over.

Another thing happens when I switch from a longscale bass to a shortscale one. Some notes just sound different on a shortscale bass.
 
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