A confession ... observation ... and maybe a lesson?

4114Effects · September 2017

thermionic said:

Ask him if he's bought a Russ Andrews mains cable to power his board before you do anything else.

Exactly. It just proves that people expecting to hear a difference usually do. Same as spending £100 on a mains cable - you expect to hear an improvement so somehow, magically, you do. Fascinating stuff.

Octafish · September 2017

Ha, ha that's very interesting and illuminating. I've noticed myself with some of my DIY build pedals that I almost find myself thinking they sound better after I've added graphics/art to the front to the case even though I know I've done nothing to the electrics.

I'm always a bit sceptical when people claim that x, y or z pickups make a hugh difference, when they're essentially a very similar spec as the previous ones and the guitar has been out of the owners hands for a week or two while the new pickups are fitted by a tech.

aord43 · September 2017

We hear (and see, taste etc) what we want to. Double-blind testing is the only safe way to know for sure!

JohnPerry · September 2017

Jeff Senn, the Nashville guitar builder, told me a similar tale once. He was the tech on a big country tour and the bass player said his Precision wasn't feeling quite right and left it out for Jeff to sort.

Jeff got sidetracked, totally forgot. Bass player returns an hour later, picks up bass: "Hey Jeff, I don't know what you've done to this, man, but it's absolutely transformed."

For my own part I painted my Tech 21 Liverpool over the weekend in a minimalist all-white gloss. Sounds way better

clarkefan · September 2017

Could be optimum bias, when you're "pre-loaded" to like something shiny and new, weird psychological stuff. Works the other way too, I'm usually "right" when I'm expecting not to like something.

Don't tell him if you didn't charge him, no harm no foul, he's happy?

thermionic · September 2017

This reminds me of the story about a certain cycling team in the 80s. The old bikes would be sold off at the end of the season and the riders normally get new ones at the start of the following season, when new sponsors came on board etc. This was the days when all top end bike frames were made of lightweight steel tubing. The riders would agree that a hard season of racing would result in the bike frames losing some resilience or springiness due to metal fatigue or whatever and would feel "tired".

One year, as a cost cutting measure, the team decided to strip down the bikes, get the workshop to respray the frames in the new colour scheme, and rebuild them with new components. Of course, all the riders were extremely pleased with their lovely new springy and resilient frames.

midlifecrisis · September 2017

if you dont tell him you run the risk of him asking you to put it back to how it was , in a week or two

BintyTwanger77 · September 2017

Teetonetal said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Definitely tell him. I find this fascinating, though, and pretty funny. I've definitely been victim to this, my brain playing tricks on my ears, or however you want to put it. You can convince yourself that your set up sounds perfect one day then slightly off the next, having made no changes at all.

Given that from one day to the next I can love / hate my rig, I've always considered chasing tone a pointless exercise. I do nearly all my playing after working or having kids screeching in the background. I reckon my ear fatigue by that point is so advanced that trying to pin point the difference between two very similar sounds is a non starter. I know what I like, I get my sound roughly there an we are good to go.

Yep. I can remember on a number of occasions thinking something was wrong with my set up, and thinking everything sounded clangy and terrible...and it turns out it was just my ears playing tricks. I am learning to deal with this.

juansolo · September 2017

Part of me says tell him, part of me says don't as he's happy. As a fellow builder, I lean towards the latter.

I've had a similar situation where someone asked me to modify a pedal to give it more bottom end. Which I advised heavily against after trying it and finding out that to give it enough more bottom end to make the boost noticeable, made the pedal flubby, which I told him. He still wanted more bottom end (before even hearing the modded pedal), so I did what he asked but intentionally put a trimmer in there so it could be dialled back to somewhere near stock if he didn't like it. He didn't like it, it was too flubby.

This is why I don't modify pedals for people any more to 'tweak them to the sound in their heads'. Because inevitably messing with the eq of a circuit can fundamentally change it's sound. Also because tone chasing is the equivalent of an audiophile in Hi-Fi, and they will never actually be happy as it's always in their head that it could be better...

I've seen people on this forum buy and sell pedals that are fundamentally the same thing by different names over and over again chasing tone. That just seems madness to me. The pedals are all going to be in a similar area and playing with a band, any small nuance difference is going to vanish. No place is this more obvious that in the Klone threads. But I've seen it with other pedals, I just tend to keep out of it because to some, these tiny difference are massive, and who am I to say that that's not worth swapping/modding things for?

Sporky · September 2017

Clearly the original or new switch is haunted; you have either exorcised or possessed the pedal in the process of replacing the switch.

Obvs really.

juansolo · September 2017

midlifecrisis said:

if you dont tell him you run the risk of him asking you to put it back to how it was , in a week or two

To be fair that's simple also...

siraxeman · September 2017

does nobody realise teh toanz are in teh switch. Its obvs.

ICBM · September 2017

A few days ago the windscreen wiper arm on my car broke - one of those pantograph-type ones where there are two short arms which connect to the longer one that actually sweeps across the windscreen so it covers more than a simple quadrant, with roller bearings at the joints... one of which had disintegrated. The local parts place didn't have one in stock so I needed to go to the nearest official dealer.

The journey is about 20 miles down a typical country A-road - a nice drive on a dry sunny morning like this one was, but a bit more challenging than just pointing it down a motorway. Anyway - I drove down there and noticed nothing unusual. Changed the arm (easy job, two large nuts and a couple of plastic covers - five minutes max in the dealer's car park) and drove back.

What a difference - on the way back, the car's handling had improved massively. The irritating vibration when cornering on a rough surface was gone, the steering was noticeably more positive and the engine response to acceleration was a lot smoother. It just shows what a difference fitting manufacturer's own proper part makes compared to some third-party knock-off - a good thing given the price!

kjdowd · September 2017

ICBM said:

A few days ago the windscreen wiper arm on my car broke - one of those pantograph-type ones where there are two short arms which connect to the longer one that actually sweeps across the windscreen so it covers more than a simple quadrant, with roller bearings at the joints... one of which had disintegrated. The local parts place didn't have one in stock so I needed to go to the nearest official dealer.

The journey is about 20 miles down a typical country A-road - a nice drive on a dry sunny morning like this one was, but a bit more challenging than just pointing it down a motorway. Anyway - I drove down there and noticed nothing unusual. Changed the arm (easy job, two large nuts and a couple of plastic covers - five minutes max in the dealer's car park) and drove back.

What a difference - on the way back, the car's handling had improved massively. The irritating vibration when cornering on a rough surface was gone, the steering was noticeably more positive and the engine response to acceleration was a lot smoother. It just shows what a difference fitting manufacturer's own proper part makes compared to some third-party knock-off - a good thing given the price!

I think pantograph is my favourite word. There is a sign at a London train station (Farringdon?) that reads "Drivers. Please remember to drop the pantograph". Most pleasing.

Sporky · September 2017

Out of interest, has anyone here ever been part of a pantograph horse?

kjdowd · September 2017

That would be a complicated construction...

JohnPerry · September 2017

ICBM said:

A few days ago the windscreen wiper arm on my car broke - one of those pantograph-type ones where there are two short arms which connect to the longer one that actually sweeps across the windscreen so it covers more than a simple quadrant, with roller bearings at the joints... one of which had disintegrated. The local parts place didn't have one in stock so I needed to go to the nearest official dealer.

The journey is about 20 miles down a typical country A-road - a nice drive on a dry sunny morning like this one was, but a bit more challenging than just pointing it down a motorway. Anyway - I drove down there and noticed nothing unusual. Changed the arm (easy job, two large nuts and a couple of plastic covers - five minutes max in the dealer's car park) and drove back.

What a difference - on the way back, the car's handling had improved massively. The irritating vibration when cornering on a rough surface was gone, the steering was noticeably more positive and the engine response to acceleration was a lot smoother. It just shows what a difference fitting manufacturer's own proper part makes compared to some third-party knock-off - a good thing given the price!

All cars go faster with a full tank too

Strat_a_tat_tat · September 2017

kjdowd said:

That would be a complicated construction...

That would be an ecumenical matter.

ICBM · September 2017

JohnPerry said:

All cars go faster with a full tank too

Downhill, that's true!

Grunfeld · September 2017

4114Effects said:

Do I tell him I forgot to do the mods and risk him feeling like an idiot? Or do I just leave it as he's very pleased with the "modded" pedal?

Don't fess up. Leave him feeling happy.
There is an anecdotal story of Hendrix trying every wah in the store before being happy with the "very last one" which was actually the first one he'd tried. Preconceptions colour everything in life from what we think about people to how we think a glass of wine tastes based on bottle and its label. They are going to colour what we hear too.

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A confession ... observation ... and maybe a lesson?

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