Everything I've done is wrong.. but wonderful?

[stallik]

Those of you who have been round the block a few times must know this already but for me it's a new discovery.
I've built maybe 50-60 pedals, searching for the tone I've had in my head since I was at school and believe me, that's a long time ago.
I'd gone through countless commercial boxes along the way but never found my sound. I've now found what I was after for all those years BUT. It only really happens through my main guitar, my amps that I've had for years and probably, in my room that I test everything and at the same volume.

I've recently taken everything out onto a big stage and played at much higher volume and tried a number of great guitars at the front end and some pretty cool amps at the back so got to try my favorite pedals in a whole load of different situations.

My pedals never sounded bad but they only sounded great with my own amps and guitar. My commercial pedals however, sounded pretty much the same  with all guitars and amps. The point I'm trying to make is this. I've spent years fine tuning my boxes to work specifically for me, with my own rig. I've achieved what I wanted but will no longer imagine that anyone else will feel the same about my efforts.

Final note. A much better payer than me achieved 'my' sound with a totally different rig to me but could not reproduce it using my kit so maybe fingers have a lot to do with it as well

[karbomusic]

To be honest, the older I get and the more I buy/build/play, the more I realize, I am me and that is what I sound like. That's a good thing mind you but the lesson is I stopped trying to achieve otherwise long ago and have ended up with "that sound" by simply being me. I now hear that evolve and emerge from most anything I use. There are pedals/amps/guitars I like better but that aspect has become less and less important over the years.

That brings an important point... As a part-time builder for others, I have to be aware of the above and ultimately depend on whom I build for and cater to that because as soon as what I build leaves my hands, it may sound completely different. Additionally, my design decisions are based on my playing and personality which I try to stay aware of. However, I do find it to be an advantage to be a somewhat highly experience player in real world gigs etc. That certainly guides my design decisions many times where many of what I call good decisions would had never been made had it not been for that experience. However, I still get as much feedback as I can from other real-world players, mumble, mumble, ramble, ramble.

[vigilante397]

I'm in the same boat. I finally reached a point at which I have every single sound I need for a whole gig (my band isn't playing 2 hour sets in sold-out arenas yet  ), and I love it. But I definitely notice a difference in my tone when I get up on stage and crank my amp a bit more. I still love my sound, but it's definitely not as versatile as some commercial setups. I use a Les Paul and a lovely handwired 25w boutique combo amp, and I've noticed that similar guitars (i.e. almost anything with moderate gain humbuckers) and similar amps (medium-low wattage tube amps) sound pretty close.

The main thing that has been different in my tone is the different tone from cranking the amp onstage. I live in a relatively small condo so I don't often get to open up the amp at home while tweaking my tone, so I only really know what my tone sounds like at low volumes. My solution to this is a 1w tube amp (that I'm almost finished with) to test my tone on a cranked amp without the police showing up. 

[PRR]

"Tone" will *never* be the same, chest-pounding volume or happy-neighbor volume. Your hearing does a LOT of changes as the sound level rises.

Form-up the ceiling of the basement, pour a foot of concrete over it, no holes, then you can CRANK-it at home without much complaint. For most of us, all final-trimming has to be done in actual venues. (And even there the "tone" can change a lot from empty to packed.)

The at-home trim CAN be useful in recording. Especially now that most recording happens at home, or in smaller studios which are not so different from a large bedroom.

[Canucker]

The "sound" I'm after is, in my mind, incredibly average...nothing that would turn head with a "what on earth is that"....just get a "nice, that sounds right"....a lot of this comes from venues where the sound quality is hell and the sound people are still in the learning stages (I'm assuming? either that or paid in beer and paid in to much beer!).... yet I keep getting comments like "wow your tone is really unique" and "you don't sound like anybody else"...so maybe I've really just figured out a way to sound decent under poor conditions....but yeah it was all a matter of finding what works with my playing style...I figure if an electric guitar doesn't sound good when its unplugged its not going to sound good plugged in....and if a distortion/overdrive/fuzz doesn't sound good when your muting the strings its not going to sound good under other playing conditions...but if the sound guy is drunk your screwed!