Quiet Prototyping Vs. Loud Gigging

[Gus]

When friends of mine want effects adjusted or built I sometimes have them come to the house.  Now my windows are well sealed and the house is masonry.  This helps keep the sound in the house.
I have them bring the amp and guitar or bass and we adjust the effect(s) at stage volume
A good deal of the adjustment is EQ both high pass and low pass and sometimes more

Now a studio story
A friend has a nice studio.  One day when I brought some microphones I built over for testing they brought out a microphone and asked me what I thought about it with headphones.  It sounded "thin" then they played a mixed heavy rock mix and it sounded great being used on the lead vocals.
So when I build a condenser microphone I sometimes adjust it for solo or for a mix in a band

So another adjustment is thinking about what instruments and amps the band is using and finding places in the overall mix to be heard

After a while you can sometimes know a "thin" sound might sound good on stage.

Every part need its space in frequency and level.

Think about this, how can you hear an opera singer over the orchestra? One link
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=expert-opera-singer

FWIW I think the stock boss SD 1 is good effect on stage.  I often wonder why people "mod" it, maybe for home use?

[davent]

What sort of effect would be had if you just miked your setup that sounds great at home and boosted that with a high power clean amp/PA?

[DIMstompboxes]

Just wanna add more to this, biasing my dr boogey in our rehearsal (loud context with the band mix) was much easy to do unlike solo biasing at home I don't know why.

[tca]

You can always use a small amp, carefully hidden backstage, and mic it with a clean amp!

[deadastronaut]

i found SS amps to be kinder when loud,  gain/treble/bass wise..

less 'flubby'....sounded more like the 'pedal' at home levels...but loud.

i have used a pa amp and speaker before with a small mixer with good results...get out what you put in etc...good with multi fx boards too

[Buzz]

The only pedal I've made that works the same quiet or loud is a Guv'nor clone.

It helps alot that is has bass / mid / treble control.

MK 2 tonebender left me pretty unimpressed on the practice amp. Another damn fuzz face, I thought.

But a neck pickup and a JCM800 at full belt and hooooeee that pedal can do things.

[Mark Hammer]

When friends of mine want effects adjusted or built I sometimes have them come to the house.  Now my windows are well sealed and the house is masonry.  This helps keep the sound in the house.
I have them bring the amp and guitar or bass and we adjust the effect(s) at stage volume
A good deal of the adjustment is EQ both high pass and low pass and sometimes more

Now a studio story
A friend has a nice studio.  One day when I brought some microphones I built over for testing they brought out a microphone and asked me what I thought about it with headphones.  It sounded "thin" then they played a mixed heavy rock mix and it sounded great being used on the lead vocals.
So when I build a condenser microphone I sometimes adjust it for solo or for a mix in a band

So another adjustment is thinking about what instruments and amps the band is using and finding places in the overall mix to be heard

After a while you can sometimes know a "thin" sound might sound good on stage.

Every part need its space in frequency and level.

Think about this, how can you hear an opera singer over the orchestra? One link
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=expert-opera-singer
FWIW I think the stock boss SD 1 is good effect on stage.  I often wonder why people "mod" it, maybe for home use?

Same thing that lets birds locate each other in the forest: occupy a relatively unique portion of the spectrum, or have unique sonic qualities, and nothng will mask you.

[allesz]

I just cannot jump in; the OP is damn right: I mostly do myself drive and booster boxes, and fine tuning them is really hard and long process.

Everybody talked about the differences between home (low volume and, mostly, no other instruments) and gig or rehearsal (loud volume and other instruments); also if you use a tube amp (but maybe a little bit with ss amps too), the amplifier will react different to the pedal when it's pushed.

The easy one would be to have a rehearsal room and bandmates always under your roof, waiting to ear your new creation...  and patient enough to wait untill you mod that creation to make it sound good  .

My solution is to use a test box (a salvaged old effect box that hosted a lot of different effects) and put sockets (mostly made from IC sockets) in strategic parts of the circuits (mostly input caps, and crucial resistors that determine both tone or gain); of course a lot of times you didn't socket a part that, now you know, it's essential.
The process of developing an effect gets quite long, and sometimes painfull.... but at least I don't suffer the frustration of wasting a new box and parts, and lot of work for something that doesn't work good (enough at least).

Currently, after years of work (and fun too), I have a boost made by me that I like a lot and use consistently live and I am near to have an overdrive that works for me (plan to box it, and share, in a couple of months). It's not a great goal maybe, but it's all mine 

[FlyingZ]

Same thing that lets birds locate each other in the forest: occupy a relatively unique portion of the spectrum, or have unique sonic qualities, and nothng will mask you.

I like that, they avoid using ambient frequencies like leaves rustling and Bass players 

[Seljer]

^^I think with boosters the issue is that for a quick listen, our ears generally disceren 'louder' as 'better' (which is again, the point of the booster  ). The audiophile folks have this problem when wanting to do A vs B testing between different gear/speakers and have all sorts of routines to get the levels right.

[Jopn]

This is a great thread!

I'm just getting to the prototyping phase now myself. While I can mash my fingers way up the neck on the high strings and bend notes until they sound like a note that's in the right key, I get around mostly as a drummer.  It's definitely an eye opener to take 3 overdrives to a practice and hear what they sound like from behind the kit.  It makes you appreciate an effective tone control (and a guitarist who knows how to use it!). 

[glops]

Yea, this is a great thread. Pretty much every circuit I've liked has sounded great at low volumes at home and then get into the band situation and turning up you get to hear how well these things sound loud.  A lot of disappointments, but at least you know that you have plenty of variations for recording with small amps.

The best things for me that sounded good loud in a rehearsal context and at home with a lower volume have been these:

- Harmonic Percolator, mine just sounds like a great overdrive and takes other fuzzes feeding into it quite well.

- Roland Double Beat, have made several, a little bassy but I only use a telecaster deluxe but have a musicmaster coming in the mail tomorrow and I bet it sounds great with single coils.

- Craig Anderton Ring Mod, for ugly scary sounds I use this with a fuzz in the effects loop, best results with a Rat.

- Foxx Tone Machine, pretty good, a little better sounding at home but pretty great loud. Nice and mean.

- Roland Bee Baa, I made some recently where I changed the scoop to the one on the Acetone Fuzzmaster FM2 and made it variable with a 2K trimmer. I have it dialed where it just goes through the filter a touch. Sounds super awesome super loud.

- Buzzaround, very good in both situations

The most disappointing ones for me were the FY2 and Rosac Nu Fuzz. Sounded so good on my smaller amps but lost some magic on bigger loud amps.

[Bill Mountain]

After reading all the comments and giving it some thought I think for me the main issue is that loud has more unpleasant highs and less smoothness in the lows.  I think this convinces me of the importance of good eq/filtering.

I remember something my jazz band teacher told me many moons ago

When he took an electronic (MIDI) course the instructor showed them that at different levels the synthesized sounds needed different harmonics to sound realistic.  With the right manipulation of harmonics that MIDI trumpet sounded genuine.

[DIMstompboxes]

The easy one would be to have a rehearsal room and bandmates always under your roof, waiting to ear your new creation...  and patient enough to wait untill you mod that creation to make it sound good  .

Yap, my bandmates always have patience on me
I even did the testing of AMZ mosfet booster before in breadboard quite few parts BUT lot of halt in rehearsal 

[deadastronaut]

^ yep, real world useage  breadboarding is the only way to go i think...


(build a sound booth )

[Bill Mountain]

I have definitely taken the breadboard to the practice studio.  The band understands that I like to tinker and they're more than happy to offer opinions but I try not to take up too much practice time on personal projects when we have songs to learn.

I can go the space any time I want.  It's not close to my home but it's only about 15 minutes from my work and I have gone there on my lunch break before.

I think what I'm looking to do on my next build (mosfet overdrive/distortion) is to have a "Pre EQ" and "Post EQ" so when my loud sound has too much low end in the clipping and too much highs after clipping I can tweak it based on the volume I'm playing at.  Of course these are old and good ideas but I always set the input high pass and output low pass by ear at the work bench.  I'm learning I need more control based on the different kinds of spaces I play.

I did another experiment.  I took the ZVex Box of Rock that sounds great in my headphones but like crap in my 500 watt 8x10 bass rig and played it through my 60 watt Traynor combo.  I instantly heard small amounts of the farty lows, boxy midrange, and brittle high end that disappointed me in practice.  Not as much as at the studio but I think I had a super critical ear last night and was able to hear the nuances.  I put another overdrive in front of it (Mesa Bottle Rocket) and turned the gain almost off, kept the volume below unity, and adjusted the EQ on the Bottle Rocket to tweak the lows and highs going to the BOR.  I also played heavily with the EQ on the combo amp and I got a killer sound (but only at 60 watts).  My stage rig will require even further tweaking.

What this tells me is that I'm either not playing as hard and loud as I normally do when prototyping or the 15W Crate or the cab sim/mixer/headphone rig is not letting me hear what the different frequency ranges are actually doing.

Maybe I should try and get a small modelling combo amp for the work bench?

Or just give up this hobby and buy a modelling preamp???

[rousejeremy]

Or just give up this hobby and buy a modelling preamp???

You bite your tongue!

[Gus]

Would you want a different TS mod to help for stage volume issues? 
Funny thing I did this mod years ago it seem obvious to me but I have not seen it from any of the newtweekers or guru modders  This mod has been on the road in a very loud band. 

[Bill Mountain]

Would you want a different TS mod to help for stage volume issues? 
Funny thing I did this mod years ago it seem obvious to me but I have not seen it from any of the newtweekers or guru modders  This mod has been on the road in a very loud band. 

Ofcourse.  I love new ideas.  And you always have the best ones!

[pinkjimiphoton]

i find i am rarely happy until i try something thru my stage rig. at small volumes thru tiny amps like i do my videos with everything tends to sound good.

another thing i've found is it seems that what settings sound good on a small amp NEVER sound that good on a big one.

best bet to me is to box it up and use it live. if it don't cut it, it gets given away sold or stashed, if it really sucks, cannibalized.