Tone Icons

[nelson]

There's no replacement for:

"TALENT".

It can't be bought, or even rented, or for damn sure stolen.

RDV

Depends.

Oh please do tell me where I might aquire more talent?

RDV

Well, you could be talentless but be in a band full of really talented people. Get signed and profit from their talent. Indeed you could own a record label where you sell, rent and steal talent.

You could acquire more talent by being taught by the talented.

I have the firm belief that "talent" isnt inate. Just like I have the belief that society is not a meritocracy.

"You either have it, or you dont" that cliche is BS.

"cream rises to the top" that cliche is also BS.

[JimRayden]

Well, "Some are born talented, some achieve talent and some have talent thrust upon them."
-W.Shakespeare, modified by J.Rayden.

[Noplasticrobots]

'"vintage" - really? When did they stomp the grapes?' 

[brad]

Stacked Metal Film Caps: This term has taken off ever since Keeley started using when describing his mods.  There have been countless posts with people asking where to find the dipped Panasonic caps he uses as if they're part of the secret tone, and boutique builders use the term to sell their pedals: "Stacked metal film caps for a more hi-fi sound!  It's like taking the blanket off your amp!"

Pehaps someone should tell them all that a "stacked metal film" cap is just a fancy way of describing a regular MKT 

[R.G.]

I'm disappointed to hear this from you RG.  Of course magic tone doesn't flow out of germanium transistors--magic tone doesn't flow out of anything, anywhere.

I don't know why you're disappointed - you're saying essentially what I said. The ads are full of "germanium powered" comments, as though simply having germanium in there makes a magic difference. It doesn't, as you know.

But that doesn't mean a significantly different or useful tone cannot be had by the use of "alternate devices" like germanium transistors.  I've used them in everything from phase shifters to condenser mics, and there is a most certainly audible difference.  I happen to like that difference, not for the alleged magic mind you, but for the sound.  Even so, I'm willing to grant that I may be among a small and eccentric minority as far as what my hearing leads me to conclude.

I think that you're in violent agreement with me. Read what I said again.

I did not say that germanium was useless, nor that it made no difference in sound. I said that there are places where it does make a difference. And it's entirely appropriate for a person to listen critically and pick out what THEY like. I blather that advice to people all the time.

However, I am also well aware that there are places where the most golden ears could not pick out that they were listening to germanium versus silicon. There was a whole generation of EE's taught to design things so that the exact device did NOT matter, because it was so expensive to select devices if the circuit was picky.

Germanium devices are lower gain than modern silicon, they bias up differently, and they have other oddities about how they amplify. The closer a circuit is to one germanium transistor, no feedback, the more you can hear those differences. If you're plopping germaniums into circuits that are simple, or that have been designed for silicon and not changed the biasing up, of course you can hear a difference. And if you like the difference, super!

But it's not magic, and it's not automatic tone nirvana, which is the point I was making. "Germanium" is displayed as an icon in many ads, in circumstances where it just can't be that big a deal. I'm not suggesting that sensitive ears can't pick out differences. But I am suggesting that the way the term is used is ... um... content free as we used to say.

[Mark Hammer]

I guess there is only a limited range of products that can be sold with the catch-phrase "New and improved!".  For all others, one needs to come up with some other sales pitch.

I'll say this for Bill Finnegan and the Centaur. Every ad I've ever seen for it contains only user feedback, with no BS or bloated claims from the manufacturer.

[R.G.]

I guess there is only a limited range of products that can be sold with the catch-phrase "New and improved!".  For all others, one needs to come up with some other sales pitch.

I read a book some years back that had some very interesting things to say about commercial speech in the USA. Canada may be different.

The book's title was "Doublespeak", and you no doubt see where this is going.

In the USA truth in advertising laws are fairly strict, and they got tested in court a lot. The result of the precedents  in court comes out in a lot of advertising.

For instance "best". I can see one product saying "best", but all of them???

It turns out that many things are members of what is called a parity class. Like cornflakes, soap, toothpaste, etc., unless it's just grossly faulty, one is very much like another. Stay with me on this - since they are all substantially the same, they ALL represent the "best" for that kind of thing. Therefore they can all claim - truthfully according to the courts - that they are the best. What happens if they say "better"? That's a different matter. If a product claims that they're better than the other products in their class, then they must be able to prove it. So "better" actually means what us real people think of as "best" and "best" in an add means only "just like all the rest".

You do occasionally see "better", but when you do you will immediately see what they say is better. For instance, a longer warranty is "better", yes? More covenient to carry packaging is "better". You see where that goes.

"New and improved" is another one of those. By court precedents, the terms "new" and "improved" have specific meanings and they are not what normal human beings think of them as. If a maker of cornflakes, flour, toothpaste, denture cream, etc. changes anything about their product, it is no longer the same, right? So the courts have held that if there is, for instance, a different color, taste, size, carton size, shape, process for making them, and so on, then there is indeed something "new" about it. So a maker can put "new" in their ads truthfully enough for the courts.

Courts also weigh in on how long something can be called "new". That has been settled at about six months. After a product has been made "NEW!" for about six months, the courts think that the "new" has worn off, and the maker should take that "new" off the packaging and advertising. As a result, about every six months you'll see new graphics, logos, warranty terms, shape, color, etc., etc. and it will magically be new again.

Presumably, the maker would not make changes that made their products worse, right? And they would not do changes (which cost them money, after all) just for fun, so any changes reflect an improvement, even if the improvement is making people happier enough that they buy more of whatever gook this is. So a product that is "new" under the definition is thereby "improved" and can use both words. You would think that something that was "improved" was "better" right? Wrong-o!

So remember advertising terms:
Best = just like all the rest
Better = really the best one, perhaps in some trivial way
New = it's been six months since we redesigned the box
Improved = it cost a lot of money to change that box

There are many others. It's a good read.

[DDD]

"...signature..."

[Joe Kramer]

Hey RG and all,

I read again what you said and took some time to think about why I reacted to it.  The reasons are complicated and I'm still not sure if I can sort them out.

I agree with you about what you call tone icons.  Another name for them is buzzwords.  I'm certainly not against hardheaded, healthy debunking  (thanks MAD magazine).  Marketers and profit-motivated types use these bumper-sticker phrases to capitalize on supposed "mojo."  To my mind, the mojo phenomenon is largely based on exclusion.  People buy their way into the in-crowd.  After all, nobody wants to be left out of the cool inner circle.  And once you're in, you can feel part of a secret club, as opposed to being outside with all the oblivious and unenlightened everyday bums.

What worries me about the debunking process is the possibility of creating an anti-mojo camp, which depends on the same exclusionary effects, and is sort of the cynical, dark evil twin of the mojo camp.   How could this happen?  It could happen when somebody with a huge amount of well-deserved cred moves a little to far to one side of the scale and tilts things ever so slightly toward polarized camps, even unintentionally.  Like or not, "RG said" is a tone icon.  As an icon around here, you have a sort of responsibility to be the fulcrum of that scale, deftly surfing the middle zone and keeping things in balance.  I'm not saying you're failing to do this, only saying there may be unintended ripples.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but I've seen this happen elsewhere.  In some pro audio forums, just the mention of recapping a mixer or upgrading opamps brings forth maniacal hyper-debunkers screaming about how absolutely none of it matters and how anyone who thinks it does should be summarily pummeled to death.  Unfortunately, I've seen signs of that here too.  I understand it's fun to rant, and with all due respect and admiration to Jack Orman (no kidding), his rants about similar topics strike me as very divisive, exclusionary, and, frankly, kill-joyish.  I'm sure this is an unintentional side-effect and I repeat: I admire and respect Jack and his contributions, which is why his dictates sadden me the more.

I was 17 in 1977.  One day I decided to poke around inside my wah wah with a piece of wire, just to see if I could make it sound different.  Sooner or later I found a connection that made it louder and deeper, and I wired a toggle switch in place.  When my more electronically experienced friend found out how I had achieved the result, he showered me with ridicule.  Well, almost thirty years later, what I was doing then not only has a name, circuit-bending, but it's nearly a legitimate discipline in it's own right.

I'm not sure what the message is.  Something like this: go off the beaten path, let curiousity and enthusiasm be your guides, don't let camps, factions, or naysayers limit you.  That's the spirit of DIY.

I guess I better just leave it at that.

Regards,
Joe

[R.G.]

If you are that old, you'll remember the Who's song "Won't get fooled again" and it's pointed wisdom that
"the party on the left is now the party on the right"
and
"meet the new boss - same as the old boss"
and I suspect from your notes that you're feeling cautious about that.

That's pretty much what happens when we believe in men instead of natural law. I'm well aware of the fact that the liberators soon become the oppressors.

And I work on making sure that my opinion is marked as opinion; that I'm not stating my opinions as fact, and that I always go back to the numbers. I make mistakes, and I try to make a point of noting those on line, in public. I also try to be sure that I am not saying "X produces good tone, while Y does not", only things like "X will give you a wider frequency response than Y", which are very different statements.

Mother Nature has some Rules, and we know some, but not all of them. She's completely indifferent to our intentions and methods. Back in the design shop we had two sayings that meant pretty much the same thing: "You can't bullshit electrons." and "Mother Nature waits for you at the end of the assembly line." Both were intended to rein in the folks who thought that they could make Mother Nature do something She would not otherwise do by making ever-louder and prettier presentations to the Bosses.

The Rules work the way they work, no appeal possible, and sentence is administered immediately to would-be violators. I view my part of this as pointing out what the Rules are, where I may know them. Even circuit bending follows the Rules - it's one version of what I'd call easter-egging, doing something random with whatever is at hand and seeing what the Rules say about combinations you would not otherwise have made. But circuit bending doesn't make any impression on the Rules at all - it's more like bending exploits otherwise-unseen uses of the Rules.

I think one of my roles is point out where the Rules apply. I hope that "R.G. said..." actually tranlates as "there is a technical basis for things that you need to apply here..." and does not become any kind of straightjacket. If it is, I hope the straightjacket is Mother's, not mine.

Something like this: go off the beaten path, let curiousity and enthusiasm be your guides, don't let camps, factions, or naysayers limit you.  That's the spirit of DIY.

I'm good with that. However, I'm also a big believer that the better you know the Rules, the less time you'll waste beating your head against them. Remember - Mother Nature is waiting at the end of the assembly line.

But do be careful reading my stuff - people often take what I say out of context. Think of my comments as my interpretations of the Rules unless they're marked as an opinion. Besides, I've had really poor luck with making people follow my dictates 

[AdamB]

My favourite piece of marketting rubbish is still from roger mayer on the spitfire blurb...

"The circuit senses and uses electronic information fed directly from the guitar's pickups to control it's own operational parameters"

-Adam

[JimRayden]

I feel the same way as RG himself, he's just pointing out the obvious and Real rules of Mother Nature. He leaves no room for psychology, feelings, nor mojo. These three words might have nothing to do with electronics but they have helluva lot to do with music. Also, these companies don't sell pure physical calculated objects. All those buzzwords come along. Those words make people feel good. Why go to a fine restaurant when you could visit Kwik-E-Mart and save 90%? You pay for the service and atmosphere. Come on, aren't those golden-looking-but-actually-yellow-chromed cheap plastic candleholders on the restaurant's table exactly same as buzzwords? I would say the damn sure are.

I might also point out that psychoacoustics sometimes override the real calculated acoustics. Hmm, that makes me wonder, which one IS more realistic, the calculated one or the one we actually hear. Is it more "real" to spectate the thermometer through the window of your warm and cosy apartment or actually shiver outside in the cold? I love philosophy.

Not trying to be offensive at all, just feeding an interesting conversation.

----------
Jimbo

[bond]

my amp goes to 11.

[R.G.]

It is an interesting conversation. My concept of 'tone icons' is primarily when they are false or misleading.

However... since you mention psychoacoustics...

I might also point out that psychoacoustics sometimes override the real calculated acoustics. Hmm, that makes me wonder, which one IS more realistic, the calculated one or the one we actually hear.

Psychoacoustics plays by the Rules, too. One of the most influential books I've ever read is the fractional-century old "The Psychology of Music" by Carl Seashore. It's been reprinted in paperback, and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets beyond needing another, and louder fuzz box.

For instance - a cello is NOT a bass instrument. It's body, big as it is, does not couple the lowest string fundamentals to the air well enough to hear them to a significant degree. It does a good job on harmonics, though. If you hit string that produces a 100hz fundamental, there are harmonics at 200, 300, 400... and it's the harmonics that go out on the air.

But when you listen to cello, you HEAR the 100hz fundamental. That happens because your ear is nonlinear and because your brain learns and matches patterns. The nonlinear ear causes sum-and-difference frequencies of the harmonics, and those every one produce a 100Hz difference, so it's actually recreated in your ear. The brain, not to be left out, knows that something with sounds every 100Hz has a 100hz fundamental, and hears it as well.

The whole science of psychoacoustics - and it is a science - produces calculable results.

I guess for me the difference is repeated measurabilty. If there is something that you can measure and express in numbers that other people can also measure, then it's real. I draw a line at measuring the placebo effect, because while placebo effect can be measured, you have to measure the people, not the music. So to me, saying "I use carbon comp resistors in the high voltage preamp" is a real, valid claim to make because carbon comp resistors DO have measurable distortion in such a setup, or at least could. Saying "I use carbon comp in my 9V powered pedal for vintage brown sound." immediately makes me think I'm about to be defrauded.

One that never fails to make me look askance is an ad that lists things like "more tone!" or "tone to die for" or "packed with tone" or some other such drivel which promotes "tone" as something that you could put in a bag, a commodity that you can pour into an amp or spray over it like a glossy coat of paint. It's like claiming "more goodness!" or like the cigarette ads used to say "More taste!" Sure they have a taste, but do you really want more of it? Tone is a subjective evaluation, not something you can gather around you by buying things sold with tone icons. Tone happens inside someone's head. Harmonic structure and frequency response happen in the real world. That's not to say tone is not real - it's just no something that can be packaged and sold, as everyone must experience tone individually.

Which brings up an interesting if somewhat unrelated point. People don't even hear note progressions the same way. This one fascinates me. Play a note. Play a second note. Was the second note higher or lower than the first? Repeat this with random intervals and many people. We would expect that people would reliably hear higher notes and lower notes and be able to tell us, right? That is, if they did not have hearing defects that prevented this.

That's not what happens. Some people hear some intervals as reversed, or can't tell which note is higher. Ah. It's a hearing defect, or some kind of tone deafness. No, it's not. The "mistakes" in hearing intervals are clustered by ethnic origin and cultures. Different groups of people hear note intervals differently. So when people listen to melodies, which are after all just sequences of note intervals, different people may well hear different melodies; certainly the effect of music is different on them based on their ethnic background or culture.

But I digress... (sorry)...

Probably saddest are the sellers of stuff who display tone icons who themselves believe what they say. There are those who truly believe that putting a carbon compl resistor in a 9V pedal will make it sound better, and "hear" it whenever they try to listen. They are the true, uninformed believers, and will hold on to their position in the face of evidence to the contrary.

[Joe Kramer]

If you are that old, you'll remember the Who's song "Won't get fooled again" and it's pointed wisdom that
"the party on the left is now the party on the right"
and
"meet the new boss - same as the old boss"
and I suspect from your notes that you're feeling cautious about that.

That's pretty much what happens when we believe in men instead of natural law. I'm well aware of the fact that the liberators soon become the oppressors.

Sure.  The Hippies come along and subvert the "establishment" and then they eventually become the establishment (with a vengeance, I daresay).  The Punks come along and topple the old Rockstar regime, and then they become the rockstar regime.   Everything in the Universe cycles like a pendulum, or better yet, a sinewave.   

The Rules work the way they work, no appeal possible, and sentence is administered immediately to would-be violators. I view my part of this as pointing out what the Rules are, where I may know them. Even circuit bending follows the Rules - it's one version of what I'd call easter-egging, doing something random with whatever is at hand and seeing what the Rules say about combinations you would not otherwise have made. But circuit bending doesn't make any impression on the Rules at all - it's more like bending exploits otherwise-unseen uses of the Rules.

True.  I would put it this way: any medium has built-in limitations which are also its defining characteristics.  That being the case, part of my point consists in rejecting as many non-built-in limitations as possible.  In other words, total freedom from prejudices and preconceptions, whether my own or those of others.

I think one of my roles is point out where the Rules apply. I hope that "R.G. said..." actually tranlates as "there is a technical basis for things that you need to apply here..." and does not become any kind of straightjacket. If it is, I hope the straightjacket is Mother's, not mine.

You most certainly do point out where the rules apply, and that's one of the reasons why you are so highly regarded and depended upon around here.  To my mind "R.G. said" does translate as you hope.  But then again, I have always been and will always be totally indifferent to Tube Screamers.  When I see one for $1000 in a glass case at Guitar Center I feel sorry not just for the hapless sucker who thinks he really needs it, but for the whole monstrous system.   What I mean is, you know how people are.  It's easier to be a parrot than to think for oneself.   I just hate to see someone less hardheaded than me begin to get jaded or somehow negatively influenced because one of the heavy-hitters around here had an opinionated day.  Noblesse Oblige: with nobility comes obligation.

Then again, we're not little children around here, right?  So I'll stop being a mother hen. . . . 

Hopefully Making Some Sense,
Joe

[Paul Marossy]

The way I see it, everyone needs a gimmick - that's across the board, from big corporations like Ford & Chevy to the little guy trying to make a living making stompboxes. That's the American way, isn't it? Gotta have some kind of slogan, symbol, trademark, catchy name, gimmick - whatever. In the stompbox world, how can these "tone icons" that RG mentioned not come up to try and sell a product?! 

EDIT: Whether or not these tone icons are used purosely to mislead the ignorant masses into buying their product, who knows? Some outfits probably do capitalize on these sorts of things while others do feel that their product is "best" or "better"...

[nelson]

crp

[Nasse]

I saw an ad for a passive guitar gadget and it was marketed for "tube sound"

And soon or just today we have lots of young guitarists who never had used a real thing but only digital models, with cool names, which I thought are some way like tone icons

"accurate modelling" or something

[Paul Marossy]

Ah, screw modeling this and that, give me analog! 

[gaussmarkov]

i thought of one that i thought was hilarious:  a passive instrument cable with labels for the guitar plug and the send plug and arrows printed on the insulation for the direction the signal should go.