Norio wrote:

Dinky88 wrote: Dont respond with garbage just because you want your post counter to go up.

Yes that is very harsh. Watch it.

Sorry man, wasnt very nice I know. I did apologize.

Airguitar wrote: The real difference between the sound from a tube amp vs. a solid state one has to do with the way the amp responds to transients, ie. fast changes in the wave form or signal being amplified.
Valves tend to compress naturally when they are subject to overdriving. This also happens when they are being fed an already overdriven signal, although not as much.

Here's a solid state vs. tube amplifier being subjected to overdriving or "Clipping" - so called because it looks like someone took a pair of scissors and "clipped" off the tops of the waveforms.


When a valve is overdriven, its inherent natural compression tends to round out the sharp, clipped edges of the waveform, making this clipping sound more musical and less brittle and harsh.

Valves (The British way of saying "tubes") are natural compressors and have a relatively slow response to very sudden chnges in amplitude.

Now think about how this affects your ears. A sharply clipped waveform at the speaker translates into a very harsh movement of air generated by the speaker compared to when the corners of the clipped wave are made nice and smooth by a tube. All of this results in smoother, creamier tone, less brittle and harsh than solid state.

I'm a sufferer of tinnitus, though apparently not as severe as yours, and I don't play electric guitar through SS amps any more, as I find that the tube amps are far less jarring on my ears.

awesome! many thanks!
Very very helpful!
Will def then get a valve amp!
rather pay more then save and do more damage!
There is hope for tinnitus tho, i keep an eye on the medical side of it every now and then for a few years now, hopefully in 4 years time there will be medication available that can repair the damaged cells in your ears that causes the ringing/buzzing, and I hope it will cure the pain as well.

Thanks again.

Chabenda wrote:

Dinky88 wrote: ??? whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? Insert what and hang what?
This isnt a joke to me.
Dont respond with garbage just because you want your post counter to go up.

That's a bit harsh isn't it? Not impressed.

I did apologize, so did he, if you were me you would have felt the same, cant tell me otherwise till you know what its like being like this.

proze wrote: If you're sensitive to high frequencies and large amplitude, I wouldn't imagine the source of the waveform matters much as long as those criteria are taken into account?

Out of interest, what happened?

I played guitar without pluggs for a few years with a drummer, the one day we had a jam and at the end of the day my ears felt kinda weird, like a pain in it, next morning it was gone so I picked up a pair of drumsticks to jam some drums as I used to play drums now and then any way, I hit the crash and my head exploded, ears was buzzing and screaching like crazy, i had unbearable pain, could stand my own voice. Whent to the doctor and he gave me steroids so that i dont loose my hearing, been almost 4 years now since and i still have very loud ringing and buzzing in my ears and pain, the pain goes away sometimes, usually gets worse if im stressed or depressed and if you have this crap going in you get stresses and depressed alot. its their , forever.

studmissile wrote: "More pleasing to the ear" has to do with tone rather than your medical condition.
Keep the ear plugs in and regardless of ss or tube, take care of your ears.

Believe me i always wear the plugs man!! There is no other option.

Squonk wrote:

Dinky88 wrote: ??? whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? Insert what and hang what?
This isnt a joke to me.
Dont respond with garbage just because you want your post counter to go up.

Sorry man. I wasn't poking fun at your condition but rather posting what came in to my head when I saw the heading!

its cool man sorry man ive had a hard weak with my ears and it made it extremely painfull for me to listen to music or play guitar and i was just in a bad mood, cant help it man, tinnitus messes you up like that, sorry man.

Eddie looks good! glad he is looking healthy and sober!

Here is a drunken eddie at namm, haha.

Just grab your guitar when ever you can, no need to plug in, just sit with it if you are watching TV or whatever, till it feels like you are not complete if you dont have a guitar in your hands. I used to practice 6 hours a day after i finished high school, it was the best thing I ever did for my guitar playing, but its not realistic anymore so I just practice whenever I get a chance, every bit helps.

??? whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? Insert what and hang what?
This isnt a joke to me.
Dont respond with garbage just because you want your post counter to go up.

Hi there.

Ive damaged my ears about 2 years ago and now suffer from chronic tinnitus and experience pain in my ears most of the time.
I can still play guitar but ive got to play on low volume and I cant use too much high end.
I do have special earplugs that helps alot and i can crank a amp up pretty loud if im wearing them.

Im thinking of getting a valve amp again. Would a valve amp produce a softer sound than a decent solidstate amp?

Its difficult to explain, but Ive heard that a valve amp can be more pleasing to the ears.

I can get a valve amp but they are obviously more expensive than SS amps.

Any help info would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome man and remember to look after your ears!

Haha thats awesome man!
I remember my first amp that i got, it was a cheap silvertone amp, it also had a us plug, i just cut it off and connected a normal one after ive gotten fed up with not being able to find a converter plug good times!

Im very glad your amp is working fine now!

Do yourself a favor and read up on setting up intonation, action and pickup height.
I think its best to learn how to do these things yourself from the beginning. Before you know it you're doing fret leveling and dressing yourself ? Its possible tho, took me a while but now i do my own fret leveling and fret dressing.

Metal is goods, makes guitar fun, i was just all about playing metal but then I learned the blues scale and i realized daim i can improvise over stuff ?

Gotta keep it fun!

thrash metal is still my fav genre to play, its all serious grinning oaks trying to be evil and its very fast and the solos are very musical, except for slayer, but slayer is poo poo.

Listen too some evile and gama bomb for killer thrash and insane solos!

Keep on practicing dude! Use jazz III picks hint hint hint if you wana take it to the next level ?

cool cool! good move to invest in a overdrive pedal! I wont tell you to get a tube amp or not as there is alot of options out there today that are tube and some are not tube but they all sound pretty good! Its all about what sound you are after! For some death metal a solidstate is amp is pretty decent, if you are familiar with dying fetus then you would have heard a solid state amp (Ampeg VH140C) in action. Get what is out there and what you can afford, obviously dont buy junk XD, ive personally used a randall rg solidstate amp that i boost with a sd1 and it sounds killer, some people will say oooh but that amps got enough gain, true true, but i get too much noise maxing it out on the amp and the OD tightens up the low end.

A new guitar will have a impact on tone yes, not always as huge as we think tho, lots of the tone comes from the players hands, i know everyone says it but its true man!

Good technique can make cheap gear sound 100 times better.

Good luck on your guitar journey! I take it you are still new to guitar?

No problem!
Thise HT pedals are real nice! you might still want to invest in a boss NS2 or a decimator pedal if you plan on using lots of gain, plugging a dist pedal into the boss NS2s effects loop kills all the noise that the dist pedal will generate.

Sounds like the guitar dude.
If it gets worse when you dont touch the strings its probably a earthing issue with the guitar man. Otherwise its feedback, ull get feedback if you have high gain settings and you are close to your amp, especially if you dont touch the strings, its all vibrations.

I use a boss ns2 after ive gotten fed up with noise from high gain settings. although i don't use that much gain anymore, i play thrash,blues,punk,grindcore and anything really ?

This is how i set up for high gain.
Boss sd1 into boss ns2 into front end of a already distorted amp.
I do use a guitar with actives, blackouts.

This might work for you too, eventually.

Get a OD pedal like the boss SD 1 (you must use a overdrive pedal,any tube screamer copy will do,the boss is good and affordable)
Set the OD pedal so that the level is on max, set the gain on about quarter to 12 and the tone to your liking, i set it to the trebly side to make my sound a bit more tight.

Then that into the Boss NS1 (use the input and out on the pedal,not the return and send.) I set the boss NS1 to reduction mode, and turn the decay all the way to the left and the thershold all the way to the right.

Then you go into the front of your amp, use a distortion setting you like and then back off on the gain, usually as much as 50% will do the trick because you are boosting it with the boss overdrive. Use your ears!

Now you have very little noise coming from your amplifier because there is no need too use so much gain, you dont loose any gain because you are boosting the amp and adding gain from the OD pedal, any noise from the guitar and the OD pedal gets filtered out by the boss NS2, take note that the NS2 is a reduction pedal and not a noise gate, it doesnt just clamp your signal shut.

I dont lose any sustain going this way, ive tried it on many amps, tube amps, hybrid amps and solid state amps. Ive tried it one one digital amp but it sounded a bit like poo, i think that amp just sucked.

Many players have their amps setup this way, especially the thrash and death metal players. for blues and lower gain rock etc it is not needed, ull just lose sustain etc.

Hope this helps you or someone ?