That’s the part I struggle with. I have a FC pickup, through a headway into a puma and an MAS 45. I was running through some stuff on stage a year ago and the drummer asks if my amp is even on.
Fast forward: Now I feel like my tone is is a loose approximation. What changed? Nothing, really. It’s likely all in my head. Am I more discerning? All I know is that I want to forget about gear, but I can’t.
Edit: Chris’ thoughts above are so on point. How do I get there? I just want that feeling...when the music is right.
That's the problem with psycho acoustics-it def is all in your head. After a while you have to understand that your hearing will adjust to what is there regardless of how crappy our good it is, esp if there's lots of other sources of sound in the room. The mind can only cognitively hear one thing at a time and must be able to pick things out. If you're in a noisy environment everything blends together into one big sound, which adds to the idea of the bass normally not being noticed.
And then there is MBOL and what is practical in a given space. If I'm playing in a hangar with high ceilings and reflective surfaces (just did last week), I might as well give up on fidelity (which I did). I want to cut through and be heard clearly by band mates. I can get this through my current setup. Transparency at low volumes, power through in tougher situations. Still, in testing the KNA pickup yesterday, I found myself sometimes wanting that piezo quack. It's not always a good/bad thing.
My approach is to stop fighting what is there acoustically, and more than just accepting what I get but owning it and focus on the music. After a while, futzing with gear is a big distraction.
I am a skeptic by nature, but I think for instance this clip is pretty convincing:
As I have written before, the news about the ToneDexter somehow makes me want to try out a wood Realist, which I maybe should have done 10 years ago. I am a late mover.
Yeah really impressive but I don't play with a bow at higher pitches. We all agree they started it out with a crappy sound and it does extremely well. But to get the most of out it, you have to have a $500 microphone? Uh....
Garbage in, garbage out.
In a way, I'd prob be a great candidate to test this. I still have a DPA lying around somewhere.
Well for me the Dex has two bars to meet, a high bar as a replacement for a Grace Felix Remix Red and or Ischell mixed with a piezo on my Tyrolean, and a much lower bar which is to produce a usable amplified sound for my Contrabassetto which I am struggling with. Recording with the little bass and the Remic sounds great with a big deep sound as good as a much bigger bass but on the gig it has been hard to get that. (One of my first gigs with it Hdiddy showed up...it is usually his gig and said "kind of trebly") which was true... a little shrill and lacking in bottom end. SO if the Dex can get me into usable territory with that bass, it'll be good for me (I am not, especially with that bass, a mic purist)
The other thing for me is that despite the fact that I have been blending for 20 years now (since the first Fishman Blender hit) and have a wide assortment of the Live mics out there, my ears cant take many more howling feedback squeels. I am already hearing a progressive white noise in my 50 year old ears and I am in need of protection from anything that makes it worse. If the Dex can improve the piezo sound as it seems to do ( the theory and cello examples are compelling) i'll give it a go.
Yeah you're my canary with this thing. If it works for you then I'll def give it a serious look. My prob is that the best it can do is my acoustic sound, prob one or two styles in one particular setting. I already have something that gets me very very close and works in other practical situations (including stupid volumes), like a Swiss army knife. Not only that, it's extremely simple and easy to use. For me, TD has to beat that. An unusable tuner is a bad start. Maybe if the make a bass edition.
Otoh, I spent a boatload of money getting my current hifi rig. Sounds like diminishing returns for me. If I had a modest budget and can only afford a piezo, I'd prob come running after it.
