tone and hearing

OK, 2 things:

I'm searching for a new tone for my epiphone dot. you know, the "sound" you want to produce from your guitar/amp rig. What motivates this for me is that during the break I got a nice slightly overdriven sound from the yamaha using the neck pickup. It sounded great. But also, it touched a sensitive spot in my hearing, in my tinnitus. That scared me, so I dialed back on the overdrive -- it's the high tones that bother my ears. So, not having overdrive as an option got me to search for a replacement tone. I have to get a good sound playing the blues, with no overdrive.

One change that helps is the neck pickup -- I use it only and not the bridge. That cuts back on high tones. But to replace the nice crunch of overdrive I've gotta find something else. I'm messing with reverb, adding as much as I can to thicken up the tone.

Today I put the amp on the "hot rod" setting that mimics fender blues amps. it sounded great, but once again my ears are ringing a little. And a little is just too much for me -- I"m very touchy about worsening the ringing in my ears.

I'm sure I'll never play in a band -- too risky! Or maybe with ear plugs.

So now I gotta go back to my previous amp setting, tweed (which mimics another line of fender amps). I can increase the reverb to fatten up the sound, but it's still not to my liking. my other effects are chorus, delay, flange, tremelo, and nothing. the other amp settings range from acoustic to heavy metal, and generally are in a scale of least to most overdrive, but with other subtle differences too.

my tinnitus is moderate, and usually doesn't bother me in the daytime. At night I use a little white noise beside the bed and that's all I need. But I gotta protect my hearing so it won't get worse.

Today was a disappointment -- I got some ringing even with no overdrive. I've got the gain at zero, effects at reverb, and amp at hot rod. But somehow it touched a sensitive spot.

I hope that with the es-339 I"ll get a better sound than with my dot -- otherwise what's the point?

Should I go acoustic? Frankly, acoustic guitars seem boring to me. At most I'd play a hollowbody electric -- something with pickups and electric guitar strings! I remember acoustic steel strings -- they hurt! With a full hollowbody I could keep the amp low.

Should I see an audiologist?

One thing I"m gonna try is a suggestion from an online article -- try different picks. It said that jazz guitarists typically use heavier picks for a mellower sound. I'm gonna try that. Now I use Fender medium picks. I"m gonna try the heavy gauge.