Irritating bright guitar tone

[GuitarAddict]

First post in ages
Thought I would share this. I have suffered from overly bright guitar tone on occasion and always put it down to tubes degenerating or unstable power etc as nothing else had changed. Last few days it was unbearable and stopped me playing. Turns out, unbelievably, to be down to dry skin on my hands. I put some hand moisturiser on earlier and tone is back to normal. Also helps with the static.
Still can’t believe it.

 

[JasonE]

I would never in my life have thought that would have anything to do with it.

 

[GuitarAddict]

No me neither.

 

[bodia]

I would never in my life have thought that would have anything to do with it.

Completely agree!

 

[Huggy Love]

Interesting take, I'll be doing some testing on this to see how it affects my sound.
I have dry hands and have wrestled with unwanted bright tone over the years. My only concern is moisturizer residue on strings and fretboard, I have always washed my hands clean and dried them before playing.

I've never correlated overly bright tone with failing tubes or power level issues, and i am a player that is very sensitive to this being a Jazz player thriving on a dark clean tone, so I'll just share the things that have worked for me.

- New strings are always brighter than older well played ones, I don't change strings as much as when I was a rocker, and revel in the deadness of well worn strings.

- Picks have so much to do with tone that many don't realize, thicker and rounder edges are mostly what I use to get a thicker full tone.

- Becoming skilled at tone controls/EQ of amps has been something I've had to do, and have been sometimes very surprised at misconceptions I've had. Sometimes pushing the mids doesn't give you a thicker fuller tone.

YMMV

 

[Spudman]

I've had instances of not enough signal getting from the guitar to the amp that made it bright and thin, and made me want to walk out of the gig. Primarily with low batter power in my wireless and also with a bad cable from the guitar.

 

[JasonE]

I've had instances of not enough signal getting from the guitar to the amp that made it bright and thin, and made me want to walk out of the gig. Primarily with low batter power in my wireless and also with a bad cable from the guitar.

I have had sagging power at gigs that made my tube amp sound weak and made me wonder if I burned something up in it. I played one outdoor gig where I refused to let it go and they ran a long extension cord from another power source just for my amp to get us playing. I have not had issues with tone issues from my wireless batteries and I have run them to the point of it shutting down on me a few times.

 

[GuitarAddict]

As far as residue on hands I used a wet wipe (multiple packets all over the place with a 3 yo son in the house) to remove the excess and the change in tone was evident from the first note so it wasn’t residue tainting the strings.

 

[László]

First post in ages
Thought I would share this. I have suffered from overly bright guitar tone on occasion and always put it down to tubes degenerating or unstable power etc as nothing else had changed. Last few days it was unbearable and stopped me playing. Turns out, unbelievably, to be down to dry skin on my hands. I put some hand moisturiser on earlier and tone is back to normal. Also helps with the static.
Still can’t believe it.

Wild! And yet it makes sense.

 

[gush]

I find this interesting.

 

[Victor Vector]

It will take the lotion or it will get the hose

 

[Huggy Love]

I'm just bumping this thread to give my findings after a month of testing the moisturizer theory.
Yes, having moisturized hands gave me a slightly warmer tone, although it didn't last long as things went back to normal after they dried out a bit. But what I suspected about it affecting string life was a reality. The set I used for testing went dead extremely fast compared to usual, and the wrapped strings went so dead they barely produced sound. I'll go back to washing my hands and tweaking knobs to control my tone.

 

[Rider1260]

Moisturizer also helps with sticky Nitro necks.
A micro fiber towel keeps things clean,

 

[Steve Dombroski]

Saw this and instantly felt bad for the OP. While tone, I agree, comes largely from your hands…this ain’t the cause in this situation. Try working with your tone knob or adjust your EQ first.

I like playing my guitars with clean hands so that there’s nothing standing in between me and the strings. Other gunk on your hands winds up on your guitar too. So think about what you want standing in between you and tone.

 

[WingerRules]

I put some hand moisturiser on earlier and tone is back to normal. Also helps with the static.
Still can’t believe it.

What kind? I’m going to start a thread about this at TGP just to see how it goes.

 

[RossF]

I have always washed my hands clean and dried them before playing.

Really?!?!? I am suitably impressed.

 

[DISTORT6]

What kind? I’m going to start a thread about this at TGP just to see how it goes.

Hand cream for the best toanz and pleasures…

 

[vchizzle]

While it seems odd and maybe questionable, one could try keeping their hands moisturized through the day. Don’t apply it anywhere near times you play. I prefer my hands clean and dry on my fretting hand. If you moisturize your hands regularly, you can probably still not have dry skin or get residue on strings.

 

[WingerRules]

Hand cream for the best toanz and pleasures…

TWSS

 

[WingerRules]

Could we add a thread poll to see how many people are taking this seriously?