High notes from guitar amplifier hurt my ears, even at low volume

Question

I've been playing the guitar for almost five years now, but I'm having a problem that makes it very hard for me to improve my playing and to enjoy it.

I'm playing an Epiphone Dot and a Yamaha Pacifica 112 through a Marshall MG30 (and before on a now broken MG15 where I had the same problem).

Whenever I play an electric guitar at home through an amplifier, playing notes on the high B and E strings is very uncomfortable for my ears. It's hard to explain exactly but it feels like pressure and as if my eardrums are going to explode the louder I play the note. This happens even at low volumes (master volume set at around 1/10), and on both clean and distorted channels.

I'm sitting up to about 5 meters away from the amp.

I have this problem on all pickup positions and the only ways to make it go away are to either reduce the tone with the guitar knob by a lot or by almost completely decreasing highs and mids on the amplifier, or I can reduce volume even more, but then the sound is obviously a problem.

Because of this I've more or less abandoned playing electric guitars and only played an acoustic guitar for a long time. For the past year, I've been playing a lot of Rocksmith and it reminded me of how much I actually love to play the electric guitar, and it would sound so much better through a real amplifier.

I've had a guitar tutor a few years ago and when I had lessons with a similar Marshall amplifier in an school class room, I didn't have this problem even though I was sitting right next to it. When I told the tutor, he didn't know either what I could do.

So then I thought it might have to do with the room, but I have tried playing in three different rooms in my flat and the problem remains the same. They are all filled with furniture.

I've been searching for a solution to this problem for a long time, but I find almost nothing about it. I'd love to learn some solos, but can't really progress my playing without getting a decent sound, so I'd appreciate any ideas and suggestions what I could try.

Answer 1

You should find out if it's your ears or your equipment. This could be done by taking your guitar to a music store and try it with some device that supports headphones, like the one below (there are other brands). That will bring the room out of the picture. If you don't feel pain, then one solution is to get one of those devices and practice with it instead of your amp. If there is pain, try with one of the guitars in the store. If there's still pain, the issue might be with your hearing.

If the issue is with your hearing, all hope is not lost. There is a lot that can be done by EQ, effects, and different brands of amplifiers. E.g. jazz players use very little treble in their sound.

The fact that you could play with an Marshall in a different setting than your home, and that the problem is there with two different guitars would suggest that the problem is with your amp.

Answer 2

Well it sounds like the amp is the problem. If you've tried sitting in different positions and distances from the amp, in different rooms, different pickups, different channels, and you haven't had the problem sitting right next to a different amp or with an acoustic, I can't see what the problem could be. Ask other people what they think, it might not be just you. Try some other amps out at your local music store and see if you have the same problems. Have you recorded sound from your rig before? Do you have the same problems from recordings of your amp? Have you played in a band? How does it sound in a mix? There's a lot of things that could contribute to the problem your having.

Answer 3

I think it's because you don't have a tube amp and/or enough volume set on the amp for the tone to get overdriven and break up. The Dot is ideally paired with a tube amp and the idea is that you set your amp volume high enough so that when you have max volume on guitar you get overdrive but if you roll down volume on guitar a little you get clean tone. Then you won't get tones that hurt your head. But if you run your guitar volume at max and don't have enough amp volume and attack in your technique for the tone to break up what you will get is head hurting frequencies. Try lowering your volume on your guitar until it sounds good for your ears. But lowering amp volume is a bad idea it makes the problem worse because it gets impossible for the amp to break up. So just lower your guitar volume not amp volume, and if you want overdrive but can't handle the volume needed from amp, use overdrive pedal or amp effect instead for overdrive tones or get a more suitable amp. Tube amps are meant to be played loud for best tone, for home usage get lowest watt possible for sweetest tone without getting evicted. And maximum volume on guitar is for overdriving amp.