Discussing 'sizzle'....

L

Loquenau

Power User
From here:

"You have to start thinking like a producer/engineer rather than a guitar player. If you start trying to dial out what you call "fizz" and "artifacts" you're going to end up with a tone that doesn't cut. It might sound good to you but it won't fit in the mix. That fizz and sizzle is what makes those classic rock tones work. Listen to some isolated tracks of VH and AC/DC and you'll hear a ton of high-end sizzle. In the mix, however, it's not noticeable. If you remove it then the guitar sounds dead."
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(Even as a kid, long before I picked up a guitar, I heard the sizzle....) I agree with this - and yet I disagree. That is, the treble can be attentuated by mic placement without making it dead sounding. And most other sounds don't have it and they cut just fine. And the ear doesn't 'tire' of them, either.
 
I'm not a recording producer but I know enough to kind of know how it's done so heres my .02 worth.

fizz and sizzle is what makes those classic rock tones work. Listen to some isolated tracks of VH and AC/DC and you'll hear a ton of high-end sizzle.
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I believe a lot of this depends on the style or how agressive sounding you want the the music to be. Early VH and AC/DC are two totally different typs of distortions. The amount of high end fizz on Eddies tone is over the top when compared to Angus and Malcolms tones. Using this as a blanket statement for every recording situation may not be totally correct and more generalized. There are a lot of Clasic rock tones that don't have a noticeable sizzle on the guitar track ie: Heart's Barracuda is one that comes to mind along with Bad Company's Rock steady and that's just two examples among thousands.

The AD/DC reference is a loaded example as he didn't point out what song. Even though Angus and Malcolm use pretty much the same gear you can definitely hear a different type of sound in the guitars when comparing, Highway To Hell (less gain maybe?) Vrs. Back In Black where the guitars have a slightly brighter and more agressive tone.

Ether cases, like you have pointed out this could have been done using different mic'ing techniques or in the mixdown with EQ or to further add for different groups using a different kind of amp from that time. In the case of the AC/DC comparison I have referenced there is no way of really knowing unless "Mutt" him self chimes in and tell us how he mic'ed and mixed them along with all the amp settings between the two albums.
 
Well said, sixstring :)

I enjoy playing in 3 piece lineups most, bacuse that's where I have the most freedom not only musically, but also with tones. They can be anything from clean amp tones with lots of guitar character, through to processed fizzy tones with tailored overdrive characters.

In larger bands, I aim to give FOH a balanced tone, meaning there are lows, mids and highs, but none of them dominating the others. That way, the sound guy has the best chance of blending the necessary bits into the band mix.
 
Well I think ACDC doesn't have enough gain to cause fizzy problems. I think there can be good and bad fizz and you should try to get the good type of fizz. I know what it looks like on a spectrum analyzer but it's a bit hard to explain. Basically try to avoid peaks in the presence area and maintain a smooth frequency roll off. Take a listen to John Petrucci - Damage Control. It's a very bright tone but listen to how well it blends with overheads. Now play it through a spectrum analyzer and look at the high end. See how smooth the roll off is?

And this fizz has everything to do with mic placement and not how you set up your amp. So you need "better" IRs...

If you want IRs like this then check my Orange ABCD IRs and Clark Kent's #7 since those are created by finding a sweetspot for good sizzle. :)
 
Clark Kent said:
Well I think ACDC doesn't have enough gain to cause fizzy problems. I think there can be good and bad fizz and you should try to get the good type of fizz. I know what it looks like on a spectrum analyzer but it's a bit hard to explain. Basically try to avoid peaks in the presence area and maintain a smooth frequency roll off. Take a listen to John Petrucci - Damage Control. It's a very bright tone but listen to how well it blends with overheads. Now play it through a spectrum analyzer and look at the high end. See how smooth the roll off is?

And this fizz has everything to do with mic placement and not how you set up your amp. So you need "better" IRs...

If you want IRs like this then check my Orange ABCD IRs and Clark Kent's #7 since those are created by finding a sweetspot for good sizzle. :)
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On your comment of viewing distortion on a spectrum analyzer have you had a chance to see what clipping looks like within the amp? When I used to live in Cali I went to Mojave amp works and sat down with Vic and his tech who's name I can't remember at the moment scope out all the tubes that went into an new amp a 50 watt Scorpion in this case. The sawtooth display that was created would change with respect to the amount of gain used. The more gain used the sharper the point at the top of the peak the less the more rounded it would become.

I also believe that this has something to do with the harmonic content of the fundamental tone, after that depending on how the circuit is designed would makeup the rest of that amps signature. Couple that with a guitar cab of choice and the resulting tone is ether what you liked or not.
 
Generally speaking I would say more gain changes a guitar spectrum to resemble noise. But after that comes the cab and smoothens everything out.

But you are right. Less gain gives more cut and gives space to other instruments.
 
If you start trying to dial out what you call "fizz" and "artifacts" you're going to end up with a tone that doesn't cut. It might sound good to you but it won't fit in the mix. That fizz and sizzle is what makes those classic rock tones work.
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This is way true—its truth is easy to demonstrate—but it's not black-and-white.

There is a whole spectrum of tones, from round to fizzy. And there's a whole spectrum of mixes, from solo to dense. The amount of fizz that works is different for each situation. A round tone might sound fantastic when played by itself, sound okay when played in a sparse mix, and sound completely dead in a dense mix. A mildly fizzy tone might sound okay but a bit raspy by itself, sound fantastic in a sparse mix, and sound okay-but-dull in a dense mix.

The fizz is an artifact of the amplifier. The cab reduces it, but it can't eliminate it without cutting radical amounts of mids and highs from the signal.
 
It all depends on context. Aggressive music has a denser spectrum so the guitar requires more of the upper harmonics to cut through the mix. Jazz, on the other hand, is spectrally sparse and a focused tone sits better in that context.
 
FractalAudio said:
It all depends on context. Aggressive music has a denser spectrum so the guitar requires more of the upper harmonics to cut through the mix. Jazz, on the other hand, is spectrally sparse and a focused tone sits better in that context.
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^^^This. But IMO, both spectral density and "volume density" play a part. Aggressive music tends to have more constant, less dynamic level. That also demands more fizz if you want to cut through.
 
I know these are not 'formal' musical terms...

personally I tend to think of 'fizz' as a bad thing..
a harsh or rasping intrusive high end with tonal characteristics that are not unlike a kazoo
what I've found in the Axe [with respect to hi-gain tones] is that certain cabs accentuate this fizz characteristic

I've only had serious fizz probs with the Axe twice...
once was with an upgrade to fw6.0..
I tried all sorts of things to dial it out and couldn't
in the end re-downloaded and reinstalled 6.0 and things improved greatly..

the other time was when I reamped a dry signal from my Mackie
I eventually tracked down that Mackie was the cause..
it's aux send was piling on some serious amounts of high top that I could not do anything about..
solution: don't do it
I now reamp from my other AI and all is well..

'sizzle' I tend to think of as a good thing..
a nicely fried high end that provides the definition to notes you play..
and also provides the 'energetic / aggressive' qualities to the tone..

when I was suffering with my fizz issues in 6.0, during the process of trying to track down the problem I did a lot of experiments..
especially with amp and cab block combinations...
I came to realise that matching the right amp and cab combination for that given tone type is absolutely vital
it's the difference between utter failure, sounding ok and setting your world on fire..
funnily enough.. when I mentioned what I'd found with respect to the amp / cab relationship and the subsequent impact on fizz in the forum, some folks openly mocked me about it...
the fact however remains and is now generally accepted..
esspecially when it comes to hi-gain tones.. spend a lot of time auditioning a lot of cabs..
I personally think that nailing the amp / cab combination is more critical for hi-gain than for any other type of tone

EDIT: here's what I look for in a cab with a hi-gain tone..
I dial in the hi-gain amp with the 4x12 25W because it sounds to be to be pretty neutral
it's not overly strong in the low and is reasonably gentle with the highs..
then I start looking at cabs...
if the cab is too aggressive with the highs, EQ alone may not solve the prob, it'll simply darken / muddy the tone
this is because the upper mids and highs are more complex by nature..
find a cab that has what you think is the right voice / tonal characteristics with respect to the mids and highs..
don't worry if it's a little strong with the lows because this is easier to dial out and generally get under control..

I've found that I've been getting along very well with the Basketweave AX mix and TV mix
and I'm finding that these guys are gentle with the highs and that they have a generally smooth quality..
and as a result, I'm tending to push the upper mids and highs quite hard via a GEQ..
the outcome is great definition and 'aggressive energy', but with a smooth quality..
 
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I also find the new generation of "mix" IR's to be less specific in their overall EQ balance.

That is, they sound more musical from the get go before applying radical EQ elsewhere.

The previous factory IR's seemed to be pre-dialed in to some more specific EQ? Like meant to sit in a particular mix.

For me, that meant starting from scratch to "undo" my tweaks that applied to the previous factory IR's. By starting over, much much fewer adjustments.

I'm really hoping the new Ownhammer IR's (not yet released) are similar.

Richard
 
clarky said:
I know these are not 'formal' musical terms...
personally I tend to think of 'fizz' as a bad thing..a harsh or rasping intrusive high end with tonal characteristics that are not unlike a kazoo
... I've only had serious fizz probs with the Axe twice ... once was with an upgrade to fw6.0..
... 'sizzle' I tend to think of as a good thing.. a nicely fried high end that provides the definition to notes you play..
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Yes, agree we need to be careful with thee words and what they might mean to others.

Many of us can recall "the great fizz debate" with another product from another company where experienced musicians complained of a disconnected harsh fizz problem with the amp models, followed by newbies jumping in saying effectively their amps distort with high gain, so they also have "the fizz problem". Unfortunately, this then allowed the company to jump into defence mode and point out that amps are non-linear, which produces fizz, which is normal, completely evading the point that there was always desirable "sizzle" along with an unpleasant "fizz" element. :sigh:

Anyway, I understand the OP here to be talking about fizz in the context of "desirable sizzle" and not the "harsh digital noise" evident in some other modellers.

But I can't agree with v6 containing undesirable fizz, unless you maybe used some high gain sounds/amp that I avoid. I vastly prefer v6 over later versions due to it's smoother overdrive character. There's no question later versions are more realistic, but that's all it is, my preference for a more idealised overdrive character.
 
my prob with fizz in 6.0 wasn't actually the Axe... or a correct working version of 6.0..
for some strange reason, when I installed 6.0 that Axe sounded like a 70's fuzz DI'd to the mixing desk..
I reinstalled and it was the same..
so I re-downloaded 6.0 and reinstalled again and I had my Axe back..

I still had something not right though...
and then realised that if I jacked into the Axe instr in everything was fine
whereas I as jacking the guitar into my mixer and then sending to the Axe.. which was not fine.. [mixer causing the prob]..
the reason I was doing this was so that I could simply turn up different aux sends to play the Axe, VG-99 and / or 2120 without having to jack into each unit each time... just a convenience thing...
someday I'll get a nice big patch bay to make all this easier / better

so.. with 6.0 I had two probs neither of which were attributable to a good / correctly working fw6.0 or the Axe itself..
6.0 was generally on the bright side anyhow [which made my bad situation worse]

what really didn't help [when I was asking for help in here] when folk playing clips that were perfectly good sounding complaining about a fizzy high end that was absolutely nothing like the situation I found myself in [which was at the time disastrous sounding]..

my solution:
finally getting a good fw6.0 into the Axe
not using the mixer's aux send to route the guitar to the Axe
and then getting my hands on a very nice Mark Day preset to analyse - which led me towards the light..

and then 6.02 showed up.. which sounded absolutely beautiful...
 
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Some of the lower gain stuff I will leave the Hi cut open inorder to allow for upper harmonics. In the case of higher gain stuff like you I will cut back sometimes as far as 6k then dial in the amp from their.
 
I feel like high cuts kill the HD-ness in guitar tones so I refuse to use them. ;) You can definitely feel the difference when playing... and in the mix I don't think it matters after drum overheads taking all the space anyways. :)
 
Let's side-step stylistic/genre-ish considerations and focus on the sound itself. Therefore, words like 'aggressive' do not belong, though fizz and sizzle can remain.

I think I understand the sizzle explained above. Sizzle may complement the tone - like heard in some synth tones - but I don't think it's *necessary*. It's just lingering around the things you need to hear definition.

Saying things will 'cover it', let alone needing them to, keeps the instrument stuck in mainstream-genre music.

One reason I like gain is that it will compress the signal in such a way to allow light picking that will not sound 'vintage' - it will sound refined like, for example, a cello or tenor sax - it will push a lot longer without volume to carry it - and it allows greater dynamics than using a compressor.
 
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IMO, it's all completely subjective.

Some artists prefer to paint blurry, others like nice neat defined brushed strokes. Neither is right or wrong.
 
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