How to dial out harshness (V10)?

Stringtheorist

Stringtheorist

Fractal Fanatic
Since updating to V10 I'm finding most of my presets sound harsh, even after doing a system reset and re-EQing. Knocking back the treble and upper mid frequencies in the amp's graphic EQ helps somewhat but I still don't know how best to soften the aggressive attack that seems to exist by default on all amps. Increase sag or master volume? didn't have time at band practice today to mess with these parameters... I was preoccupied with getting my levels right.
 
I have found that in the adv. par. page, decreasing the damping helps. The speaker pg. you could also try decreasing the, "Hi Res". One last thing I do is in the cab block decreasing the "hicut frequency".
 
What do you think of the new factory presets, also harsh or not?
 
Yek's question is a very good one.

I loaded the factory presets for the first time since FW 1 to see whether some of the complaints were down to the presets and they're, if anything, quite boomy and not at all harsh (5150's aside).
 
I tried messing with all those parameters in the Amp block and I could hear hardly any difference to the tone at all in any direction. Maybe I've already rolled off too much high now for those parameters to work. I'll start with a fresh preset later and play around with them again.

Factory presets sound good at bedroom volume. I haven't tried them with the band but experience tells me they would sound way too bright and harsh at the levels we play at. I do find it bizarre quite why the amps all sound so bright by default. My treble and presence controls are nearly always below 9 o clock, especially if I have Bright switch engaged (which seems necessary in some instances to get the right type of drive). This is using dark sounding guitars... Les Paul, PRS, and ESP. Higher treble content becomes unbearable with my Strats at gigging volume.
 
Out of curiosity, is there a "Bypass Advanced parameters" switch somewhere in the Axe system setup? Just wondering why none of the controls seem to do much (if anything).
 
You could roll back definition by a small amount, -2 is already audible.
Rising Xformer match by .05 has a similar but still different effect, play with both.
I also often make changes to power tube bias, rising it by .25 gets the mid to sing more, lowering it gets the mids to cry more, kind of a more nasty sound.
You could dial in depth, if your low mids get to muddy lower the depth freq to below 220.
When the bright switch is necessary with a certain model but is to nasty, you could lower the bright cap value.

All those ways get you away from the original amp, but when you have a certain sound in your head, you would do similar mods on real amp too.
 
Use the Character control, and take it to a - figure. Not much is needed, -0.50 to -0.80 is enough for me but experiment. taking to to -3.0 for example really darkens the tone.
 
Stringtheorist said:
Out of curiosity, is there a "Bypass Advanced parameters" switch somewhere in the Axe system setup? Just wondering why none of the controls seem to do much (if anything).
Click to expand...

Make sure you have power amp modelling engaged. Many advanced parameters only affect the power amp modelling.
 
Stringtheorist said:
Out of curiosity, is there a "Bypass Advanced parameters" switch somewhere in the Axe system setup? Just wondering why none of the controls seem to do much (if anything).
Click to expand...


Some of the advanced controls are most apparent at high master volume levels, other are more prominent at low master volume. With my presets, many of mine either got very flubby and/or shrill,
Rather than dink around w/ advanced parameters. I started fresh with the amp/cab combination.

I reset the amp (double clicked the bypass button, then switched to another amp and back ) and went through the cabs until I got the closest tonal response I wanted. If it didn't sound like the amp I was using was going to work I started switching amps.
After I settle on an amp, I adjust the drive and master to the desired drive and compression levels. After that I dial in the tone controls. Some of the tone controls, like the plexi, sound best for me in extreme positions. This is true of my real plexi as well. Don't let the knob positions guide you, trust your ear. Generally, the higher the master volume the less effective the tone controls are. I will also many times see if I like the bright on or off (note you many have to adjust drive settings when doing this)

If that doesn't get me their then I have my tried and true advanced parameters I mess with.

If flubby - turn bass tone down, turn low cut up. I turn up until the bass loss is quite apparent then back down until it get flubby. then I find a happy medium. Usually if I mess with it, it winds up somewhere between 80-240 hz. I then will add depth, if needed to add back some low end). If even more low end shaping is needed, I go to the amp eq block.

For high end. There is treble, presence, hi-cut and bright cap.
If shrill and the bright caps is on, I try lowering in the bright cap values. That usually does the trick.
If it doesn't then I try lowering the treble and compensate by increasing presence as needed. I also may lower the hi-cut in the advanced parameters.

that approach usually get me there.

After that, if it does feel right I go to the dynamics section and refine there.

If I feel it need more dynamic eq shaping I will try messing with definition, character, triode plate freq, sag, xformer match, xformer drive.

After i'm done, sometime I will just use the eq section for final polishing.

For me, having a systematic approach saves me time and achieves more predictable results.
 
I dont think adjusting these prameters will get you where you want to be.............In basic most of the default amps sound GREAT , no harshness.....what CAB IR are you using ???

The right Cab is the basic of the right sound :)

If you are using a User IR , check it back again because I found that mine jumped to User 40 = empty instead of User 1 ........this after updating V10

So only a default AMP + CAB should give you the basic tone you are looking for without dialling anything !!
 
I wouldn't say that v10 is brighter than v9.
A couple of the models became brighter, such as the MAZ.
Many v9 presets do need to dialed in again.

If adjusting presets doesn't work and a system reset doesn't work, try reinstalling v10. It worked for some people, especially after AE issues.
 
I have found many amps brighter. I felt like I had some harshness with my plexi. Yesterday messing around I lowere the triod hardness and I smoothed things out. I will found out in about two hours if that adversely affects me in the band mix or not
 
I just started over ,All new presets(not that I had a lot ) Even went back to v9 ,then to v10 again(in one evening)
I'm lovin v10
 
I double clicked bypass and totally reset my amp and cab blocks, the redialed to the same settings ,sounds great, made a bigger difference than just reselecting amp type! using mostly the new cabs and if anything I've added more treble and presence to most of my patches ( all the tone controls just sound more natural), seems to be a much wider sweet spot in 10 for me!
 
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