Preset Leveling - Approaches

W

WITELITE

Experienced
I know the feature exists in Axe Edit III (which again the team continues to do an amazing job on - THANK YOU!) and I see feature requests about 3 second averages and such (+1)

My question is more around approaches

- It looks as if factory presets hover around -3db and 0 db. Is there an optimal or is it the preverbal "trust your ears"
-My presets are more around +3db to +6db. They don't clip but I guess runs the risk of doing so when adding other effects. Is this too hot?
- I also notice that my clean tone presets seem to average about 3db hotter than my crunch tones. Any thoughts on this from guys in terms of whether your cleans are hotter?

Do you guys consciously try and equalize them or again back to the trust your ears (which is a little more challenging if not in a high volume environment)

Thanks

MM
 
I think its all personal taste. No "right" way to do it. In my situation i monitor the meter on protools if im recording just to make sure its not hitting the red even if my preset volume is higher than 0db.
 
clean tones are more dynamic, so you may see it look "louder" on the meter only because it responds to harder hits more than a high gain tone, which is naturally more compressed.

you can level your presets to whatever level you want, as long as it doesn't clip. that said, a louder leveling doesn't do too much for tone or anything else because you ultimately set the main output volume via the Output Knobs or other gear like a mixer, etc.

if all your presets are leveled at -10dB for example, when you're playing, you'd just turn up the Output Knob so it's as loud as you need it to be. if they were all leveled at +10dB, you'd probably set the Out Knob lower, etc. ultimately you don't want presets to clip. that's what i call "internal volume". after that, you adjust the Output Knob and other gear regardless.

we leveled the Factory Presets to aim for 0dB on average. that's how the leveling system is designed. different guitars can produce different results on the same presets, so they won't all be exactly 0. also depending how you play, how hard you hit on average when leveling, etc.

so the theory is aim for the 0 mark on average for presets you want to be the same level. aim for less for a preset you want quieter, more for a preset you want louder.

it's just a reference point.
 
Old Soundguy Says: back in the days of rust-covered plastic every dB counted, as background noise was an omnipresent challenge. High quality gear (like Fractal) is, by comparison, virtually noiseless. Go for what sounds good to you (do occasionally pay SOME attention to the flashing LEDs), focus on playing your ass off — and consider that getting a pleasing musical result is seldom a matter of meters.
 
I level the 8 scenes in my preset template meticulously using my DAW. I have DI tracks for clean sounds, dirty sounds and hi-gain sound. I re-amp these through each scene, and adjust the amp block levels such that clean sounds have a loudness of -23 LUFS, dirty sounds -21 LUFS and hi-gain sounds -19 LUFS. (these are two global amp blocks).

Then I do song specific presets with scenes for each part, and then I change the level in a different place in my signal chain using my ear based on what is required for the song/part. It takes time, but it is totally worth it.
 
I've struggled with this for years, using ears and also a $50 dB meter but about 2 years ago switched to a simple LUFS meter (I use a freeware called Youlean) and that is wonderful because I use some cleans, a lot of acoustic tones, and all sorts of gain (light, medium and very high). I am also pretty specific on lead boost volumes, so the LUFS meter helps me. When the Axe III came out with the metering being improved that helped a ton, but I was already using a LUFS meter and have stuck with it. I play in several bands, several styles, so I actually spend a lot of time leveling the volumes. Here is my new challenge - one of my bands has a singer that plays guitar very occasionally. I am now running him thru my Axe III (which is super cool) so I can control his tone and levels, so I now have double duty on some patches. Challenging, but very fun. My ears aren't good enough to do everything by ear (especially acoustic tones), and I also use Axe Edit and rarely use the front panel - that said it is already connected via USB so again the LUFS meter works really well for me. Hope this helps,
 
I believe the manual just says to aim for the red line, which is zero. Just to have consistency between presets.
 
As long as the meter isn't hitting the ceiling, you're fine. Personally, I don't like level discrepancies when switching presets, so I generally set it a bit into the red.
 
phil92 said:
at rehearsal/sound check. Then we gradually increased the volume throughout the gig. Rinse, repeat.
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Remember that one well. Only way to be sure that everything is louder than everything else!

I have a couple of scenes that I know are really loud - I remember from recording sessions and gigs with physical amps and effects, engineers would often comment that I had sections that leapt up by 6 dB or more. Not quite so radical now with the Axe FX, but I know which combinations peak the meters. I aim to have those just into the red, using my ears to detect any digital clipping. I then set everything else just below the red. Then I fine tune by ear.

Preset leveling is an awesome feature, I am finding the job so much faster now.

Liam
 
I believe the meters on the AXE III are peak meters. An RMS meter would be helpful for leveling your presets. RMS displays the average, which is closer to what humans hear or perceive.
 
4406cuda said:
I believe the meters on the AXE III are peak meters. An RMS meter would be helpful for leveling your presets. RMS displays the average, which is closer to what humans hear or perceive.
Click to expand...

I tend to do a lot of recording with the Axe, and for recording, I tend to pay attention to the peak level because that's where the audio can become distorted.
 
Amen to selectable meter ballistics – both have their uses. I feel a "Wish" post in the making.

That said: relying on consistent levels on ANY meter — especially when considering different “tone” settings — doesn’t necessarily equate to equal level “perception”.

YHMV (“your hearing may vary”).
 
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