Tried to use II at rehearsal for first time--didn't go well.

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bjjp2

Power User
Have a gig coming up on Saturday and was getting up the nerve to use the II for the first time, so I brought it to rehearsal last night. We rehearse at a studio in NYC where they lock the PA and you can't access it. I had to convince the guy there to let me plug in my Axe II into the PA. Told him to give me a flat EQ. Fired up the Axe and it sounded horribly bright and tinny. Absolutely nothing like it sounds through my QSC at home. I double checked that it was properly connected and that power and cab sims were on. Since I couldn't get into PA, and I didn't want to bother the guy again, I disconnected and just played through one of the amps there. Any idea what might have been the problem on the PA end? Now I'm nervous about using it at the gig.
 
If you can't see how the PA's set up, who knows what the issue is (crappy PA, channel not flat, gain structure of channel weird, bad graphic eq setup only to flatter vocals and killing too much low end, etc. etc.). If you like how your stuff sounds at home and someone running the PA wherever you're playing has a clue, they should be able to get great sounds out of the Axe. You may experience it as sounding different, but it shouldn't be crappy the way you described it.

I've never had anyone running a PA with my Axe plugged into it do anything but smile and say some variation of "wow, that sounds really good." I will say that it's good to tweak your patches at the volume you're going to play. With the Ultra I had to do some low end taming when I cranked it up louder at a gig than I'd been at home and discovered an overabundance of low end. I think this was a pretty common Ultra phenomenon. I don't experience that in remotely the same way with the II. After 3.03/4 with my amp at high resolution, I do think I'm hearing in 3D;-)
 
Do you know if the sound tech turn off the EQ on your channel completely, or just make it flat? On our board (Allen & Heath GL4800) I can tell the difference between EQ on and off, even when the EQ is set flat. If I hear something in my IEM that sounds bright and tinny, I immediately ask our sound tech "can you make sure the EQ is punched out on my channel?" and then the problem generally goes away.
 
Well, the fact that you were somewhat "handcuffed" by the rehearsal PA being in lockdown certainly doesn't make locating the problems very easy. Certainly there are going to be differences in EQ between your home QSC FRFR monitor and the one used at the rehearsal venue. The key here is to have solid reference points when you are monitoring. Ideally, you'd want to be able to have access to a PA system that you know is representative of a worthy, typical FRFR PA system. Further, to be able to have some time to spend with such a PA along with your "home monitor" in the same room would be of significant value.

Speaking from personal experience, when I first got my AxeFx, I spend a couple weeks tweaking tone at home at levels that I presumed were "loud enough". I created some presets and then rehearsed with my new AxeFx based amp rig and all seemed cool...until...at the first show, I found that my direct feed to the PA was very bright and off the mark. Subsequently, I had to go back to the drawing board and spend some time doing A/B testing of my FRFR speaker system comparing it to the FRFR rehearsal PA system we use. I found that, in fact, the presets were too bright and I had to go about adjusting my "core" tone accordingly. Since then, all has been pretty smooth sailing.

Point being, we are not always presented with ideal situations, in which case you must have a very thorough understanding of the components you are working with, especially when it comes to PA systems and audio processing in general. Take comfort in that the AxeFx DOES WORK as it is supposed to if it is used properly. Unfortunately, many users have to go through a bit of trial and error process to get there.

Also, there are many good sources here on the forum. If you can post one of your patches that is "too bright", you may find that a user could tell you right off the bat whether you're doing something odd in terms of EQ (in their opinion), as there are many who have already successfully tweaked their presets to work as a direct feed to a FOH FRFR system.
 
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The problem is the AXEFX is going to sound different through every single PA you use. You are going to have to tweak it out everywhere you use it. It's the same as taking it and running it into 20 different sets of studio monitors. Depending on the quality of monitors you have it will be terrible to perfect.
 
I'd be interested in knowing if they really had your channel set flat on the PA. Even with differences between what your tone sounds like through your monitor vs how it sounds through the PA, I'm skeptical that would sound as bad as you suggest IF the PA was set properly.

I'm running a QSC K12 wedge with my II and we run K10's on top of KSubs for our FOH. I found that the K10's on top of the subs sounded better than the K12's for the PA especially for vocals. I also found that I prefer the K12 with the Axe FX over the K10's.

All that being said, I also found the Axe FX sounded slightly bright through the PA even when running the channel EQ flat. Something you may find helpful if you're running a K series wedge monitor, is to switch the 'External Sub' switch to 'On' which essentially works like a high pass filter. It's eliminates some of the low end crud that can muddy things up. This may help you in tweaking your patches and result in you getting a more accurate rendition of how your tone will sound through the PA.

The other thing that I've just started to experiment with is Scott Peterson's method of putting a global PEQ at the end of the signal chain of each preset so that corrections can be made quickly and easily when situations like the one you just experienced pop up.
 
i've never plugged into a PA and left the EQ flat - they all sound crap to my ears. one thing you can do to help, is tweak the global eq on the axe (on the output pair you're sending to the pa) by reducing 8khz and 64hz. then some gentle tweaks on the mixer (usually by reducing 8k and 3-4k) will get you a decent sound. don't assume that any PA is going to give you a great sound off the bat...
 
I don't know if this applies, but I started out using an RCF 310A when creating presets, and when I played them through my monitors they all sounded too bright. Presets created using my monitors still sounded OK to me through the RCF, although not the same as the monitors. It seems that patches translate better going down the FRFR quality scale than up.
 
schlagdog said:
The problem is the AXEFX is going to sound different through every single PA you use. You are going to have to tweak it out everywhere you use it. It's the same as taking it and running it into 20 different sets of studio monitors. Depending on the quality of monitors you have it will be terrible to perfect.
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But Scott Peterson recently posted: "I've never once tweaked on the gig by going into the unit menus. That's well over 300+ shows on stages from big national stages at outdoor festivals, small rooms playing acoustically, big rock clubs, small hole-in-the-wall rock clubs, casinos, etc.. Why? Am I 'super man' as noted above? No, I can confidently say I am anything but 'superman' at all. I have used the global EQ to lighten or darken EQ upon request; but 99% of the time, it's level up on sound check..."Guitar.... great. Thank you..." and then go back to the board after sound check, EQ's are flat on my channel. After the gig, no change. Flat EQ. Literally hundreds of sound guys now... flat EQ."
 
first time to gig with my Axe-II is coming up. I'm hoping all i have to do at full set-up PA rehearsal Saturday is adjust some patch-to-patch volume and maybe my global EQ a bit since it's my first time. But, the good news, is this is the EXACT PA the NYE show is going through, so once set, it will sound great on NYE!!
 
just had one show since i got my axe but .. my soundcheck didn last longer than setting input trim correctly ;)
 
bjjp2 said:
But Scott Peterson recently posted: "I've never once tweaked on the gig by going into the unit menus. That's well over 300+ shows on stages from big national stages at outdoor festivals, small rooms playing acoustically, big rock clubs, small hole-in-the-wall rock clubs, casinos, etc.. Why? Am I 'super man' as noted above? No, I can confidently say I am anything but 'superman' at all. I have used the global EQ to lighten or darken EQ upon request; but 99% of the time, it's level up on sound check..."Guitar.... great. Thank you..." and then go back to the board after sound check, EQ's are flat on my channel. After the gig, no change. Flat EQ. Literally hundreds of sound guys now... flat EQ."
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Well...Scott doesn't give himself enough credit sometimes. He has the ability to tweak it just right for a good band mix, and many of the rest of us...maybe not so much. :) Whenever I've downloaded his patches, they just seem to fit well. I don't always *love* them when playing by myself, but I know that they will cut when I play with the band. Over time, I've gotten better but it's still a struggle. I'm still adjusting following the V3 upgrade to get the band mix just right w/o being overly bright.
 
That's why you have Global EQ and other EQ blocks. You can adjust your curve before handing it to the crap PA in the rehearsal room. Quick, easy and very effective!
 
xrist04 said:
That's why you have Global EQ and other EQ blocks. You can adjust your curve before handing it to the crap PA in the rehearsal room. Quick, easy and very effective!
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Yeah, but that studio time is expensive. I didn't have time to mess with it and it's not like it was close. It was way off.
 
bjjp2 said:
Yeah, but that studio time is expensive. I didn't have time to mess with it and it's not like it was close. It was way off.
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Assuming all your presets are 'off' by the same amount, try using the Global EQ and see if you can bring them in to where you want them when at the gig/thru the PA.

If you can get them sounding satisfactory, don't reset the Global EQ or your Output Level(s) and when back at home see how your rig sounds in your reference/preset creation environment. That might tell you a lot.

I sent Output 1 XLR to the FOH and leave it flat, and use Output 2 to my stage monitor and adjust the Global EQ on that output to the room/environment and level.

I've learned by trail and error over many shows with FRFR systems that differences tonewise between my home vs gig environments is that I always should make my presets a bit more crispier/brighter and fatter in the 63Hz -> 125Hz ranges when creating/listening to patches at home than I'd usually use. And always tune presets at your expected gigging levels.
 
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my tones are generally way too bright for most PA systems. i'm almost always making a frowny face on the global eq send to the FOH.

but yes, do you know if all your patches were "way off" by the same amount? like, they're all WAY too bright. or they all didn't have any definition, or all way too boomy, etc.

just because your channel was set to flat, doesn't mean there wasn't some crazy graphic eq going on after the mixer changing a whole bunch of things. many sound guys EQ rooms for vocals to stand out, which might make instruments not sound so good.
 
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