Low Cut, High Cut

[Rex]

Just tried the 80/8000 settings in a few of my main patches and on my Tannoy monitors I'm not really noticing a difference.

I have to go a bit below 8 KHz to notice a difference. I usually wind up between 6 and 7.5 KHz, depending.

For reference, I can hear 15 KHz, but not nearly as well as I used to. (I used to be able to hear a CRT's horizontal sweep oscillator clearly from across the room. Now I have to get fairly close to hear it.)

 

[unix-guy]

My ears are...not so great any more.

I was suspecting you might have missed the slope...

 

[iaresee]

I was suspecting you might have missed the slope...

No. I have the slope set to 12dB/Octave. At 7.5kHz it's a little more noticeable.

 

[warlockII]

I prefer the thump I get without the 80 Hz cut, but the band mix does sound better with it.

 

[The Last Romantic]

For me it depends on the mix.
I'm usually setting the low-cut to where the bass is most prominent, and setting the hi-cut to start where the cymbals are most prominent.

 

[StickMan]

Your monitors [ideally] put out a carbon copy of the sound pumped into them.

That sound is crafted using a simulation of a speaker cab (as a cab "filters" the harsh noisy sound that comes out of an amp into a pleasant range).

That simulation was created by close-miking an actual cab. This is how we are able to replicate the intricate function of a cab - essentially by using in real-time a sample of an actual cab.

Thus, you are hearing a close-miked sound from your monitors regardless of your distance from them.

I think you're missing my point. If my monitors are pumping out an exact replica of what the mic(s) heard 1" in front of the speaker, and if we assume that the speakers (monitor or guitar amp) cease to influence the sound once the sound has been produced, then the result that I hear - 10' away - should be the same as what I'd hear from the amp.

Fiddling with high and low cut to make the sound going into the monitors sound more like an amp 10' away, and then adding the actual physical distance from the monitors when I hear them seems like it would double the effect.

Try it this way. Imagine that I've put the monitors on top of the guitar cabinet the IR came from, in the room where the IR was made. If the sound coming out of both the monitors and the guitar was exactly the same measured from 1" in front of each, wouldn't they sound exactly the same 10' away? Why would I try to make the monitors sound different than the sound 1" from the guitar speakers?

 

[RKF]

Would this be something I'd notice more clearly at stage volumes instead of near field monitoring volumes? Presumably it offsets some fletcher-munson-y stuff as you crank up the volume?

Absolutely!

 

[RKF]

I use 7500 for the high cut but that's pretty close. Also be sure the filter is 2nd order (12 dB/oct.). It probably depends on your hearing as well. Despite playing in rock bands for 25 years and not wearing any hearing protection I can hear up to 15 kHz. If you hearing has been damaged by loud music then you may not be able to hear the effects.

I'm assuming the difference between 1st and 2nd order (6db vs 12db) is the rate of attenuation past the set frequency, 7500khz in this case?

I think I have mine set at 6db. Never messed with that setting.

 

[Promit]

IME as someone who is definitely not a producer or sound engineer, 8000 lives right at the nexus of the "presence band" and the "fizz band". There's not a lot of useful information above 8k, it's just fizzy harmonic nonsense that fights with the "sparkle" of cymbals. The 5k-8k region is the "presence" band and it's a tricky one to dial in. Take it out and the tone gets dull and can get lost in a mix. Leave it in and you can get a very harsh guitar under distortion (depending on the IR). Don't just punch in some round number and go. Listen to a 6k cut, and an 8k cut. Those should sound significantly different. Then start closing in on a choice for the final cut point, stepping about 100 Hz at a time.

 

[Hellbat]

I have to go a bit below 8 KHz to notice a difference. I usually wind up between 6 and 7.5 KHz, depending.

For reference, I can hear 15 KHz, but not nearly as well as I used to. (I used to be able to hear a CRT's horizontal sweep oscillator clearly from across the room. Now I have to get fairly close to hear it.)

Lucky for you. I have tinnitus at a very similar frequency to flyback transformer noise and I hear it any time I'm under about 70dB of background noise.

 

[Rex]

I think you're missing my point. If my monitors are pumping out an exact replica of what the mic(s) heard 1" in front of the speaker, and if we assume that the speakers (monitor or guitar amp) cease to influence the sound once the sound has been produced, then the result that I hear - 10' away - should be the same as what I'd hear from the amp.

Not the same thing. That mic sitting 1" from the speaker is heavily influenced by the part of the speaker it's closest to. Other parts of the speaker are two to ten times farther away. Their contribution has a resulting phase shift. Also, the contribution of other speakers in the cabinet is minimized.

But when you're ten feet away from the cab, you're at approximately the same distance from every point on the speaker. Because of that, some sources of comb filtering are minimized. Others, such as room reflections and multiple speakers in the cab, are strengthened. Long story short: it won't sound the same.

 

[VanHalen]

Personally I doubt we'll ever get IRs that sound exactly like listening to a cab "in the room".

I don't doubt one minute it is possible. If you want to use traditionnal far-field mics to get this "cab in the room" feeling, you're wrong. The key is to use binaural mics like a Neumann KU100 dummy head. The results are really good and very long IRs can 't be shoot with it. I've already posted examples on this thread : http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/amp-in-the-room-feeling.119127/

The problem is that very few people know this miking technique (Morphosis on this forum does however).

 

[joegold]

I use 7500 for the high cut but that's pretty close. Also be sure the filter is 2nd order (12 dB/oct.). It probably depends on your hearing as well. Despite playing in rock bands for 25 years and not wearing any hearing protection I can hear up to 15 kHz. If you hearing has been damaged by loud music then you may not be able to hear the effects.

Hey Cliff

Any chance of expanding the EQ options in the Cab Block w/o screwing up the CPU overhead too much?

At least one band of some sort of parametric or quasi-parametric EQ, for the mids, would be most welcome.
I often feel like I could use even steeper hi/lo cuts than the 12db/oct option allows for.
Any chance of increasing the options to include 3rd, 4th, etc. order cuts?

I know the Cab Block now has 3 band EQ in the modeled console preamps but it never seems right for what I'm talking about.
I also know I could add a Filter or EQ Block post Cab Block but it'd be easier if all the EQ I need for the Cab Block was actually inside the Cab Block.

Just spit-balling.

 

[joegold]

I don't doubt one minute it is possible. If you want to use traditionnal far-field mics to get this "cab in the room" feeling, you're wrong. The key is to use binaural mics like a Neumann KU100 dummy head. The results are really good and very long IRs can 't be shoot with it. I've already posted examples on this thread : http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/amp-in-the-room-feeling.119127/

The problem is that very few people know this miking technique (Morphosis on this forum does however).

If this is a useful way to acquire IRs, then we'd need to have the capability for stereo IRs in the Axe to make use of them.
And that would likely exceed the CPU limits we need to work within.

Do you know of any sources for IRs acquired this way that I could try in my DAW with an IR loader?
I'd kind of like to hear what they sound like.

 

[Rex]

If this is a useful way to acquire IRs, then we'd need to have the capability for stereo IRs in the Axe to make use of them.
And that would likely exceed the CPU limits we need to work within.

We have that capability now.

 

[VanHalen]

So, until an abundant source of far-field IRs are available we need to think like a producer/engineer who is dealing with the mic pushed up against the grill cloth. This means shaping the tone with EQ to remove unwanted frequencies.

Cliff, if you want to encourage IRs producers to make very long IRs like far-field IRs, please enable the Axe FX to process/shoot very long IRs. I know the CPU usage can be very high but how many percent ? 30 % (OK, it depends on the length of the IR) ? If this is the case, this is not really a problem.

 

[FractalAudio]

Cliff, if you want to encourage IRs producers to make very long IRs like far-field IRs, please enable the Axe FX to process/shoot very long IRs. I know the CPU usage can be very high but how many percent ? 30 % (OK, it depends on the length of the IR) ? If this is the case, this is not really a problem.

Far-field IRs are no longer than near-field IRs.

 

[FractalAudio]

If this is a useful way to acquire IRs, then we'd need to have the capability for stereo IRs in the Axe to make use of them.
And that would likely exceed the CPU limits we need to work within.

It can process stereo IRs. See the manual for details.

 

[joegold]

We have that capability now.

You mean by using a stereo Cab Block with one side of the stereo IR in slot one and the other side in slot 2, with both IRs hard-panned?
I suppose that might work as long as you can break up your stereo IR into 2 mono files which should be trivial.

But generally speaking, actual stereo IRs are not possible to use with the Axe yet, unless I'm highly uninformed.
If the latter, then please inform me.

 

[VanHalen]

Do you know of any sources for IRs acquired this way that I could try in my DAW with an IR loader?
I'd kind of like to hear what they sound like.

Follow the link to the other thread I posted. Watch all the Youtube videos (the three ones) and you'll understand.

And for those who could be interested in mixing close mic and room mics :