The Quest for amp clarity and sizzle

B

beteasta351

Member
Hey all!

I love my FM3. It is a fantastic and diverse piece of kit, and honestly can't replace it.

Recently, I got my hands on an EVH 5150 III, plugged it into a 2 note torpedo load box, and let it rip. It sounded fantastic, and had a sizzle and clarity that I found difficult to recreate on the FM3. For some reason, the FM3 does not want to have that high end sizzle in it - turning the treble, presence, high treble up just makes it sound sharper, not more sizzle-y. The low-mids are also a bit squishy in the FM3, whereas the 5150 has a more clear low-mid range attack. You can hear the pick on the strings.

I tried changing the presence frequency in the amp block. Messed around with some other settings, changed the impendence to the two notes model in the FM3 to match my two notes torpedo, and got somewhat close. But still not quite there.

Posted below is a comparison of the 5150 III versus the FM3. The first clip is the 5150, the second clip is the FM3.

Any thoughts on this conundrum? Is there a way to get more sizzle? Is this something that can be worked on in the modelling end?

@Admin M@ maybe you have some tips or insight for me? At your convenience of course!

 
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Two things you can try are the Cab Block's Exciter, and the Cab Block's Air feature (doesn't need much IMO).

Also, EQ a little low mids out?
 
mr_fender said:
Based on your description I would have sworn the two clips would be the other way around. The FM3 sounds more clear with more sizzle to me. The amp sounds a little darker.
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Thanks for your input man! I appreciate your ear too, I've been tinkering for so long... I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about the real amp that sounds a little more "excited." It also has more clarity and distortion separation to my ear (i don't know if distortion separation is a thing...)

The FM3 also sounds a little buzzier and flubbier on the chugs, to my ears.
 
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Are you looking for more saturation and body? That's what I'm hearing. I don't know enough to help you with knowing whether it should be through preamp gain, tweaking amp parameters, or through the cab. I do hear the flub on the low-end of the FM3, though.

I played with the adding the cab preamp exciter with some saturation to my JP2C preset, and it definitely adds a little something.
 
mr_fender said:
Based on your description I would have sworn the two clips would be the other way around. The FM3 sounds more clear with more sizzle to me. The amp sounds a little darker.
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I hear a similar thing.

To get rid of the 'buzzier' sound, I would suggest a high cut in the Cab block @ 8,000-9,000 Hz. Then in the Amp block, Speaker page, increase the 'HF Reso' to @ 8.0 and the 'HF Slope' to @ 4.0. You can play around with the 'High Freq' value as well to get the clarity back where you want it.

EDIT: Don't overlook the IR(s). Sometimes simply choosing an IR with a different mic or mic placement can make all the difference
 
unix-guy said:
You might also want to compare the FM3 with a similar Speaker Impedance Curve to the load box...

Edit:

The Double Note would make sense.
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I already did this as per my original post. I definitely missed it in my initial tests, and then remembered about the speaker impedance towards the end of my experiments. (The clip I posted has the speaker impedance adjusted, of course, to the Double Note)
 
JoKeR III said:
I hear a similar thing.

To get rid of the 'buzzier' sound, I would suggest a high cut in the Cab block @ 8,000-9,000 Hz. Then in the Amp block, Speaker page, increase the 'HF Reso' to @ 8.0 and the 'HF Slope' to @ 4.0. You can play around with the 'High Freq' value as well to get the clarity back where you want it.

EDIT: Don't overlook the IR(s). Sometimes simply choosing an IR with a different mic or mic placement can make all the difference
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Going to try this at home. Upon sleeping on it, the 5150 sounds more “open” - the saturation is a bit smoother too.

Going to mess around with your ideas later today, will post back shortly!
 
I did something similar recently where I was trying to match the FM3 to a NAM profile and the thing I noticed which is the same here is the top end which is smoother with the real amp

What I did on the FM3 was to set the speaker breakup on the speaker tab to soft - then set the speaker drive to a higher value like 3.
 
beteasta351 said:
I used the 5150 100 watt model, didn't really use the 50 watt model because we only have the Blue channel right now!
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I mean which is the model version of your real 5150 III. 50w, 100w, 50w EL34, 100w EL34, 50W Stealth, 100w Stealth, 50w Stealth EL34, 100w Stealth EL34.

Sorry for the confusion. I mean "They sell a lot of different models (versions) of the 5150 III" not that there were a lot of models of the 5150 III in the axe, but both are true.
 
unix-guy said:
You might also want to compare the FM3 with a similar Speaker Impedance Curve to the load box...

Edit:

The Double Note would make sense.
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He already did as per the first post.

Aivoryuk said:
I did something similar recently where I was trying to match the FM3 to a NAM profile and the thing I noticed which is the same here is the top end which is smoother with the real amp

What I did on the FM3 was to set the speaker breakup on the speaker tab to soft - then set the speaker drive to a higher value like 3.
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That's interesting. If anything, when comparing an amp into a load box to a model with the same load box impedance curve I would expect to have no speaker drive at all. Since the real amp into the load box then IR isn't getting any speaker drive.
 
IronSean said:
That's interesting. If anything, when comparing an amp into a load box to a model with the same load box impedance curve I would expect to have no speaker drive at all. Since the real amp into the load box then IR isn't getting any speaker drive.
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I couldn't tell you in terms of the physics - I just listen to what my ears tell me - in this particular instance when trying to match a NAM profile - I needed to smooth the upper mids and highs in terms of the harmonic content. I find a combination of the speaker breakup and speaker drive does this. If i want something more aggressive but less dynamic I keep speaker breakup at medium and turnup the speaker drive.
loads of ways to skin a cat with fractal - the cathode follower is also very powerful.
 
IronSean said:
I mean which is the model version of your real 5150 III. 50w, 100w, 50w EL34, 100w EL34, 50W Stealth, 100w Stealth, 50w Stealth EL34, 100w Stealth EL34.

Sorry for the confusion. I mean "They sell a lot of different models (versions) of the 5150 III" not that there were a lot of models of the 5150 III in the axe, but both are true.
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It’s the 50 Watt 3. Depth knob in the back. I know we don't have that exact model in the Axe FX/FM3. But ultimately, there is still something in the crossover distortion or in the low/mid-low end that sounds too squishy and not clear enough. I will work on changing the parameters as per some of everyone's suggestions and post my results tonight!
 
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Kinda hard to understand what you are asking here. Run those clips though a spectrum analyzer and I can almost guarantee there is more high end and more low end coming from the FM3 clip compared to the 1st half of the clip

"But ultimately, there is still something in the crossover distortion or in the low/mid-low end that sounds too squishy and not clear enough"

I'm unsure if you are matching settings nor if the model you're using is an exact match here (I would use my ear vs matching settings), but here's how I dial in a high gain tone (not going to talk about IRs as that's a different thing entirely), maybe you can find one of these steps useful.

1. Adjust gain and tone stack until the strumming open chords and some lead line until it sounds like you want. Do not palm mute, as that will skew your choices.

2. Now focus purely on palm muting. Generally I find most the models aren't as tight as I'd like. The fix is adjusting the input EQ low cut until the palm muted is responding exactly as wanted. I've gone as high as 250 looking for a specific tone. Do not touch tone page in this step, just the input EQ.

3. Now...overall, how's the tone sound? This is typically were some low end fine tuning needs to happen. Do one or the other, shouldn't need to do both if time was taken in the prior steps.

A. If you're too boomy when palm muting, my favorite trick is a modified Leon Todd think using the multiband compressor (found on preset 380 you can copy that block directly if you like). My twist is he uses the mid band but I like using the low band rather than the mid band leaving it and the high to address other things if needed. Now you still have to set the mid band crossover as that impacts the frequency range of the low band. I typically set it somewhere in the low mids, say ~350, then set up the low band with a ratio between 2-4 and threshold until it's responding as desired, levels for all 3 bands at 0. You can mess with the attack and release settings as needed (faster better in the case IMHO). The benefit of this technique vs just EQ or adjusting the cab block is it leaves your tone alone except when your palm muting and the low end spikes.

B. If there's not enough low end, rather than the tone page I would use the output EQ here to bump up 125 a couple DB.
 
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