44 Magnum + 2x12 cab sounds harsh - help!

thesockmonster

thesockmonster

Member
Need some help - having to use an EHX 44 Magnum and a Port City 2x12 for rehearsal tomorrow with my AX8. I've got cab sims disabled, amp sims on - sounds super thin and harsh. Help!
 
I've used a 44 Magnum for a few years now, and have owned a port city 2x12os before. Let's start simple, is the bright switch on the magnum in the down (off) position? Trying out a fresh preset with nothing but the amp block on default settings does it still sound harsh?

Also, how high are you setting the volume on the magnum? Best results usually come from placing it a bit below 9 o'clock, and then adjusting the output from the fractal.
 
Chronos said:
I've used a 44 Magnum for a few years now, and have owned a port city 2x12os before. Let's start simple, is the bright switch on the magnum in the down (off) position? Trying out a fresh preset with nothing but the amp block on default settings does it still sound harsh?

Also, how high are you setting the volume on the magnum? Best results usually come from placing it a bit below 9 o'clock, and then adjusting the output from the fractal.
Click to expand...

Clean, new patches - bright is off on the Magnum. Volume's about 8:00 on the Magnum.
 
Chronos said:
Let's move on to asking what amps are you using, and what speakers are in your cabinet?
Click to expand...
Trying a few - Dirty Shirley and BE100 v1. Running 2x Jensen Tornados. Tried a Mesa V30 Recto 2x12 I have lying around, same harshness. Am I missing a setting somewhere?
 
Well, I have a friend who owns the smaller port city 2x12 with jensen tornados. It sounds really good with the Double Verb amp, try that model on the vibrato channel and tell me if it sounds nice and full.

Trying 2 different cabs and experiencing same harshness could mean you have some global setting affecting things? Check for global EQ off, and power amp on?

Bad room environment, or is the cab pointed directly at your face and you're getting the beaming effect?
 
I use a Magnum and have compared it to a couple of other SS power amps that I have. With the bright switch off it sounds pretty transparent. Are you coming from mainly playing FRFR and maybe using darker IRs? I could see a traditional cab sounding harsh and thin if you're standing directly in the beam and are used to some of the big, refined sounding 4x12 factory cabs running FRFR.
 
thesockmonster said:
Sorry, got tied up with work. I tried a Fryette Power Station, and played with a few settings based on your suggestions - much better, but still a lot of harshness. Noticing a lot of amp models sound very much the same when you take out the IR from the equation.
Click to expand...

When using the PS, set Resonance at 0 in the Amp block. Otherwise you're overemphasizing lows and highs.
 
yek said:
When using the PS, set Resonance at 0 in the Amp block. Otherwise you're overemphasizing lows and highs.
Click to expand...
Good tip.

I stripped everything down - just an amp block, the physical cab, and the power station. There's a "rattiness" to the sound I can't figure out. Like there's no "life" to the tone. All high-gainers sound and feel the same.

Would someone mind taking a look at this patch and seeing where I'm going wrong?
 

Attachments

  • PT BE100Greenback.syx
    12.6 KB · Views: 3
thesockmonster said:
Good tip.

I stripped everything down - just an amp block, the physical cab, and the power station. There's a "rattiness" to the sound I can't figure out. Like there's no "life" to the tone. All high-gainers sound and feel the same.

Would someone mind taking a look at this patch and seeing where I'm going wrong?
Click to expand...
I just tried your preset. The only thing that makes it sound weird for me is having the Low and High Resonance set to 0 in the amp block. I'm using a 44 Magnum and it sounds lifeless like that. After setting those back to the default your preset sounds fine. I've never used a Power Station, I was under the impression that they were fairly neutral. But since it is a tube amp maybe setting those to 0 is the right thing to do.
 
Last edited:
thesockmonster said:
Good tip.

I stripped everything down - just an amp block, the physical cab, and the power station. There's a "rattiness" to the sound I can't figure out. Like there's no "life" to the tone. All high-gainers sound and feel the same.

Would someone mind taking a look at this patch and seeing where I'm going wrong?
Click to expand...
Actually, I just tried it again. I think I had reset the amp block at some point. You have a ton of advanced parameters that have been tweaked. When I reloaded your preset and only changed the resonance back to the default values it still sounded pretty rough. I'd recommend resetting the amp block and starting from scratch, only tweaking the basic amp parameters.
 
Can you describe more what you mean by rattiness?

Also, I'd take a look at that preset but I'm unsure if that converter out there works between ax8 and the mark ii? I haven't used it before
 
I downloaded fractool and went through your preset and it sounded pretty anemic to me even after putting the speaker resonances back to normal. Try the preset I'm uploading and see how it works. It's your same BMT and drive settings, but it puts back a lot of other settings that I found skewed in the advanced pages. I played it though my magnum 44 and a 2x12 cab loaded with V30's from Mesa, so try your rectifier cab with this as well.

I might have left the boost setting engaged in the amp block cause I was curious how it sounded with a bit more drive :D and you can remove the fx loop as I use output 2 for going to my cabinet.

Also, thinking about how a lot of advanced settings were funky I would suggest going on Axe-Edit under the settings tab and hitting "Refresh after new FW"
 

Attachments

  • PT BE100 V1(AX8).syx
    12.6 KB · Views: 1
Last edited:
thesockmonster said:
Yup, I've tried it both ways. I'm having my buddy bring over his Helix to see if it's an issue with my unit.
Click to expand...
Did you try resetting the amp block? In the preset you attached there are lots of advanced parameters in the amp block that have been changed from their defaults. I reset the block and bypassed the volume pedal, the weird rattiness went away and it sounded glorious through my Magnum and 2x12.
 
^ Seriously.

Although I'm afraid he's needing to refresh axe-edit parameters or something, and simply resetting the amp block with axe-edit is causing some of those settings to be like that? I mean in the original post he mentions it sounds thin, and the preset has depth all the way down almost, so I think some of it is user error as well, which is why I just attached the preset where everything should be set normally with his original drive and BMT, and it sounded fantastic. If using that patch doesn't sound good then I'm willing to start blaming the cab itself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom