About sizzle and fizz

T

Thomas Larsson

Experienced
That's the fizzizzle all right.

If a player's experience universe consists of stare-at-knees, play-into-headphones, only-at-home...forums will forever be plagued by the endless ignorance coming out of that limited perspective. But people gotta learn somehow.

Fractal needs to build the "Get A Clue" university: a series of week long camps where forum members pay to rehearse/record/perform with other musicians using tube amps first and then doing it all again on the Axe-Fx.

The quality of posts here would go WAY up :)
 
Frankly, I considered that when people started hearing isolated tracks from their favorite recordings, there would be a substantial reduction in the 'it don't sound good Wally!' posts. So many of them sound like crap in isolation...but in the mix...magic!

R
 
Solo-act - this is in my opinion a bit of a poor attitude....

I'm a hi-gain player... I like a little fizz for energy... but not lots of unmanageable amounts of it...
to be honest.. I'm not fussed how a real amp behaves... I've not used one since the mid 90's...
all I want is a nice hi-gain tone that has:
- enough low end to feel 'deep'
- enough brightness to provide good definition, but it needs to be smooth rather than rasping..
- enough gain to create a sensitive playing experience

the reason I don't use a real valve amp is cos most of them I've tried I don't actually like
most of them sound and feel nasty to me.. I personally prefer a hi-gain pre-amp and a seperate power amp...
but that's just my personal taste....
that said.... and given that I'm not a fan of most valve amps...
just because a real valve amp sounds like that, it don't mean that I want to sound like that..
I got the Axe because of it's versatility.. not because I want to specifically sound just like a Mark IV...
in fact... I don't like the Mark IV.. so it's not a model I'd be heading for.. lol..
so from a tone perspective.. I really want to sculpt my own using whatever is available within the Axe irrespective of what it is emulating..
I don't really feel the need to attend the "Get A Clue" university..
I mean.. behonest... that's not exactly a nice thing to say is it... : )

EDIT: this forum is a real nice place... don't think I've come across anyone in here that's not nice either...
there are though a lot of folk with a wide range of characteristics... beginners to avdanced... bedroomers to stadium players..
wouldn't this be less of a place if it were only open to folk with more than 20 years experience that play stadiums???
maybe it'd be quite an empty place...
 
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electronpirate said:
Frankly, I considered that when people started hearing isolated tracks from their favorite recordings, there would be a substantial reduction in the 'it don't sound good Wally!' posts. So many of them sound like crap in isolation...but in the mix...magic!

R
Click to expand...

totally....
I've always found my best recording tones are quite different to what I use on stage..
don't get me wrong... I'm not anti-hi's, anti-fizz... both things are good things in the right amounts...
what I'm personally struggling with [and I think I'm making good progress] is finding a way to get the combination of tone and feel..
enough gain for the feel.. but also keeping some of the less pleasent side effects of all that gain under control...
the last thing I want to do is carve out all the highs with a brutal blocking filter.. I want highs... but not all of them.. lol...

I've also found the choice of cab and mic play a huge part...
bad choices magnify the fizziness... better choices smooth it out....
the time consuming part [I'm finding] is that there are a lot of cab / mic permutations to trawl through...
I'm convinced that the answer is sitting somewhere inside the Axe for me... I have no doubt at all..
I simply need to trip up over the right combination of amp/cab/mix and associated settings...
it's just going to take some time...
 
I also would like to say that just because people are complaining about the sound, doesn't mean that they don't know what a tube amp sounds like.

I have a Mark IV right on top of my rack case with the Axe-FX II in it. I play through the Mark IV, then the Axe-FX II. This is through the same cab, no cab block in my Axe setting. The Axe one has a boomy bottom and a harsh top. The actual Mark IV does not. In fact, it is even scooped quite a bit to take out the mids it has.

Something is wrong with my Axe setup and I am just looking for suggestions. It is hard to find solutions when 99% of the posts are people telling me it sounds fine and I am a moron just because theirs does sound good. They aren't playing through mine. I'm glad theirs sounds fine, but the first 500+ people saying that was enough to let me know that it CAN sound good. I am just trying to figure out why MINE does not.
 
I understand the point of in-experienced players making mis-statements about different aspects of tone, but the "get a clue" moniker is a little harsh for me too :) But yeah I get what you are saying.

The flip side is, like it or not, for a lot of hobbyist musicians, it really doesn't matter what the track sounds like in a mix, they really want a good practice/bedroom fizzless tone, even if such a tone would have to be majorly carved to fit in a mix.

So what, they don't need it to fit in a mix.

Richard
 
Tamerz said:
I also would like to say that just because people are complaining about the sound, doesn't mean that they don't know what a tube amp sounds like.

I have a Mark IV right on top of my rack case with the Axe-FX II in it. I play through the Mark IV, then the Axe-FX II. This is through the same cab, no cab block in my Axe setting. The Axe one has a boomy bottom and a harsh top. The actual Mark IV does not. In fact, it is even scooped quite a bit to take out the mids it has.

Something is wrong with my Axe setup and I am just looking for suggestions. It is hard to find solutions when 99% of the posts are people telling me it sounds fine and I am a moron just because theirs does sound good. They aren't playing through mine. I'm glad theirs sounds fine, but the first 500+ people saying that was enough to let me know that it CAN sound good. I am just trying to figure out why MINE does not.
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What is your setup with the Axe-Fx? I have a MkIV right here and the Axe-Fx sounds identical through a Mesa cab using a solid-state power amp.

Something weird is going on. 99% of the folks here love the new firmware. A few people are obviously having problems. We need to get to the bottom of it. I suspect Axe-Edit is messing up the presets or something.
 
Tamerz said:
I also would like to say that just because people are complaining about the sound, doesn't mean that they don't know what a tube amp sounds like.

I have a Mark IV right on top of my rack case with the Axe-FX II in it. I play through the Mark IV, then the Axe-FX II. This is through the same cab, no cab block in my Axe setting. The Axe one has a boomy bottom and a harsh top. The actual Mark IV does not. In fact, it is even scooped quite a bit to take out the mids it has.

Something is wrong with my Axe setup and I am just looking for suggestions. It is hard to find solutions when 99% of the posts are people telling me it sounds fine and I am a moron just because theirs does sound good. They aren't playing through mine. I'm glad theirs sounds fine, but the first 500+ people saying that was enough to let me know that it CAN sound good. I am just trying to figure out why MINE does not.
Click to expand...

I almost had the Axe sounding great in 5.0.7 [I'm still very new to the unit]
6.0 kinda pulled the rug from under me..
that said.. I'm 100% convinced that what I'm after is in there... so far I'm just not quite finding it... just a matter of time though..

I know this sounds kind odd... but some of the cabs smooth up the fizz.. you can still be bright.. but less fizzy...
I'm wondering if placing a well chosen cab block after your amp block would help...
follow that with a PEQ / GEQ to compensate for the "cab block through a real cab" effect..
this is just a thought... silly experiment to try... may work.. may not... but maybe worth a go none the less..
 
clarky said:
I don't really feel the need to attend the "Get A Clue" university..
I mean.. behonest... that's not exactly a nice thing to say is it... : )
Click to expand...

How 'bout "Everyone's gonna be blown away at your tone, you'll have a blast performing, and you'll get a laid a lot" University?

Same as get a clue, just a lot longer ;-)
 
It's not only how the tracks sound isolated, which sounds like crap most of the time vs the magic of in the mix, but a lot of folks don't pay credence to the role the tracking and mainly MIXING engineer does to the sound to give it that magic. This is what I was eluding to a month or so ago when I was talking about tone matching recorded tracks. But if you're trying to get a sound like some recorded track, keep in mind that's not really the amp alone, by a long shot. It has been re-eqed, limited, compressed, some times in parallel, delayed, flanged, often in ways not envisioned by the guitarist when he recorded it. Which is all fine and well, but if there was fizzle, which there most likely was, at the source, it's well gone by the time it's mixed.
 
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solo-act said:
How 'bout "Everyone's gonna be blown away at your tone, you'll have a blast performing, and you'll get a laid a lot" University?

Same as get a clue, just a lot longer ;-)
Click to expand...

erm.... I'm actually the Principle of the Uni... lmao
 
FractalAudio said:
What is your setup with the Axe-Fx? I have a MkIV right here and the Axe-Fx sounds identical through a Mesa cab using a solid-state power amp.

Something weird is going on. 99% of the folks here love the new firmware. A few people are obviously having problems. We need to get to the bottom of it. I suspect Axe-Edit is messing up the presets or something.
Click to expand...

I have tried Axe-FX II -> Mesa 50/50 power amp -> Randal 4x12 V30 cab. I have also replaced the Mesa 50/50 with the power section of the Mark IV (which did sound better).

Today my Matrix GT1000FX should be delivered. Thursday night I will be able to spend time hooking it up and troubleshooting. I just wanted to get all the suggestions I could from people by then since the Internet connection at the band studio is spotty.

Hopefully I made it clear that I am not blaming the Axe-FX. I have heard the clips and I know what it can do. I just think I have something wrong and am not sure what yet.
 
Tamerz said:
I have tried Axe-FX II -> Mesa 50/50 power amp -> Randal 4x12 V30 cab. I have also replaced the Mesa 50/50 with the power section of the Mark IV (which did sound better).

Today my Matrix GT1000FX should be delivered. Thursday night I will be able to spend time hooking it up and troubleshooting. I just wanted to get all the suggestions I could from people by then since the Internet connection at the band studio is spotty.

Hopefully I made it clear that I am not blaming the Axe-FX. I have heard the clips and I know what it can do. I just think I have something wrong and am not sure what yet.
Click to expand...

If you use a tube power amp you need to turn off the power amp modeling. Otherwise it will be boomy and harsh since you are going through essentially two power amps.
 
FractalAudio said:
I suspect Axe-Edit is messing up the presets or something.
Click to expand...

+1 to this. Every issue I've ever had with the Axe not sounding right has been due to Axe-Edit. I highly recommend disconnecting AE and rebooting the Axe if you are having an issue and then try again just using the hardware. It seems to me that AE gets confused/crossed up at times. I just had an issue where I edited a preset in a bank file, saved it to a new location in the bank file, and then selected that preset location in the bank file and even though Source remained Bank File the preset at that same location on the Axe started playing.
 
Thomas Larsson said:
Here are some rythm files of my small EL84 amp (JCM800 preamp) with some poweramp-distortion:

http://www.thomaslarsson.org/mp3/GIT 1#188.aif
http://www.thomaslarsson.org/mp3/GIT 4#47.aif
http://www.thomaslarsson.org/mp3/Git2#179.aif


This is a Lonestar with no poweramp distortion (I think).

http://www.thomaslarsson.org/mp3/GIT 1#243.aif

That´s how my amps sound in reality. They sound pretty good in a mix in spite of the sizzle.
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I can only listen to this on computer speakers right now, but that's sounds fine to me. I assumed that the fizz & sizzle people are talking about are with much higher gain amp sounds than those, where it goes from that kind of bite or grind to a much more raspy high frequency buzz that gets annoying. Like the sound of tweeters clipping.
 
Good points Henry!

henryrobinett said:
It's not only how the tracks sound isolated, which sounds like crap most of the time vs the magic of in the mix, but a lot of folks don't pay credence to the role the tracking and mainly MIXING engineer does to the sound to give it that magic. This is what I was eluding to a month or so ago when I was talking about tone matching recorded tracks. But if you're trying to get a sound like some recorded track, keep in mind that not really the amp alone, by a long shot. It has been re-eqed. limited, compressed, some times in parallel, delayed, flanged, often in ways not envisioned by the guitarist when he recorded it. Which is all fine and well, but if there was fizzle, which there most likely was, at the source, it's well gone by the time it's mixed.
Click to expand...

Henry,

Excellent points all of them!

In fact, I'd say (to your final sentence) that perhaps the "sounds-great-in-the-context-of-the-mix" guitar-sound MAY in fact still have some "fizzle" in it, (or NOT as you alluded to) but all of the other stuff about those isolated "album/CD/mixed-and-mastered" guitar-tracks that people love the sound of and are dying to tone-match all have unknown amounts of and combinations of: EQ, "frequency-dependent" multiband-compression, time-domain variants (reverb; room/ambience-mics mixed-in; digital and/or analog and/or tape and/or modulated-delays; etc.) modulation-effects (chorus; phaser; flanger; pitch-shifter; etc.) The reason why most guitarists are NOT encouraged to GUESS exactly which combination of all those unknown mixdown effects, EQ-sculptures, compressions, etc. to use/implement while tracking is because IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW HOW IT WILL ALL SOUND IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FINAL STEREO-MIXDOWN! That is why such decisions and implementations are best left to those engineers (mixdown & mastering) who are trained to make such adjustments and understand the cumulative/interactive effect of such guitar/audio-treatment on the final 2-mix!

Bottom-Line: Once a song (and thus a guitar-track which might be isolated from a band's finished-mix/CD/LP/etc.) has been mixed & mastered, that guitar is no longer gonna resemble what would typically come out of one's speakers either in the studio OR on-stage at a gig!

Apples-and-oranges (IMO!)

Bill
 
I agree re: new firmware and axe-edit.

I recommend loading and checking out new firmware without it.

Might be a good idea to load firmware w/out axe-edit and go guitar and headphones direct to axe-fx and get a baseline listen before adding complexity (axe-edit, power amps, cabs, pedalboards, powered speakers etc)
 
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