adjusting tone in a band mix

I use Yek's Mid Boost PEQ and find it works well and give my tone that midrange push that it needs.

I use it to cut everything below 100Hz (been trialling with 120-125Hz too) and everything above 6-8Khz. It then has a wide midrange boost around 700Hz at +4dB.
It can sound a bit grating on it's own, but I've found that in a mix it sits nicely.
 
Nice thread. So far I'm in the early stages of learning to deal with this- just doing the low-end and high-end cuts in PEQ before amp or in a drive block, and then similar cuts in the cab block. It makes a big difference. Right now I have only one patch really dialed to sound good in our band, and I use it for every song in the night (3 sets worth). The challenge for me now is to make a similar flexible tone based on something Fendery, another one for VOXy, and something Marshally or SLOy. I have tried a few times, had it sounding good at home, and bombed at practice with fall-back to my HiWatt. I don't have the knack yet for the home tuning to get it close before being with the band.

Seems like the only way I will be able to do it right will be to create a patch while playing along with a band recording with my track pulled out, at very loud volume. One of these days...
 
Interesting after research I've started adding more mids to my presets, perplexed though about playing in a band situation it sounds great, but what about EVH, Page, Sambora and loads of metal fellas doing the unaccompanied 20 minute solo onstage, are you saying they change tone or stay the same. Without mid sounds better on its own, easier pinch harmonics too.
 
Ahmed Badreldin said:
Interesting after research I've started adding more mids to my presets, perplexed though about playing in a band situation it sounds great, but what about EVH, Page, Sambora and loads of metal fellas doing the unaccompanied 20 minute solo onstage, are you saying they change tone or stay the same.
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Some change it, some don't. From what I've listened to, most don't. At gig volumes, all that bass sounds woolly, and all that treble sounds like ice picks to your ears.
 
Ahmed Badreldin said:
Interesting after research I've started adding more mids to my presets, perplexed though about playing in a band situation it sounds great, but what about EVH, Page, Sambora and loads of metal fellas doing the unaccompanied 20 minute solo onstage, are you saying they change tone or stay the same. Without mid sounds better on its own, easier pinch harmonics too.
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also there is a sound guy who can pull down some volume and mids if need be
 
Ahmed Badreldin said:
Interesting after research I've started adding more mids to my presets, perplexed though about playing in a band situation it sounds great, but what about EVH, Page, Sambora and loads of metal fellas doing the unaccompanied 20 minute solo onstage, are you saying they change tone or stay the same. Without mid sounds better on its own, easier pinch harmonics too.
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If you do 20 minute-solos and your not filling stadiums already, you are doing it wrong anyway. ;)
 
ha ha don't shoot me on this but I've seen old footage of Zeppelin and Page plays with a crappy banjo sound, no gain, no sustain and the masses loved it. How you get no sustain from an LP must be a trick.
 
I would like to know how studio engineers get killer tones to sound good at low and high volumes. My axe patches both home and gig have this fairly narrow sweet spot where they sound great, north and south of that not so much.
 
Maxxblade said:
I would like to know how studio engineers get killer tones to sound good at low and high volumes.
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They record guitar tones that are already being played loud. And when you change volume when listening to a recorded mix, Fletcher-Munson affects all the instruments at once, so it doesn't make one of them overpower another.
 
I was struggling with this until I bought the RAC12... Even after setting HP / LP filters, Global settings, etc, those final little tweaks including balancing amps across presets, etc, used to take me weeks of incremental trial & error adjustments between gigs. Now I can do them live on-stage like the old days :) More experienced tweakers may not need this tool, but it certainly has made a big difference to me. Can't beat the old amp dials imho (...well, possibly being able to dial for free using the MCF-101 as a controller would, but I've no idea if that's possible... :encouragement: )
Anyway, apologies if this is not relevant to you, I just thought I'd let you know how I ended up solving your issue...

Oh, and I've also found that 'clean' tones need a tad more grit than you'd imagine to cut through properly in a mix live....
 
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So if your tone sounds good in a mix (recording) does that at least get you part of the way there for live settings?
 
I totally understand the idea behind the mid boost and high/low cut, but here's what I find very strange: if I listen to stem tracks, they are very rarely midrange'y. They have way too much presence and generally sound more treble'y and thin.

Maybe that's because stem tracks are from recorded music and live setups are different, I don't know.
 
bdrepko said:
So if your tone sounds good in a mix (recording) does that at least get you part of the way there for live settings?
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you know if your a pro touring musician. playing in great veneues with great PA's and desks and great sound guys then it probably does with the axe fx

I work a day job and make no money playing original music with my band. I do it cause its what I do . our gigs are pretty much in kinda crappy venues where the onstage monitoiring is questionable at best . I often need a bit of uglyness to be heard that I wouldnt want in a recording
 
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I use Yek's Mid Boost PEQ and find it works well and give my tone that midrange push that it needs.
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Where can I download Yek's Mid Boost PEQ sounds interessting...
 
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To avoid this I just use my AXE as if it was a real amp.
I just turn the power amp (Matrix) volume up until it's loud enough for the room (Axe's output Volume at Max), select and amp I know and I like for the tone I want, and adjust B/M/T/P.
Ready to go.

If my chain has some effects and complicated stuff, I simply just set all blocks at 12db to avoid output clipping, and do the same as above.
 
I have a specific set of presets for playing live/high volume.

They are very different and don't sound at all great at low volumes.
 
so i did a little research on fletcher-munson and what i got was at high volumes everything almost equals out with maybe the highs and lows a little louder. is this correct? if so it must be on the sound guy to fix the mix out front. seems like i should be able to use my good tone i made at low volume since i am using in-ear monitor system for live gigs. am i still missing something? should i just make patches for loud voulmes and not put it on foh to adjust my sound?
 
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