After a month..

[the-patient]

So, I've played with this for almost a month, and LOVE the clean sounds, LOVE the effects, LOVE the routability, and LOVE the flexibility of this thing.

The overdriven tones, with single note runs and leads sounded pretty good, high gain, and mid gain, and lower bitey kinds of gain.

Here's where I run into problems - as soon as I strike a chord, I get this weird, I keep getting this weird high end digital sounding distortion, that sounds kind of crackly.

I have no clips, but that's my opinion.

The overdrive pedals aren't that great imo, they still give me that same sort of sound that I described above.

I've tried everything - downloaded people's patches, different IR's including the famous RedWirez ones.
I always hear this sound through a good pair of monitors, even on some of the most famous patches.

I'm beginning to think that's why people have more success with guitar cabs, as a lot of this high frequency content is missing from the spectrum.

i've had a little success live, but other than clean sounds, none in the studio.

I don't know if I'm dumb, or what, I can't figure this thing out.
It really makes me sad, because I'm having success with everything except chords with gainy tones.

I'm not sure that I'll be able to keep this thing if it doesn't get better.

Save me before it has to go.

 

[PlaysARobin]

First thought is the High-Cut parameter. When you started describing it it reminded me of a problem I had with some of my gainier (word?) patches. The part that throws me is you said you get the same issue with some more 'famous' patches. I'd still check into that and maybe certain advanced parameters would help you dial it in a little better.

Someone more educated will probably chime in with some Revelation knowledge on the subject.

 

[iaresee]

Hey man. Were you able to capture it in some clips? That'd be helpful diagnosing the problem.

FWIW: those patches you downloaded of mine were setup and recorded using KRK Rockit 6se's and Senn HD-280s for monitoring. Guitar was a PRS S24 w/Duncan JB in the bridge on the clips. What are you playing my patches with? What are you monitoring with?

 

[the-patient]

We had to cancel our recording session, so unfortunately i haven't had a chance to capture anything.

I'm playing with a PRS standard 24 with stock pups.

I have played with the high and low cut - in fact I find them to be an extremely important part to making patches.

I dunno, maybe it's just me.

Oh.. and we're monitoring through some pricey monitors whose name escapes me (sorry I can't be more descriptive).

It sounds like high frequency distortion that people sometimes talk about, so I've also tried filtering out the 2k+ frequencies, but it gets all choked.

Hey man. Were you able to capture it in some clips? That'd be helpful diagnosing the problem.

FWIW: those patches you downloaded of mine were setup and recorded using KRK Rockit 6se's and Senn HD-280s for monitoring. Guitar was a PRS S24 w/Duncan JB in the bridge on the clips. What are you playing my patches with? What are you monitoring with?

 

[aleclee]

What are you using to monitor?

 

[logicroxx]

I believe that a previous post detailed Lincoln Brewster's initial axe impressions, and that he generally shelved off around 8k and above. I have a few patches that have a PEQ towards the end that shave off some high frequencies; certainly not the answer all the time, but it may help out this time around.

 

[the-patient]

I'm gonna try some more EQ'ing tomorrow, trying it different locations around signal chain, and see what I can do.

Again, maybe it's me.. I dunno, I keep coming back to my cranked AC30 and saying.. uhh, something is missing.

Could it be a fletcher munsen thing? could it be a global setting that I've neglected?

Cab sims are on, poweramp sims are on, i'm using the analogfront input, output is l+r sum.

I don't know.


EDIT oh, and i read about Lincoln Brewsters ideas, and he knows more about this than me, so I'll try it out. (boosting 2k, and cutting 8k+)

 

[plexi59]

Are you sure you're not overloading the inputs? The LED meter on the front should rarely, if ever, venture into the red territory.

 

[iaresee]

output is l+r sum

Oh boy! IMO L+R sum makes it hella easy to overload the D/A side of the unit. And it can happen faster than the LED can respond. Digital clipping is easy to do, hard to tell you you're doing it with an LED.

Try using L -> R instead.

 

[BennyBanana]

I had the same kind of problem until I changed the sample rate in my presonus firestudio to 48.0 KHz, instead of 44.1 KHz. Now it sounds great.

 

[Dutch]

output is l+r sum

Oh boy! IMO L+R sum makes it hella easy to overload the D/A side of the unit. And it can happen faster than the LED can respond. Digital clipping is easy to do, hard to tell you you're doing it with an LED.

Try using L -> R instead.

The output leds are set to light up well before clipping territory. Probably not it but OP could be clipping the inputs of whatever comes next in your chain.

Clipping the Axe's inputs is not the problem. That would be filtered by the cabsims and all the other lowpass/hicuts in there.

I run mono too, but do that by panning everything center.

 

[javajunkie]

output is l+r sum

Oh boy! IMO L+R sum makes it hella easy to overload the D/A side of the unit. And it can happen faster than the LED can respond. Digital clipping is easy to do, hard to tell you you're doing it with an LED.

Try using L -> R instead.

The output leds are set to light up well before clipping territory. Probably not it but OP could be clipping the inputs of whatever comes next in your chain.

Clipping the Axe's inputs is not the problem. That would be filtered by the cabsims and all the other lowpass/hicuts in there.

I run mono too, but do that by panning everything center.

Also the front input has a soft clip limiter function to make it distort more musically.

 

[javajunkie]

I'm beginning to think that's why people have more success with guitar cabs, as a lot of this high frequency content is missing from the spectrum.

Not all, nor a majority of people have more success w/ guitar cabs. Some do, some don't.

The cab sims take the same high freq content out so that wouldn't be a factor.

 

[iaresee]

The output leds are set to light up well before clipping territory. Probably not it but OP could be clipping the inputs of whatever comes next in your chain.

It's not where they light on the signal strength, but how quickly they can be lit in response to a transient. LEDs aren't that fast to light up -- a transient can come and go before there's enough time to shine then on and off.

 

[Jay Mitchell]

It's not where they light on the signal strength, but how quickly they can be lit in response to a transient. LEDs aren't that fast to light up -- a transient can come and go before there's enough time to shine then on and off.

That's why there's this thing called "meter ballistics." Typically, the attack time of the meter response is short - 1ms or less - and the release time is much longer. Peaks are therefore reliably detected, and peak indications are held long enough for you to be able to see them. Real-time meters are next to useless, so there are always appropriate time constants designed into audio metering.

 

[iaresee]

It's not where they light on the signal strength, but how quickly they can be lit in response to a transient. LEDs aren't that fast to light up -- a transient can come and go before there's enough time to shine then on and off.

That's why there's this thing called "meter ballistics." Typically, the attack time of the meter response is short - 1ms or less - and the release time is much longer. Peaks are therefore reliably detected, and peak indications are held long enough for you to be able to see them. Real-time meters are next to useless, so there are always appropriate time constants designed into audio metering.

Thanks for the tip. Are we sure that's the case for the D/A output meters on the Axe-Fx? I know my Duet manual specifically warns me that output clipping can occur even if you aren't seeing on the Maestro meters, that the digital metering isn't fast enough handle really short, sharp transients.

 

[Jay Mitchell]

Thanks for the tip. Are we sure that's the case for the D/A output meters on the Axe-Fx?

You'd have to ask Cliff for the time constants, but I can tell you this much. The meters are not "real time." There is some amount of peak hold built into them.

I know my Duet manual specifically warns me that output clipping can occur even if you aren't seeing on the Maestro meters, that the digital metering isn't fast enough handle really short, sharp transients.

That's a matter of choice on their part, then. It is not intrinsic to metering.