AM4 settings

lennonrevolver

lennonrevolver

New Member
Hi all, just got my AM4 and I cannot get a good dirt sound out of any of my guitars or speakers.

The headphone sound is the worst.
Putting it through 2 different powered speakers is just meh.
through a clean tube amp (and fx loop) and through clean solid state meh..

Any settings I should be trying? Ive experimented turning the cab/amp sim off in different combinations, high cut/low cut. very disappointing results, Marshalls especially.

Everything sounds fizzy and cheap, might be a return.. :(
 
lennonrevolver said:
Hi all, just got my AM4 and I cannot get a good dirt sound out of any of my guitars or speakers.

The headphone sound is the worst.
Putting it through 2 different powered speakers is just meh.
through a clean tube amp (and fx loop) and through clean solid state meh..

Any settings I should be trying? Ive experimented turning the cab/amp sim off in different combinations, high cut/low cut. very disappointing results, Marshalls especially.

Everything sounds fizzy and cheap, might be a return.. :(
Click to expand...

What is your current rig before AM4
What kind of sounds are you looking for
So description of Fizzy it there just too much top end or presence ?
 
Re headphones, some correction will be needed to make them sound like a guitar cab, this thread discusses it, stock there are way too much upper mids and high accentuation, imo.

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/some-headphone-choices-from-an-engineers-perspective.216260/

Into headphones, studio reference or frfr speakers, use cab sim on.

Into guitar cabs, cab sim off. Start with power amp modeling on and disable only if you’re cranking a tube amp and feeling the compression of its power amp.

If you’re playing the factory presets at low volume, they will sound thin because they’re made for gig volumes.

Fizz often is from not using a cab sim into a full range speaker.

Edit: try out @BROCKSTAR preset, it’s meaty and opposite of fizzy. If you find this one too fizzy, something else is going wrong. Note, needs latest firmware update.

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/6g3-blues-brockstar.217516/
 
lennonrevolver said:
Hi all, just got my AM4 and I cannot get a good dirt sound out of any of my guitars or speakers.

The headphone sound is the worst.
Putting it through 2 different powered speakers is just meh.
through a clean tube amp (and fx loop) and through clean solid state meh..

Any settings I should be trying? Ive experimented turning the cab/amp sim off in different combinations, high cut/low cut. very disappointing results, Marshalls especially.

Everything sounds fizzy and cheap, might be a return.. :(
Click to expand...

For reference, headphones are stereo with factory settings. If you use an adapter that sums to mono, you'll have phase cancelling.

As for the tones, do the factory settings sound anything like the videos online?

If you have a deviation from the factory presets, there may be an issue with your setup.
 
I’m interested to find out if you find a solution and what your previous setup is.

I would say to start simple and with headphones, as long as they are ok sounding. I use Beyer Dynamic headphones and love them with the AM4. Add an amp you are familiar with the sound of and change the cab until it sounds right in your headphones. If you don’t like the Dyna Cab sounds, try other Irs which you can easily find free on the internet or York or Ownhammer are fantastic. (But so are the Dyna Cabs) Most of the amps settings sound pretty good straight out of the gate though.

Other than this make sure your output is set to whatever application you are using. With headphones you’ll want stereo or some form of mono with no split and through an amp you’ll want to take your cab emulation off otherwise it sounds a bit stale.
 
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Exact opposite here, I get fantastic dirt ! But in 2025 I went through 4 modelers that had great cleans & terrible gain tones, so if ya don't dig the gain on the AM4 return it no point in keeping it IMO.
 
rick_j_collins said:
I’m interested to find out if you find a solution and what your previous setup is.

I would say to start simple and with headphones, as long as they are ok sounding. I use Beyer Dynamic headphones and love them with the AM4. Add an amp you are familiar with the sound of and change the cab until it sounds right in your headphones. If you don’t like the Dyna Cab sounds, try other Irs which you can easily find free on the internet or York or Ownhammer are fantastic. (But so are the Dyna Cabs) Most of the amps settings sound pretty good straight out of the gate though.

Other than this make sure your output is set to whatever application you are using. With headphones you’ll want stereo or some form of mono with no split and through an amp you’ll want to take your cab emulation off otherwise it sounds a bit stale.
Click to expand...
Dyna cab made me forget the IR.
 
I use headphones a lot with my AM4. As mentioned earlier, start with the headphones - if the source is bad, the sound will be too. Then look at settings. I find sometimes the input/output/preset levels can be set too high, which will create a fizz. You can also play around with the room setting to give more space to the sound, and look at adding an enhancer if you have the space in your blocks.
 
I have downloaded the ok for pa setting, here are some tips that might help, they might not work for you but it is what I have really found helps when creating a sound. Also if I have mansplained anything I apologise, i'm not sure where you are on the journey.

1. I think you need to turn the amp up a little in the levels/eq tab I would push your levels to be in the yellow. You can change this with the scene level in that tab too but its also really good to use this tab right at the end to level match all of your scenes

2. I would change the mic that you are using on you cab to a dynamic as to give you more bite, and if you want more bottom end, put a condenser or a ribbon on the other cab and then blend them to taste. I tend to use the same cab on both slots. Also copy/paste this cab onto all of the channels to make each sound more inline with each other. (You can also try IR's which I tend to do to match my own cab York, Ownhammer & ML are good places to start) Also don't roll too much off highs and lows on the cabs. Cutting highs will help with harshness but over do it and you'll get lost in the mix.

3. In expert mode on the amp if you go to the preamp tab there is a definition slider in the input eq, I love to mess with this to get my treble right, but it also makes the amp tighter and gets rid of flub.

4. (This is personal preference) Instead of using a drive block, put multiple instances of the same amp on each channel and increase the gain that way
and with your specific amp that you have chosen, you can use the standard Plexi on channel A & B but have the Jumped Plexi on C & D.

5. If you want to add more Depth and bottom end that isn't available in the amp, you can tweak the depth on the Expert Power Amp page.

6. In the expert tab again on the speaker page you can change your Impedance curve of your speakers. I love this page as I turn off the dyna match and then can really just find that last 5% of the sound that I am looking for, scrolling through the different Speaker Impedance Curve options.

Sorry this is a bit of an essay but coming from a Kemper, ToneX & Quad cortex, these are the settings that really made the AM4 my go to.
Lastly I didnt check out your clean amp setting, but in the setting on the AM4 you will want to turn off the cab when running into a amp/power amp otherwise it just sounds funny, you lose all dynamics as speaker emulation is being fed into a speaker.
 
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rick_j_collins said:
I have downloaded the ok for pa setting, here are some tips that might help, they might not work for you but it is what I have really found helps when creating a sound. Also if I have mansplained anything I apologise, i'm not sure where you are on the journey.

1. I think you need to turn the amp up a little in the levels/eq tab I would push you levels to be in the yellow. You can change this with the scene level in that tab too but its also really good to use this tab right at the end to level match all of your scenes

2. I would change the mic that you are using on you cab to a dynamic as to give you more bite, and if you want more bottom end, put a condenser or a ribbon on the other cab and then blend them to taste. I tend to use the same cab on both slots. Also copy/paste this cab onto all of the channels to make each sound more inline with each other. (You can also try IR's which I tend to do to match my own cab York, Ownhammer & ML are good places to start) Also don't roll too much off highs and lows on the cabs. Cutting highs will help with harshness but over do it and you'll get lost in the mix.

3. In expert mode on the amp if you go to the preamp tab there is a definition slider in the input eq, I love to mess with this to get my treble right, but it also makes the amp tighter and gets rid of flub.

4. (This is personal preference) Instead of using a drive block, put multiple instances of the same amp on each channel and increase the gain that way
and with your specific amp that you have chosen, you can use the standard Plexi on channel A & B but have the Jumped Plexi on C & D.

5. If you want to add more Depth and bottom end that isn't available in the amp, you can tweak the depth on the Expert Power Amp page.

6. In the expert tab again on the speaker page you can change your Impedance curve of your speakers. I love this page as I turn off the dyna match and then can really just find that last 5% of the sound that I am looking for, scrolling through the different Speaker Impedance Curve options.

Sorry this is a bit of an essay but coming from a Kemper, ToneX & Quad cortex, these are the settings that really made the AM4 my go to.
Lastly I didnt check out your clean amp setting, but in the setting on the AM4 you will want to turn off the cab when running into a amp/power amp otherwise it just sounds funny, you lose all dynamics as speaker emulation is being fed into a speaker.
Click to expand...
Saving this post. Great stuff
 
rick_j_collins said:
I have downloaded the ok for pa setting, here are some tips that might help, they might not work for you but it is what I have really found helps when creating a
Click to expand...
thnx for the reply, good ideas to mess around with.

turning off the bright cap in expert helps.
I think its partly a case of me not being used to so many tweekable parameters, and my love of fucking loud marshalls.

played that "ok for PA preset" for AM4 at rehearsal with the band today, goin through electro voice elx112,.

I felt a bit disappointed (as always) but they guys all said it was the best tone they heard outta of me.. i beg to differ... the struggle continues.....
 
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lennonrevolver said:
thnx for the reply, good ideas to mess around with.

turning off the bright cap in expert helps.
I think its partly a case of me not being used to so many tweekable parameters, and my love of fucking loud marshalls.

played that "ok for PA preset" for AM4 at rehearsal with the band today, goin through electro voice elx112,.

I felt a bit disappointed (as always) but they guys all said it was the best tone they heard outta of me.. i beg to differ... the struggle continues.....
Click to expand...
If you have not got there yet try the Marco Fanton Splawn factory preset is a good one. For the Marshall thing as is the JVMs
 
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