AX8 with a cab - Tips and tricks

Wow, that's really impressive. I've never thought about low resonance freq matching (tip #1) before.
@2112, do you have any experience with AX8 and a guitar poweramp instead of FRFR amp? Could you give some advices on that?
 
lummox said:
Wow, that's really impressive. I've never thought about low resonance freq matching (tip #1) before.
@2112, do you have any experience with AX8 and a guitar poweramp instead of FRFR amp? Could you give some advices on that?
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Do you mean a tube power amp as opposed to a solid state power amp?

chris said:
they still make real cabs?! :O

:D
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I had to make this one from LEGO
 
lummox said:
Yes, exactly. Either standalone tube power amplifier like Mesa 20/20 or poweramp section of a tube head / combo via return input.
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Great idea! It would mostly be eq and preamp tweaks as you'd want to disable power amp modelling there.
 
Is the low res freq setting only applicable to normal speaker cabs? Or is it useful for FRFR setups too? For example, Leon recently did a video on the Mission Gemini cabinet. Does that also have a low resonance frequency?
 
Absolutely! I mostly use IRs from Ownhammer and CabIR.eu. I believe both provides the resonance frequency, but nothing about the resonance strength or width.
 
2112 said:
These are my go to methods, what do you guys do?
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Somewhat similar: Love that Tip #1 of using the synth block to identify the cab's resonant frequency: Easier than my ancient habit of running sweeps or diagnostics from the DAW. Great demonstration of how getting the cab frequency set right impacts the impact.

I also use a PEQ block. A PEQ preset to compensate for the difference between outputting to a cabinet or using FRFR: that way I can just instantiate that PEQ block and be done with it (or nearly so) and not have to mess with adjustments elsewhere in the signal chain I might lose track of having made. Just minor PEQ adjustments really put it all in play: Attenuations to the highs and lows of about -3db are enough to mitigate against mud and hash and maintain air and clarity (into my cabinet). The mid bands of the PEQ are used for quirks of the particular guitar or pickups: FWIW, I have a semi-hollow body guitar that benefits greatly from having its own belly reduction EQ, rather than trying to get it with the conventional B-M-T tone controls.

And once those AX8 Edit chores are done: so nice to do the band practice or stage tweaks on the fly in the traditional way from the front panel knobs (as you sagely point out). I do enjoy that tactile gratification of twiddling a knob and hearing the sound change.
 
I can tell from my own experience that this tip helped me really well to bring my Atomic Reactor Cab to life with the external Atomic Reactor Monoblock 50w Amp. Have this tip in Cliff's TechNotes seen. The sound is just really good, much better than before. This is a great tip everyone should implement to achieve optimal sound with his rig.
 
milan67 said:
I can tell from my own experience that this tip helped me really well to bring my Atomic Reactor Cab to life with the external Atomic Reactor Monoblock 50w Amp. Have this tip in Cliff's TechNotes seen. The sound is just really good, much better than before. This is a great tip everyone should implement to achieve optimal sound with his rig.
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Cliff's tech notes probably taught me more about amps, speakers and audio in general than just about anything else I've ever read. Essential reading.
 
A million thanks to Leon for his multitude of helpful videos, this one in particular.

I thought my AX8 sounded killer before trying that resonant low frequency trick. HOLY MOLY, was I wrong!! That rumbling cabinet feeling that I didn't even know I was missing is back.

I got so inspired that I re-did all my patches with the added FX loop trick to allow for different outputs, and then I finally got around to the VU meter to normalize all of my patches.

I've had quite a productive day, all thanks to Leon and the rest of the Fractal community.
Thanks everyone!!!!


Pat Torpey - R.I.P.
 
E-Sound said:
How loud did you have to run the sine wave trough the cabinet to hear the resonance? Stage loud, or is it also audible at more moderate volume levels?
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It wasn't stage loud but it was loud enough to annoy my wife while she was watching TV with headphones on :p

CSW said:
A million thanks to Leon for his multitude of helpful videos, this one in particular.

I thought my AX8 sounded killer before trying that resonant low frequency trick. HOLY MOLY, was I wrong!! That rumbling cabinet feeling that I didn't even know I was missing is back.

I got so inspired that I re-did all my patches with the added FX loop trick to allow for different outputs, and then I finally got around to the VU meter to normalize all of my patches.

I've had quite a productive day, all thanks to Leon and the rest of the Fractal community.
Thanks everyone!!!!


Pat Torpey - R.I.P.
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It really adds some thump and can provide that final 5% of polish to a preset.
 
If you’re using FRFR would you also want to match the low res freq with the cab sim you’ve selected?
 
Yesterday, I had my first ever band rehearsal using my 1x12 ported cab with a Celestion G12H30 Anniversary and the EHX Magnum 44 power amp.

(The setup I used here)


I had to use some of my existing 'one preset per song' presets, and that was a problem, because I use a scene controller attached to the cab block level to set the individual scene levels. Luckily, with the help from this forum, I was able to create a "Null IR" (the links were broken for the ones I found). I inserted the NULL IR in all cab blocks, so the sound passed though unchanged except for the level control. That worked great.

I also set speaker drive to zero in all presets, and I set speaker compression to zero in the presets using a speaker similar to G12H30. In the presets that use AlNiCo speakers, I left the speaker compression at 3.0 to get a little more AlNiCo flavor out of my G12H30. I also removed all reverbs, unless the presets that used the AC30 where I have a bit of spring reverb in front of the amp.

I used Leon's synth trick at home to find the resonant frequency of my cab. I had to run it fairly loud to hear the effect. I am wondering how much was speaker resonance, and how much was room resonance. I know my room has fairly big resonances in the same frequency area.

I have never used the global EQ on my AX8, so I don't think I would have thought about it, if Leon had not mentioned it in the video. When I first fired up my setup at rehearsal, I thought it sounded a bit thin. So I went for the global EQ, removed some low lows, added some 125 and 250, removed a little 500, added some 2k and took out a bit of 8k and 16k. That worked perfectly, and I had a balanced sound on all my presets. I used presets that were based on the AC30 Top Boost, Brit 800#34 and JTM45. My setup sounded great in all of them.

I must say though, that I don't miss 'amp in the room' sound. My cab was on the floor, so I had to walk to the other side of the rehearsal space (a fairly large room at a local school) to really hear, what my setup sounded like. I have gotten so used to wearing in-ears, so this actually felt a little weird. But I'll admit there is something organic and wonderful about the sound waves mixing in air rather than in a mixer. If you found the right spot to stand in, the sound was glorious. Also, my sturdy 1x12 cabinet is really heavy. I am glad I am not carrying that one on a regular basis anymore :)

Thanks Leon, your tricks helped me get ready in no time :)
 
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