Axe-Fx 3 Sounds Different When Recorded

[nightlight]

Do you have all of your various audio devices and the DAW project set to 48khz during recording and playback? Since you are using a fully digital recoding chain, each of the devices in the chain must be set to the frequency.

Have you tried to record the analog audio output of your Axe Fx directly into the audio inputs of your Apollo 8P? If so, do you experience the same issues?

This is something I did not do, so thanks for the suggestion. I have my audio interfaces and project sessions set to 44.1khz, since that doesn't require as much dsp/cpu processing power, but I'll change now and see if it makes a difference.

I haven't tried the audio outputs as a matter of fact, but would prefer to remain in the digital domain for simplicity while recording. Still, worth a shot.

 

[GlennO]

Clutching at straws, but does recording at 48khz really translate into better sounds? I have no problem with the sound that I am getting or playing back over my monitors.

If you're saying your recordings sound good in your studio, then this has nothing to do with how you're recording. It simply means your studio listening environment sounds different than other environments. If you're finding your mixes don't sound good in those other environments, that means your studio may be misleading you and you'll need to change your listening environment to eliminate any characteristics that are causing you make undesirable mix decisions.

 

[Bruce Sokolovic]

I use Sonarworks Reference ID, which I imagine is like the Slate VSX software. I sometimes use headphones, but find that they are often too fatiguing when crafting high gain tones. That's why I prefer monitors.

That said, I have measured my room properly and when I run my regular tube amps through IR loaders, I do not experience the same issue. Hence the curiousity about whether 48khz has something to do with it.

I’d feel safe saying you’d hear no difference running at a higher or lower sample rate. Those days are kind of over. 48k is well within the realm of human hearing and even prosumer converters these days sound just fine. I’m still of the thought your problem lies in your listening environment. Scientifically ruling some stuff out here, unless I misunderstand you:

Your tube amps translate fine, but the AxefxIII doesn’t? 48k would have nothing to do with that and honestly this isn’t really possible. If the tube amp sounds good in the room and the sounds sound fairly the same outside of your room, then anything that sounds good in your room will sound good outside of it. Your room is fairly flat and adequate for sound design.
OR, something is clouding your judgement. Could be volume. Do you typically play your tube amps loud in the room and loud elsewhere? Volume is a perfect problem masker. Everything sounds good blasting loud. It really could be a lot of things. What I don’t think it is is a 48k sample rate, though. Make sure your comparisons are as fair as possible.
Also, try and fix it. What do you need to do to a preset to make it sound good OUTSIDE of your room? What does it always need that it’s missing?

 

[∞Fractals]

When I play through my rig, which includes a pair of 2 x 12 cabinets on top of frfr … Before I decide to record, I put on a nice pair ollo audio headphones, and I listen directly to what’s coming out of the AxeFx3.

When I listen back to the DAW, that’s exactly what I hear.

But it doesn’t quite sound like what I was hearing in the room naturally, which is usually a lot more lows/thump and low mids, providing sound reinforcement for me during the recording when I play.

But I know what I’m hearing.

 

[nightlight]

If you're saying your recordings sound good in your studio, then this has nothing to do with how you're recording. It simply means your studio listening environment sounds different than other environments. If you're finding your mixes don't sound good in those other environments, that means your studio may be misleading you and you'll need to change your listening environment to eliminate any characteristics that are causing you make undesirable mix decisions.

It's 50:50, really, sometimes I'll cop a nice tone that I'll start to massage to make more usable.

This is where I usually start to notice problems (haven't done any serious recordings yet). The tweaks that I'm making sound good on the monitors, but when I record the audio and bounce it down to a wav file, I always notice a drastic change when listening over these Yamaha headphones that I use for testing recordings, or even the ATH M50Xs I have hooked up to my interface.

Unfortunately, I live in rented accommodation, so massove investment in sound treatment is a no-go. I thought Sonarworks Reference was a good solution (and it has been in other houses I've lived in), but for some reason I'm having a lot of trouble in this one.

Sounds gorgeous over the monitors though, which is irritating yet good in a way.

It has to be the listening environment, as you and I both noted. A solution, however, is elusive.

 

[nightlight]

I’d feel safe saying you’d hear no difference running at a higher or lower sample rate. Those days are kind of over. 48k is well within the realm of human hearing and even prosumer converters these days sound just fine. I’m still of the thought your problem lies in your listening environment. Scientifically ruling some stuff out here, unless I misunderstand you:

Your tube amps translate fine, but the AxefxIII doesn’t? 48k would have nothing to do with that and honestly this isn’t really possible. If the tube amp sounds good in the room and the sounds sound fairly the same outside of your room, then anything that sounds good in your room will sound good outside of it. Your room is fairly flat and adequate for sound design.
OR, something is clouding your judgement. Could be volume. Do you typically play your tube amps loud in the room and loud elsewhere? Volume is a perfect problem masker. Everything sounds good blasting loud. It really could be a lot of things. What I don’t think it is is a 48k sample rate, though. Make sure your comparisons are as fair as possible.
Also, try and fix it. What do you need to do to a preset to make it sound good OUTSIDE of your room? What does it always need that it’s missing?

Oddly enough, my tones seem to need an abundance of bass to sound right, but I still struggle to dial in a sound that is neither flubby nor anaemic.

I did some reading, and since the Axe FX spdif is at 48khz, the rest of my recording ecosystem needs to be set at that rate as well to avoid undesirable outcomes. Of course, none of this explains why the sound is good out of my speakers but bad when I bounce it... or does it?

It could be, as you said, something is clouding my judgment. Could be my ears, or maybe I just can't dial in a tone.

 

[nightlight]

When I play through my rig, which includes a pair of 2 x 12 cabinets on top of frfr … Before I decide to record, I put on a nice pair ollo audio headphones, and I listen directly to what’s coming out of the AxeFx3.

When I listen back to the DAW, that’s exactly what I hear.

But it doesn’t quite sound like what I was hearing in the room naturally, which is usually a lot more lows/thump and low mids, providing sound reinforcement for me during the recording when I play.

But I know what I’m hearing.

My monitors are really nice, with 8" midrange driver cones, so plenty of oomph. It sounds good too.

But when I hit bounce, everything collapses and I am back to the drawing board.

 

[GlennO]

I did some reading, and since the Axe FX spdif is at 48khz, the rest of my recording ecosystem needs to be set at that rate as well to avoid undesirable outcomes.

Just a slight correction: most DAWs and most Apollos can do the necessary sample rate conversion with a minimal impact on your sound. So, while your first choice for a session sample rate should be 48KHz, I wouldn't say your session sample rate needs to be set to that.

 

[nightlight]

Just a slight correction: most DAWs and most Apollos can do the necessary sample rate conversion with a minimal impact on your sound. So, while your first choice for a session sample rate should be 48KHz, I wouldn't say your session sample rate needs to be set to that.

Yeah, things get tricky with my setup though, where I'm going SPDIF from the Axe into an RME Fireface 800, which is slaved via ADAT to a UAD Apollo 8p set to 44.1khz.

There's a perfect lock on SPDIF as well as ADAT, but you got to wonder whether there's any signal degradation going on.

 

[GlennO]

That's not unusual and that should work fine. In fact you would have noticed big problems with the pitch if it wasn't working fine . Anyway, as you say, that has nothing to do with your problem.

 

[nightlight]

That's not unusual and that should work fine. In fact you would have noticed big problems with the pitch if it wasn't working fine . Anyway, as you say, that has nothing to do with your problem.

Noted, with thanks.

I think I should fiddle with the room controls on my monitors and see if that helps.

 

[nightlight]

Here's an example of a dual track recording that sounded really good on the monitors, but fell apart upon bouncing.

Guitar sounds too gritty in the mids, low end is all over the place, I think the treble is fine, but in the end, the track sounds digital in the wrong way.



In contrast, play it over a real guitar cabinet and it sounds excellent. Or maybe my ears need testing again, it is really vexatious.

 

[siin82]

My take on this topic is that you won’t really know how good your sound is until you hear it in the mix with other instruments. A guitar sound can sound great on it’s own then get lost in the mix; conversely, a guitar sound can be meh on it’s own but cuts through the mix nicely. I would lay down a whole track with guitar, bass, drums and vocals, then mess around with your guitar sound through reamping.

Just advice on an approach to figuring out your tone.

 

[nightlight]

My take on this topic is that you won’t really know how good your sound is until you hear it in the mix with other instruments. A guitar sound can sound great on it’s own then get lost in the mix; conversely, a guitar sound can be meh on it’s own but cuts through the mix nicely. I would lay down a whole track with guitar, bass, drums and vocals, then mess around with your guitar sound through reamping.

Just advice on an approach to figuring out your tone.

Thqt's good advice, man. Thanks. I have tried out experiments with the Axe FX in a full mix, but nothing to really share.

 

[sixtystring]

Maybe try turning your Amp Block's level down from 0 dB? I feel like most factory presets are at around -12 dB...are you sure you aren't overloading your interface's inputs? I only ask because I would go deaf if I set my Amp Block Level to 0 dB, but I get that you may have things gain staged differently.

 

[nightlight]

Maybe try turning your Amp Block's level down from 0 dB? I feel like most factory presets are at around -12 dB...are you sure you aren't overloading your interface's inputs? I only ask because I would go deaf if I set my Amp Block Level to 0 dB, but I get that you may have things gain staged differently.

Yes, I gain staged at other parts of the signal chain, but I'm a noob to the Axe world. I have the level turned down a bit in the amp.block, as well as in other places, rather than a big cut in the level of only one fx. Just went with what sounded good.

 

[Bruce Sokolovic]

Here's an example of a dual track recording that sounded really good on the monitors, but fell apart upon bouncing.

Guitar sounds too gritty in the mids, low end is all over the place, I think the treble is fine, but in the end, the track sounds digital in the wrong way.



In contrast, play it over a real guitar cabinet and it sounds excellent. Or maybe my ears need testing again, it is really vexatious.

Nothing here sounds bad to me. It has a bit of bite to it but out of context of a mix you’ll never really know what is too much. You’re also not comparing apples to apples. The AxefxIII using an IR replicates the result of a miced cabinet. A 4x12 in a room and a miced 412 result in different sounds.
The way to test this is really 2fold. Play the AxefxIII thru a guitar cab with a power amp and no cab block. Compare to a real amp. Then, mic your 412, record the result. Then play the fractal with an IR, compare the result. I apologize if you’ve already done this. I have and using the same IR for both the guitar amp and AxeFX I often couldn’t hear much difference.

 

[Will Schut]

What GlennO said in post #2!

Truth is, a guitar vibrates/resonates and when you’re playing your body registers these vibrations and sort of “mixes them in” with what you‘re actually hearing. This tends to smooth the overall experience and intensifies the impact somewhat. Plus, when you record without headphones you also hear a bit of the acoustic sound mixed in.

Wanna test this?

Record yourself playing and then, when you playback, play along with the unplugged guitar you’ve just recorded with.

Same when you hear your recorded speaking voice (without the sonic vibrations in your skull). Sounds weird or at least different then what you thought you sounded.

 

[∞Fractals]

My monitors are really nice, with 8" midrange driver cones, so plenty of oomph. It sounds good too.

But when I hit bounce, everything collapses and I am back to the drawing board.

One other random thought; when you bounce is “normalization” turned on or off?

 

[nightlight]

Nothing here sounds bad to me. It has a bit of bite to it but out of context of a mix you’ll never really know what is too much. You’re also not comparing apples to apples. The AxefxIII using an IR replicates the result of a miced cabinet. A 4x12 in a room and a miced 412 result in different sounds.
The way to test this is really 2fold. Play the AxefxIII thru a guitar cab with a power amp and no cab block. Compare to a real amp. Then, mic your 412, record the result. Then play the fractal with an IR, compare the result. I apologize if you’ve already done this. I have and using the same IR for both the guitar amp and AxeFX I often couldn’t hear much difference.

I'm a bit of the odd man out in the sense that I learnt playing guitar with the miced up cab sound and didn't get my first tube amp till I was in my 30s. Was quite a big Kemper fanboy till I got tired of having to rely on other people to try and come up with "the sound I have in my head".

Still haven't copped that sound, but it's a lot more fun programming the Axe FX than it is just flipping through profiles on the Kemper.

On your suggest though, I do run my Axe through a Fryette PS-2 and into a real cab quite often when I feel like moving a bit of air. Sounds great.

My main problem is that the sounds I get in my room don't translate well on other sources. It's quite common, I guess, unless you have a really good room or are used to a room enough that you can dial in everything despite the problems with the room.

What GlennO said in post #2!

Truth is, a guitar vibrates/resonates and when you’re playing your body registers these vibrations and sort of “mixes them in” with what you‘re actually hearing. This tends to smooth the overall experience and intensifies the impact somewhat. Plus, when you record without headphones you also hear a bit of the acoustic sound mixed in.

Wanna test this?

Record yourself playing and then, when you playback, play along with the unplugged guitar you’ve just recorded with.

Same when you hear your recorded speaking voice (without the sonic vibrations in your skull). Sounds weird or at least different then what you thought you sounded.

Ain't that the truth. I just would hate the fact being "that guy" who's playing out of tune or with a bad tone and not noticing at all while everyone is giving you the stank face.

One other random thought; when you bounce is “normalization” turned on or off?

Depends on what software I'm using. When I'm recording with Logic, I have normalisation on. When I use Cubase or Luna, I have it turned off.