axe fx II not fat enough?

I cant seem to get the gain up to where the LEDs flicker in the red.i have the inputs cranked and it aint goin. I do however get some major clipping even at what seems like low volume levels.
 
MetalGarret said:
I cant seem to get the gain up to where the LEDs flicker in the red.i have the inputs cranked and it aint goin. I do however get some major clipping even at what seems like low volume levels.
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Go to IO page and up the input level.
Before you change it please let us where it currently is.
 
Try the usual overdrive in front of the amp. Also try "fat" ON (push enter when mid is marked/using front panel).

I almost allways turn down drive on the amp, and use a od in front. I turn bass down to. This makes things tighter IMO.
 
What I recommend is keeping in mind that a lot of the fatness you here on the Guitar on Black Clouds is coming from the Bass. Especially on Black Clouds and Systematic Chaos the Bass is buried in the Mix but it is so locked with the Guitar that it makes the Guitar huge, while the baseline itself is barely hearable. Its like Bass & Guitar are becoming almost one Instrument with huge Punch and Fatness on the one hand and amazing clarity on the other.

On the other Side, on my JP inspired patches I use Drive-Amp(Mark IIc+ or IV)-Cab(Recto 4x12 RW with R121)-PEQ (-5db at 750hz) and then the most important part: TONE MATCH! I recommend using some of his Mark V Demos for this, especially Channel 2 Crunch mode sounds fine! Additionally I always found the sweet spot in tone matching at about 60% Mix for High Gain JP matches.
 
TobiGuitar94 said:
What I recommend is keeping in mind that a lot of the fatness you here on the Guitar on Black Clouds is coming from the Bass. Especially on Black Clouds and Systematic Chaos the Bass is buried in the Mix but it is so locked with the Guitar that it makes the Guitar huge, while the baseline itself is barely hearable. Its like Bass & Guitar are becoming almost one Instrument with huge Punch and Fatness on the one hand and amazing clarity on the other.

On the other Side, on my JP inspired patches I use Drive-Amp(Mark IIc+ or IV)-Cab(Recto 4x12 RW with R121)-PEQ (-5db at 750hz) and then the most important part: TONE MATCH! I recommend using some of his Mark V Demos for this, especially Channel 2 Crunch mode sounds fine! Additionally I always found the sweet spot in tone matching at about 60% Mix for High Gain JP matches.
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Im aware that the bass needs to pick up the lows that the guitars dont reach. But my tone still feels mediocre. I'll try tone matching again. I used JPs mark v demo the first time. For some reason it didnt turn out great.

EDIT: Ive tried everything everybody said. I think what it boils down to is a better tone match. I got mine from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kOIx7HbhxQ

it sounds shit.
 
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MetalGarret said:
In the I/O page: INSTR IN @ 79.2%, INPUT 1 @ 69.8%.

This tone I made is with a FRIEDMAN HBE amp. Cab is a Mesa Sim (Mesa Petrucci.syx) It doesnt feel right.
Tone Test by Sole Paradigm on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
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What mic is on the cab? Try some more cabs, sometimes that "huge" sound can be found with the right cabinet combination. The usual selections for cabs don't always work out, for example, I used to think I would get a big sound from the v30 or mesa cabs in my standard, but the JM2000 is my favorite, actually. I usually go straight for the R121 mic for a fat sound.
 
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I think the idea setup is that when you hit the guitar quite strongly, you should be able to make a red input LED flicker..

if the 'clip' LED lights, it means your signal is too hot at the output
maybe try dropping the output level of the amp block by a few dB

if it's hi-gain you're after..
try setting the amp drive to somewhere between 3.0 and 4.5
then switch on:
- the staturation [for extra gain]
- the bright [will fire up your highs - which is extremely important for hi-gain tones]
- try the boost too

you may find that boost and sat together are too much..
the boost and sat work a little differently
so try them each one at a time and then together

the idea here is to have a 'lower than you'd expect' drive setting because you're hotting up the tone with the sat / boost / bright switches..

remember that the 'bass' control in the amp's tone stack adds gain [just as the mid / treb / pres do also]
you want tight lows and fried mids / highs
so set the bass control low to keep it tight [values less than 4 - and with some amps like the Boogies you need it below 3]
so.. you go to the eq page [the amp's geq] to dial the low end back in, but here it'll not impact the low end gain structure

also... cab choice is crucial..
the Brit / US cabs tend to be brighter [in general] and the German cabs have a much deeper low end

get the cab wrong and you'll be thin / fizzy... or boxy / boomy..

I personally like the 4x12 25W because to my ears it seems to be a bit more neutral and not overly fire up the highs and lows..
 
the stock Petrucci Rhythm patch is pretty close as is , I think I threw an Eternal love drive in front of it and did some minor eq tweaks to it and got very close
so check it out. Mixing the OH Recto 4X12 and the Cali 4X12 with the r121 in front of it gets you on your way.
 
yes, lose the S1. if the guitars are panned hard left and right, that's wide enough. the S1 achieves the widening effect by playing around with the phase and that can seriously damage the low end
 
Not to go off topic but this forum is fantastic. Cheers to all for the contributions in making my & others' experience with axeFx a better one. It's great that I can read suggestions on tone and hear results straight away, effectively teaching a man to fish. Carry on!
 
try the proximity setting in the cab block and/or the depth setting in the amp block.

but dont forget: the thickness of a well recorded track comes more from the bass player than from the guitar ;)
 
+1 to the comments about IR selection. The choice of IR makes all the difference in the world.

+1 to the comments about the bass guitar. If the bass guitar and regular guitars aren't EQ'd properly for the mix or if the level of the bass guitar is simply too low in the mix, the overall sound will suffer tremendously. When everything's right between the bass and guitar in a recorded mix, it makes a huge difference.

Have you tried a multiband compressor on the recorded mix? You could try one just on the guitars, but that often is overkill. Multiband compressors aren't the easiest things to wrap your head around at first, but they've really helped me achieve recordings that are of more a professional-type quality lately.

I don't know what kind of stereo imaging you're using, but it may not necessarily be your problem. I've been using a multiband module in Izotope Ozone 5 Mastering System that does some widening (or narrowing, if you desire) lately and even though the effect is suble it does boost the quality of the sound overall. It certainly doesn't detract from the "fatness" of the guitars.
 
IRs are definitely the key to unlocking the brutal slinging tone that you're looking for. Amps give a character, but when it comes to high gain, it's pretty much the speakers that make the difference.

Just yesterday I started recording a 2 amp setup with 2 custom IRs made from RedWirez speaker IRs. I also blended in the OH SM57 betas that were just released.

For one side I've got the Diezel VH4 and a Mesa Rectifier, and the other side gets the Diezel VH4 and the 5153 sim. The amps compliment each other well, evening out the frequency spectrum nicely, but this would be nothing without the tweaking I've done to get great IRs. The IRs, which are mixed in MixIR are a blend of Bogner mics on one cab (OH SM57, RW 421, R121, PR30) , and a mesa cab to add some meat (SM57, R121, 421 - noticing a pattern?), albeit it's pretty much in the background just filling things up. Really, until I started getting the hang of mixing IRs properly, my tones were always crap. ALWAYS.

What would be a great help is if you could load up a sample of what you're recording. We could tell a lot better what we're fighting against if we could hear it. I tend to agree, also, with the sentiment that always throwing a widener on your guitar bus might be a bit extreme. You might be pushing things too far. No way for us to tell unless we can hear what you've got going on though. GOOD LUCK! I know your pain and have been there myself. It gets better. Just keep working on it!
 
FractalAudio said:
The cab IR is far more important. People get caught up on the amp when it's the cabinet that supplies most of the tone. Try those new Ownhammer beta IRs.
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Read it here

If you do not embrace this, you may never achieve your ultimate tone. It's true for any amp and cab combination; be it a 2U rack space type amp with an IR or a 30 pound brute sitting on top of a 4x12 cabinet.
 
What guitar are you using? (you moight have already said) - bucause those input settings seem very high.

My IPs are set around 42% and are fine - and thats using some SC guitars as well. The hottest is a PRS CE with HFSs - there 15k DC ceramic PUs, which are not hot compared to many.

I would also add though that changing the Input settings will have no effect on your tone/thickness. It dooes in the Ultra/Standard but on the 2 its just for setting the signal/noise ratio. You can get a really fat tone with only the green lights lit. Its still better to set them right (ie hard hitting strings with your highest output guitar just flicking on the Red), but if you cant get it that high it really doesnt matter than much.
 
I have a Dimarzio Crunch Lab in one of my guitars too (not loving it for the Axe, but that's another story) and I can't go over 30% on the input without hitting the red too much. It's a really hot pickup. Are you sure yours is installed correctly?
 
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