Been using Axe III with studio monitors, but..

[Marduk33]

Theres obviously something thats missing sound-wise. I guess it sounds too weak which probably is due to using studio monitors.

While its great in my apartment, i want to experience the axe with something stronger but still usable in apartment. Maybe even usable in the future in a house or something.



Just remembered this clip at 03.00 mark with the pinch harmonics. Maybe its edited but yea no way getting close.

My cousin had an old line 6 spider which sounded pretty decent for its small size.

I have tried a boss katana 50, but nope not what i was looking for..

Suggestions? Maybe an Evh 5150 iconic combo, marshall dsl40cr/5cr.
Just seemed popular but unsure if i can use the Axe with them.

Not really educated in this subject as you probably notice from my own suggestions to myself..
Valve amps seems to be pretty nice.

Edit: i like to play black/death metal.

 

[touch33]

I totally hear you (pun intended) in that nothing I tried at “home friendly” volume gave me the punch I was looking for — UNTIL I finally bought a pair of custom-molded hard shell IEMs. I just couldn’t believe how deep the LF response went and how much the kick drum “impact” improved. How could such a small driver kick so hard?

Then a top-line monitor engineer explained it to me: a great fitting hard shell IEM (“firm fitting” just short of painful) actually “connects” to the bones surrounding your ear, which is what the human “hearing chain” perceives as LF. I’ve experimented on my own with slightly “looser” fits and I’ll be damned if he’s not right. Tight fit rules!

It took me three tries and some time with a Dremel tool, but I’ve finally got a combo/fit that works for me — and it’s bliss!

 

[SonVolt]

I totally hear you (pun intended) in that nothing I tried at “home friendly” volume gave me the punch I was looking for — UNTIL I finally bought a pair of custom-molded hard shell IEMs. I just couldn’t believe how deep the LF response went and how much the kick drum “impact” improved. How could such a small driver kick so hard?

Then a top-line monitor engineer explained it to me: a great fitting hard shell IEM (“firm fitting” just short of painful) actually “connects” to the bones surrounding your ear, which is what the human “hearing chain” perceives as LF. I’ve experimented on my own with slightly “looser” fits and I’ll be damned if he’s not right. Tight fit rules!

It took me three tries and some time with a Dremel tool, but I’ve finally got a combo/fit that works for me — and it’s bliss!

How much are those damaging your hearing? It's like putting a speaker right up to your ear drum.

 

[Budda]

How much are those damaging your hearing? It's like putting a speaker right up to your ear drum.

Wouldnt need volume, i’d imagine.

 

[touch33]

Wouldnt need volume, i’d imagine.

Super-Correct.

It’s not about volume — it’s about overall frequency response AND TRANSIENT response , esp. in the LF.

 

[rossipedia]

Just remembered this clip at 03.00 mark with the pinch harmonics. Maybe its edited but yea no way getting close.

Rob is playing with a lot more gain than you'd expect. Nailing pinch harmonics is almost impossible without enough gain/distortion, and cranking it to the levels where they start coming out easily tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable. But he's right: playing cleanly with that much dirt on your sounds requires being incredibly precise.

 

[Marduk33]

I totally hear you (pun intended) in that nothing I tried at “home friendly” volume gave me the punch I was looking for — UNTIL I finally bought a pair of custom-molded hard shell IEMs. I just couldn’t believe how deep the LF response went and how much the kick drum “impact” improved. How could such a small driver kick so hard?

Then a top-line monitor engineer explained it to me: a great fitting hard shell IEM (“firm fitting” just short of painful) actually “connects” to the bones surrounding your ear, which is what the human “hearing chain” perceives as LF. I’ve experimented on my own with slightly “looser” fits and I’ll be damned if he’s not right. Tight fit rules!

It took me three tries and some time with a Dremel tool, but I’ve finally got a combo/fit that works for me — and it’s bliss!

Thank you for the tip and explanation, thats interesting for sure! Im not looking for IEM right now though, but when i do which i probably will some day, ill look into that

 

[Marduk33]

Rob is playing with a lot more gain than you'd expect. Nailing pinch harmonics is almost impossible without enough gain/distortion, and cranking it to the levels where they start coming out easily tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable. But he's right: playing cleanly with that much dirt on your sounds requires being incredibly precise.

Yes indeed i have to play with more gain for that. Still experimenting with a Gate block to get it behave like the Zuul do in Neural DSP which made it a lot easier to play with high distortion until i get better.
Do you think he is tuned low in that clip?


Maybe the question i should have asked from the beginning is, should i get a power amp + cab for a more powerful/amp in room sound?
Someone told me i wont get what im looking for with a frfr.

 

[strabes]

it sounds too weak which probably is due to using studio monitors

Gotta gently push back on this. Studio monitors are the standard for monitoring any mic’d instrument in any studio around the world. Broadly speaking, every iconic guitar part you’ve ever heard was monitored with studio monitors in a control room. I doubt it sounded weak in the control room studio monitors when Eddie was recording his parts.

The problem you’re experiencing is: what Eddie heard in the live room was of course different than what the engineers heard in the control room, because he was in the live room with the cab, and they were hearing the signal from the mic on the cab, through studio monitors. If you want your modeler to sound like you’re playing it through a live guitar cab in the room, disable the cab block and run an amp model into a good power amp and live guitar cab in the room. Acoustic treatment can really help the experience with studio monitors if your goal is accurately monitoring the mic’d/direct signal from the modeler, but no modeler can magically transform studio monitors into a 412 guitar cab.

 

[rossipedia]

Yes indeed i have to play with more gain for that. Still experimenting with a Gate block to get it behave like the Zuul do in Neural DSP which made it a lot easier to play with high distortion until i get better.
Do you think he is tuned low in that clip?


Maybe the question i should have asked from the beginning is, should i get a power amp + cab for a more powerful/amp in room sound?
Someone told me i wont get what im looking for with a frfr.

If you're going for AITR then you need an amp in the room.

If you're going for "cranked album tones" then an FRFR / studio monitors are the way to go.

For me personally, I get what I need out of a good set of full-range studio monitors on my desk. DynaCabs get me what I need usually, but I've also just ditched the cab block entirely and used a combo of Filter + Graphic EQ block to get closer to AITR. There's no real rules, just go get that tone, however you can.

 

[Marduk33]

Gotta gently push back on this. Studio monitors are the standard for monitoring any mic’d instrument in any studio around the world. Broadly speaking, every iconic guitar part you’ve ever heard was monitored with studio monitors in a control room. I doubt it sounded weak in the control room studio monitors when Eddie was recording his parts.

The problem you’re experiencing is: what Eddie heard in the live room was of course different than what the engineers heard in the control room, because he was in the live room with the cab, and they were hearing the signal from the mic on the cab, through studio monitors. If you want your modeler to sound like you’re playing it through a live guitar cab in the room, disable the cab block and run an amp model into a good power amp and live guitar cab in the room. Acoustic treatment can really help the experience with studio monitors if your goal is accurately monitoring the mic’d/direct signal from the modeler, but no modeler can magically transform studio monitors into a 412 guitar cab.

Yes i probably should have specified when sitting in the living room playing!
I like how the recording sounds.

I guess i should look for a power amp and cab. Regarding the power amp does it matter which one?
And for a cab.. is 1x10, 1x12 more than enough for an apartment?

Thanks for a detailed answer!

If you're going for AITR then you need an amp in the room.

If you're going for "cranked album tones" then an FRFR / studio monitors are the way to go.

For me personally, I get what I need out of a good set of full-range studio monitors on my desk. DynaCabs get me what I need usually, but I've also just ditched the cab block entirely and used a combo of Filter + Graphic EQ block to get closer to AITR. There's no real rules, just go get that tone, however you can.

Thank you, i believe i watched Cooper dialing in an AITR tone somewhere using EQ or something.

For the DynaCabs, is there a difference between the one we get for free and those we can buy at fractalshop?
I see some have the same name.

 

[Necr0lancer]

If you're going for AITR then you need an amp in the room.

If you're going for "cranked album tones" then an FRFR / studio monitors are the way to go.

For me personally, I get what I need out of a good set of full-range studio monitors on my desk. DynaCabs get me what I need usually, but I've also just ditched the cab block entirely and used a combo of Filter + Graphic EQ block to get closer to AITR. There's no real rules, just go get that tone, however you can.

Apologies for derailing the thread here but how are you going about the filter + Graphic EQ set up? Are you mimicking the Speaker Impedance? Or are you just straight up twisting knobs until it sounds good?

 

[rossipedia]

Apologies for derailing the thread here but how are you going about the filter + Graphic EQ set up? Are you mimicking the Speaker Impedance? Or are you just straight up twisting knobs until it sounds good?

Basically just twisting knobs until it sounds good. You can still dial in speaker impedance curves in the amp block without a cab block present, but generally I don't really worry about that kinda thing and just twist knobs until I get inspired

For the filter block + geq, it was taken from a forum post Cliff made a while back, can't find it atm. The TL;DR is you use the filter block to hi-pass at around 80 hz or so, maybe a bit higher, then low-pass with a sharper cutoff at around 6k. That gives you the "rough cut" of a guitar speaker's frequency response.

Then you use the GEQ after that to sculpt the sound and dial in/out the specific characteristics you want. It gets a bit of a more up-front / in-your-face kinda sound that's pretty accurate to playing through an amp/cab, but without the directionality aspect of a traditional guitar cab. It's a pretty good approximation IMO.

 

[Mr.Shred]

I totally hear you (pun intended) in that nothing I tried at “home friendly” volume gave me the punch I was looking for — UNTIL I finally bought a pair of custom-molded hard shell IEMs. I just couldn’t believe how deep the LF response went and how much the kick drum “impact” improved. How could such a small driver kick so hard?

Then a top-line monitor engineer explained it to me: a great fitting hard shell IEM (“firm fitting” just short of painful) actually “connects” to the bones surrounding your ear, which is what the human “hearing chain” perceives as LF. I’ve experimented on my own with slightly “looser” fits and I’ll be damned if he’s not right. Tight fit rules!

It took me three tries and some time with a Dremel tool, but I’ve finally got a combo/fit that works for me — and it’s bliss!

This 100%!
My custom molded IEMs are the best invest besides my AXE 3.
The punch and clarity are unmatched, like you were surounded by cabinets etc.

 

[Budda]

How loud can you watch a movie in your apartment OP? Probably wont be going any louder with a cab, so consider that too.

 

[Carvin82604]

Rob is playing with a lot more gain than you'd expect. Nailing pinch harmonics is almost impossible without enough gain/distortion, and cranking it to the levels where they start coming out easily tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable. But he's right: playing cleanly with that much dirt on your sounds requires being incredibly precise.

If you need lots of gain to get pinch harmonics, you don't understand pinch harmonics.

 

[Marduk33]

How loud can you watch a movie in your apartment OP? Probably wont be going any louder with a cab, so consider that too.

Usually louder than normal, me and those living around me are pretty tolerant.
I play with normal volume at nights sometimes, and the neighbour living next to me says he doesnt hear anything.
Unfortunately i cant measure the db.

 

[rossipedia]

If you need lots of gain to get pinch harmonics, you don't understand pinch harmonics.

That's technically true, but it can definitely help to bring them out and making them sound decent until you get your technique down, and that boost in confidence can help keep you practicing and working on the correct technique instead of getting discouraged and giving up.

 

[giantslayer]

Usually louder than normal, me and those living around me are pretty tolerant.
I play with normal volume at nights sometimes, and the neighbour living next to me says he doesnt hear anything.
Unfortunately i cant measure the db.

There are free apps you can download for your phone to measure dB.

 

[Jarick]

I've tried a bunch of stuff for what you describe, and I actually like a Fender FR-12 quite a bit for this. It sounds a fair amount like a real speaker cab but you can dial in how much tweeter level you want to keep (or get rid of). So you can go between the studio monitor sound and the cabinet sound. Having it on the ground off axis in a big enclosure does make it sound and feel a lot like a speaker cab. I'd guess any decent FRFR would work similarly but the Fender was affordable and the form factor is great.

I also have a 1x12 Orange cab with a V30 and a flat solid state amp. but the Fender sounds better to me. It sounds deeper and bigger and the 1x12 cab can be boxy. Previously I had a Boss Katana 50 and that was really boxy sounding because it's such a small enclosure. The 100 is better, as is the Line 6 Catalyst.

I don't think a tube combo would be a good move in an apartment. I have an Orange Rocker 15 lunchbox head which can go from 15 watts to 7 watts to 1 watt to 1/2 watt. Even the 1/2 watt setting can get pretty loud at home. I also have a Friedman JJ Junior which is 20 watts and I literally can only use it at the lowest volume I can possibly dial in, like barely cracked open. Any tube amp IMO is going to be too loud for an apartment.