Brittle sound - any advice?

unix-guy

unix-guy

Master of RTFM
So last night I finally had a good chunk of time at the rehearsal studio to play at "gig volume" without anyone else around.

One thing I noticed was that my sound, especially notes starting around the G on the B string and higher, would become very "brittle" sounding once I passed a certain volume. Specifically, it sounds fine at "rehearsal" levels but any louder and it starts to get brittle.

I mostly am playing cleans with some breakup (using the Buttery model with MV about 9).

My rig consists of the Axe Fx II, an ART SLA2 reference amp and a finger-jointed pine 2x12 loaded with Budda Phat 12 speakers.

I tried various combos of higher amp/lower AF volume and lower amp/higher AF volume without much change once a certain DB level was crossed, it would become brittle.

Years ago I played a Johnson Millennium (early modeling amp) which I eventually gave up on because of the same issue.

Is this a problem with using a solid state amp or am I pushing the speakers to hard?

It's not an EQ thing - I tried cutting a lot of high frequencies out but that did not help.

Any input appreciated!

Thanks,

Kevin
 
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I should also mention that I never experienced this issue while playing my Budda SuperDrive 18 through the same cab...
 
xarkon said:
What's the guitar?

Pickups?

Patch (amp, cab model)?
Click to expand...

As mentioned, the amp is the Buttery model. There is not a cab model - I am using a SS power amp and 2x12 guitar cab (also already described).

The guitar I was using last night is a a custom 1987 Ibanez Radius R540, and I was primarily playing the neck pickup (as I normally do) which is a "stacked" IBZ USA humbucker (single-coil sized). Guitar body is basswood, neck is maple with a maple fretboard... I have not previously played this guitar through this rig at this volume. Normally, I am playing a mahagony body custom 1988 Ibanez Sabre S540pro with a rosewood fretboard (same pickups, though).

Obviously, my first thought was it was that this guitar has more high frequency with the basswood body and maple fretboard... but as I mentioned above, changing the EQ by lower the HF a LOT did not entirely solve the problem - and then the amp sound like garbage because there was no HF :)
 
when I bought my Ibanez Prestige 2550ZGB it had the IBZ pickups in it..... they didn't work for me. EMG all the way baby!

Also, I'm not knocking your ART SLA2 power amp, but I'm thinking your prob just pushing it too hard man, The key indicator saying it sounds fine until you push to a certain level. Stereo or bridged mono?

How is it wired? Reading the manual, For full headroom you should be running bridged mono @ 8 ohms, this will give you a "spec" 560watts of solid state, roughly equal to a 50 watt tube head headroom wise, but I doubt it really, probably more like 400 watts before flub..... Solidstate is all about the headroom.
 
Severed said:
when I bought my Ibanez Prestige 2550ZGB it had the IBZ pickups in it..... they didn't work for me. EMG all the way baby!

Also, I'm not knocking your ART SLA2 power amp, but I'm thinking your prob just pushing it too hard man, The key indicator saying it sounds fine until you push to a certain level. Stereo or bridged mono?

How is it wired? Reading the manual, For full headroom you should be running bridged mono @ 8 ohms, this will give you a "spec" 560watts of solid state, roughly equal to a 50 watt tube head headroom wise, but I doubt it really, probably more like 400 watts before flub..... Solidstate is all about the headroom.
Click to expand...

Yeah - everyone has their own taste in pickups. These are orignal IBZ USA pickups (which are actually DiMarzios) from the late '80s - I really like them. Have them in almost all my guitars.

I have been using just one side in non-bridged, because honestly it is WAY louder than I need. With the amp set to full power (200W into 8ohm cab), I have the Axe Fx level out at between 9 and 10 o'clock - and it is plenty loud.

That being said, I did try last night running in bridged mode (580w into 8ohm load) as well - no difference: under a certain volume and it was fine, cross the threshold and bad news...

I doesn't seem like a headroom issue - there is no sense of distortion in the signal, there is no clipping indicated. I honestly feel like I could go a LOT louder and still have headroom.

Also, I am not pummeling the thing with high-gain chugga-chugga music... 95% of what I play is slightly breaking up cleans. I do slap it around with some moderate gain lead sounds (usually a solo in each song), but nothing that feels like it is stressing the amp.
 
luke said:
Hi cut in cab block, bring it down to under 10k
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To clarify, I just realized you said "cab block"... I thought you meant "amp block". There is no cab block - I am using a real amp and guitar cab.

There is a hi cut in the amp block (set to 5k, as mentioned in my other reply) and I also just saw that there is a "power amp hi cut" parameter in advance tab, which is 20k currently. I might try that next time I fire it up.
 
Looking through the advanced page of the amp block I just happened to notice that I have the "power supply type" set to "DC" for some reason... I don't recall setting that in my patch, but perhaps that is contributing to this too?
 
unix-guy said:
Yeah - everyone has their own taste in pickups. These are orignal IBZ USA pickups (which are actually DiMarzios) from the late '80s - I really like them. Have them in almost all my guitars.

I have been using just one side in non-bridged, because honestly it is WAY louder than I need. With the amp set to full power (200W into 8ohm cab), I have the Axe Fx level out at between 9 and 10 o'clock - and it is plenty loud.

That being said, I did try last night running in bridged mode (580w into 8ohm load) as well - no difference: under a certain volume and it was fine, cross the threshold and bad news...

I doesn't seem like a headroom issue - there is no sense of distortion in the signal, there is no clipping indicated. I honestly feel like I could go a LOT louder and still have headroom.

Also, I am not pummeling the thing with high-gain chugga-chugga music... 95% of what I play is slightly breaking up cleans. I do slap it around with some moderate gain lead sounds (usually a solo in each song), but nothing that feels like it is stressing the amp.
Click to expand...

Again you mention crossing the threshold and flub......... this points to either power amp or speaker crapping out. Try running your Axe FX II into the effects return of your Budda Superdrive and see if the same thing happens at relative levels.
 
unix-guy said:
One thing I noticed was that my sound, especially notes starting around the G on the B string and higher, would become very "brittle" sounding once I passed a certain volume. Specifically, it sounds fine at "rehearsal" levels but any louder and it starts to get brittle.

I tried various combos of higher amp/lower AF volume and lower amp/higher AF volume without much change once a certain DB level was crossed, it would become brittle.

Is this a problem with using a solid state amp or am I pushing the speakers to hard?
Click to expand...
It's a volume thing, not a solid-state thing. The louder you go, the more high end and low end you get.

First, rule out clipping (both in the Axe-Fx and in your power amp).


unix-guy said:
It's not an EQ thing - I tried cutting a lot of high frequencies out but that did not help.
Click to expand...
That's weird. If cutting lots of highs doesn't cut some of the brittleness, then you and I have different definitions of brittle, and we need to get that sorted out first. Post a clip so we can hear what you're trying to change, and post the preset so we know what yours is doing.
 
Severed said:
Again you mention crossing the threshold and flub......... this points to either power amp or speaker crapping out. Try running your Axe FX II into the effects return of your Budda Superdrive and see if the same thing happens at relative levels.
Click to expand...

It's not "flub" - we are talking a out the high frequency not low.
 
unix-guy said:
It's not "flub" - we are talking a out the high frequency not low.
Click to expand...

When I say flub, It's a loose term meaning "crapping out." It's a term I use when I hear anything pushed too hard. It just sounds like flub.........

Post your preset and/or a recording and lets figure it out then.......
 
Rex said:
It's a volume thing, not a solid-state thing. The louder you go, the more high end and low end you get.

First, rule out clipping (both in the Axe-Fx and in your power amp).



That's weird. If cutting lots of highs doesn't cut some of the brittleness, then you and I have different definitions of brittle, and we need to get that sorted out first. Post a clip so we can hear what you're trying to change, and post the preset so we know what yours is doing.
Click to expand...

There is no clipping...

Cutting the highs does reduce it, but I have to cut so much that the amp has no HF and sounds really bad.

If I get some time alone this weekend I will try to a) reproduce it on my 1x12 cab at home and then b) try to capture a recording of it.

Also, I should mention that this is primarily obvious when standing facing the cab straight on from about 6 feet away while the cab is sitting on and amp stand with speakers about 3.5 feet off the ground and at a slight angle.

I have heard a couple guys talk in the past about speaker "beaming" - maybe that is what this is?
 
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