Bunch of Newbie Questions :)

Hey all! Got my Axe. I'm very impressed by it, but not 100% sold on it yet. Surprising enough, I've got some amazing bass sounds out of it, but not convinced with my guitar sounds.

I'm going for a high-gain metal tone. Along the lines of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVAQQujgSxQ

I'm a big fan of Jens Borgen's stuff :)

Now I'd post a sample of what stuff I've been getting, but I've ended up chasing my own tail and utterly over-processing everything. End result, when I return to the Axe after half an hour, I realise that what I have is utter crap and totally unusable. I'm gonna set a timer for 30 minutes each time I choose to fuck with something!

Generally speaking, here are the troubles I'm having in nailing an ass-kicking tone.

#1) There seems to be a lot of mud on the bottom. I spend a lot of time trying to get rid of that mud. Often I'll throw a high-pass filter on at around 75hz to try to filter it out, but that hasn't been doing much. Sometimes I'll use a filter block around 200hz, but then all the body of the tone disappears and I've still got some murkyness. What are some things I can look at when trying to get a bit more clarity?

#2) Generally speaking, I'm having trouble with oversaturation. I like a big saturated tone, but I'm having trouble controlling gain if I throw a TS808 in front of a Recto. This is the setup I run at home and I don't have the gain issues I do with the AFX. What are some things I can look at to control gain, but still get awesomeballs saturation?

#3) I would prefer to use mono patches. I prefer to record guitar tracks in mono and pan them where I like.

#4) I tried one of Ola's high-gain patches and it was so loose and not tight and it sounded absolutely nothing like it did when he was rocking it.

I'm aware of how big of a deal your guitar plays in this equation. For reference, i'm running an ESP Explorer, all mahogany with a set of Bareknuckle Nailbomb pickups.

Any suggestions?
 
For your Hi-pass filter, you can use the amp block parameters instead, The cut switch does a similar thing but in a gentler way. There is also a low cut in the advanced parameter which is a high pass (it will work the same as putting a high pass in front)

If you cut the mud a out and wanting to beef the tone up again, try using the depth parameter or the eq. The depth is post preamp and wont muddy the signal up as much. The eq is after the poweramp section.

Most importantly experiment with cabs. Cabs are one of the most powerfull tone shaping tools in the axe-fx. They can completely change the tone and character of signal. Do not underestimate their effect.
 
For mono - just keep the axe-fx set to stereo out. Do not use any stereo effects and just record one output.
 
Welcome to the world of high gain guitars. Bashing your head against the wall trying to tame the low end frequencies has now become your life's vocation. I'm only half joking. Okay, make that 25%.

You have the right idea with throwing a high-pass filter on, but be careful- usually that only helps if left around 100 to 150 hz. Otherwise things get too thin. Try turning the "depth" knob down- I often have it all the way off.
And don't be afraid to compress the hell out of the low end- a ratio of 5 or more with a fast attack setting to keep things from swinging out of control.

Beyond this, it's really just down to spending a lot of time isolating the "problem frequencies" in your low and low-mid range and turning them down just enough... good luck.
 
Hey all! Got my Axe. I'm very impressed by it, but not 100% sold on it yet. Surprising enough, I've got some amazing bass sounds out of it, but not convinced with my guitar sounds.

For what it's worth, I was initially blown away but then a little unimpressed with my Axe-Fx when I first got it when using headphones or my studio monitors. Then the Atomic CLR powered wedge arrived and it's now simply the best sounding guitar rig I've ever heard. Nearly every factory preset sounds incredible and gig-ready without needing to edit much or at all.

Obviously it can sound great through monitors and headphones, as many will attest; but in my newbie-ness (newbie-dom??) I was unable to achieve a great tone.

The knowledge on this forum (Chris@KatsuKuriMedia for one) is really amazing so you'll get great advice on how to achieve the tone you're looking for.

Enjoy!!
 
Fremen presets are very good as far as Yek's , you should try , I'm convinced you'll find your sounds by tweeking a little....
 
as for the video in the OP, that tone is anything from saturated....it sounds fairly low gain, it's just been tracked quite a few times. gain may be your enemy here...
 
I'm fairly new to this also, having just got my axe fx a few weeks ago, but bear with me.

The recto model is my favorite in the box, and was the first one I loaded up when I got the unit, though I was thoroughly unimpressed the first time I plugged it in. I've found the 'bright' switch and 'cut' switch are pretty much mandatory if you're using the recto model. IIRC Cliff has said the 'Bright' comes on by default since thats how Rectos are wired; you can't turn it off on the real deal. Apart from that, an overdrive and the right impulse should do it.

For the overdrive, I like the T808 Mod, though to make a recto into a tight and aggressive beast, you'll want to increase the low cutoff (I have mine set around 600hz or so) and boost the mids at 1400hz (I boosted mine like 6dB or something). Apart from that, normal tubescreamer settings (low drive, high level).

As far as impulses go, I liked blending the 4x12 German V30 (RW) with the Clark Kent TEH mesa recto cab impulses (free download here: http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-fx-ii-user-cabs-irs/86371-clark-kents-teh-dollar-sound-irs.html). The (RW) Recto cab and (UR) 5150iii cabs are also good if you want to stick to internal cabs. All that being said, I did recently download Ownhammer's 'High Gain Essentials' Mesa English V30 cab and its amazing, blows away everything else I've tried. I do sometimes blend it with the 4x12 German V30 (RW) cab that comes stock with the Axe Fx though, as it has a smoother bottom end.


Make no mistake, impulses are just as important as the amp you choose.
 
as for the video in the OP, that tone is anything from saturated....it sounds fairly low gain, it's just been tracked quite a few times. gain may be your enemy here...

Very true statement here.

I would try the Herbie Ch2+ with the gain at like 7ish
 
I have had my Xl almost 3 months now. I'd advise just forgetting about deep parameters for now.

One thing to remember is tones it produces are more Aligned to a miced up amp in the control room than the sound of an amp in the room. I also own a recto and I can dial in damn close with just the basic controls. But it's not the same as the amp in the room tone.

Also downloading a bunch of presets from axechange helps allot when your starting out.
 
For what it's worth, I was initially blown away but then a little unimpressed with my Axe-Fx when I first got it when using headphones or my studio monitors. Then the Atomic CLR powered wedge arrived and it's now simply the best sounding guitar rig I've ever heard. Nearly every factory preset sounds incredible and gig-ready without needing to edit much or at all.

That's been my experience as well. The combination is phenomenal.
 
There's some awesome advice here. Cheers everybody!

First of all, I usually sit my high pass filter at around 75hz. I might drag it up a bit higher to see how I go.

Secondly: Yeeeaaahhh taming the bottom end is being a dick. I notice that as a result, I'm having too much high end because I'm trying to cut through the murk. As a result, there's also too much saturation on the top end and everything ends up sounding a bit squawky. Once I get the clarity from the bottom end, things will improve.

Thirdly: I'm looking at using this mostly for recording so getting a kickass sound coming out of my monitors is fairly important. I know my monitors aren't perfect and I'm not in a treated room, but you can still tell whether or not a tone is awesome or shite.

I'm gonna keep tweaking. I got something half decent last night (or at least a reasonable starting point). I'll have a bit more of a fuck around and I'll post something up tonight for suggestions.

Cheers all :)
 
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