Dialing in OD/Distortion issues

D

Dirty145

Inspired
Hi all,

I’ve been struggling to dial in some good OD/Distortion tones. I have the AB Live gold pack and running through a QSC K10.2 for reference. I’m loving my clean tone with the Band Commander, but every patch I try to create for OD and Distortion just sounds super compressed. I’ve gone though the Marshalls, Mesa’s and everything in between. I’ve adjusted high and low cuts, added FET boosts, you name it. I thought I had it sounding decent until I decided to experiment with my pedals. Went to my clean channel and created an outboard effects block (out 2 and in 2) before the amp. Went through my BE-OD, OCD, KOT and Timmy pedals that I had on my board and WOW!!! That’s the tone I wanted. The problem is that the whole point of this device for me is to not have to carry around a pedal board. I have to imagine it’s possible to coax these tones out of the FM3, but it has eluded me to this point. Am I doing something wrong, or are there tips I should be using. I still have a QC on preorder and wondering if maybe that would fit me better since it has the ability to capture my pedals...
 
Dirty145 said:
Hi all,

I’ve been struggling to dial in some good OD/Distortion tones. I have the AB Live gold pack and running through a QSC K10.2 for reference. I’m loving my clean tone with the Band Commander, but every patch I try to create for OD and Distortion just sounds super compressed. I’ve gone though the Marshalls, Mesa’s and everything in between. I’ve adjusted high and low cuts, added FET boosts, you name it. I thought I had it sounding decent until I decided to experiment with my pedals. Went to my clean channel and created an outboard effects block (out 2 and in 2) before the amp. Went through my BE-OD, OCD, KOT and Timmy pedals that I had on my board and WOW!!! That’s the tone I wanted. The problem is that the whole point of this device for me is to not have to carry around a pedal board. I have to imagine it’s possible to coax these tones out of the FM3, but it has eluded me to this point. Am I doing something wrong, or are there tips I should be using. I still have a QC on preorder and wondering if maybe that would fit me better since it has the ability to capture my pedals...
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can you export and upload a preset where you tried to put a drive block? it will help us answer things easier.
 
chris said:
can you export and upload a preset where you tried to put a drive block? it will help us answer things easier.
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I’ll try and do that later tonight. That being said, I was trying to use actual amp distortion for these tones. Tried most all of the Marshals and Mesa’s and get get it close to my pedals.
 
Dirty145 said:
I’ll try and do that later tonight. That being said, I was trying to use actual amp distortion for these tones. Tried most all of the Marshals and Mesa’s and get get it close to my pedals.
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oh i misunderstood the post. i thought you meant Drive and OD pedals. you just meant the amps.

still, upload a preset where you tried a tone and we can see what's going on.

also consider, that your drive pedals won't necessarily sound like an amp. maybe try a clean tone and some Drive pedals. you might just prefer drive pedal tones vs amp tones.
 
Have you tried just engaging the Drive block(s) in @austinbuddy ’s Live Gold Presets? He went to a good bit of effort to dial those in.
 
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I have, however most of them are KOT or FET boosts. I’m trying to go a little dirtier for these patches. It’s hard to describe, but I’m not getting that “openness”. Almost like there is a blanket over the sound. Plugged in my pedals and it was exactly what I wanted. One would think I should get a better tone from the BE amp vs the BE-OD pedal.
 
Dirty145 said:
I have, however most of them are KOT or FET boosts. I’m trying to go a little dirtier for these patches. It’s hard to describe, but I’m not getting that “openness”. Almost like there is a blanket over the sound. Plugged in my pedals and it was exactly what I wanted. One would think I should get a better tone from the BE amp vs the BE-OD pedal.
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did you increase the Treble control?
 
Here is the preset that I am trying to dial in. When I think I have something that sounds good, I come back to it later and think it sucks...
 

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  • Main Live Rig Clean.syx
    24.1 KB · Views: 8
I can’t check out the preset until later but in general when I’m having this issue, I go to the High Treble in the Ideal menu and start adjusting there. In general, I try to avoid the High Treble because it almost always introduces some stuff I don’t like, but between the Treble, High Treble and Presence, I can generally find a happy place.

If those aren’t doing the trick I’ll find one or several IR’s to string together to get what I want. For the longest time I was, for some reason, trying to use only one IR for every preset, but once I started mixing them and realizing I could cover a lot more ground with 2-3 IR’s, I’ve started updating all my presets with multiple IR”s. I’ve found it’s easier to subtract specific frequencies than it is to add them in, so I don’t mind if the IR overshoots a bit and I have to dial it back.
 
RevDrucifer said:
I can’t check out the preset until later but in general when I’m having this issue, I go to the High Treble in the Ideal menu and start adjusting there. In general, I try to avoid the High Treble because it almost always introduces some stuff I don’t like, but between the Treble, High Treble and Presence, I can generally find a happy place.

If those aren’t doing the trick I’ll find one or several IR’s to string together to get what I want. For the longest time I was, for some reason, trying to use only one IR for every preset, but once I started mixing them and realizing I could cover a lot more ground with 2-3 IR’s, I’ve started updating all my presets with multiple IR”s. I’ve found it’s easier to subtract specific frequencies than it is to add them in, so I don’t mind if the IR overshoots a bit and I have to dial it back.
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Yeah, I’ve tried messing with the treble, but it’s dicey, because then it gets thin sounding or screetchy if you will. I’m using York Audio IRs and have been switching between the Marshall M25 mixes and the 5153 pack mixes.
 
By its very nature on overdriven amp will be compressed than an od pedal hitting a clean amp. Often much more so
 
Dirty145 said:
Yeah, I’ve tried messing with the treble, but it’s dicey, because then it gets thin sounding or screetchy if you will. I’m using York Audio IRs and have been switching between the Marshall M25 mixes and the 5153 pack mixes.
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How about the High Treble? That and the Presence are the ones that’ll generally take the blanket off.
 
Dirty145 said:
I’ll give that a whirl in a bit. If you get a chance to check the preset, let me know. Thanks for your input!
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Just loaded it up. Are you using humbuckers or a single coil for this? It'll help me see where you're coming from if I use a guitar closer to yours.
 
hmm, i don't hear anything too "wrong" about your preset and the amp tones. i had to use different IRs because i don't have the at York Audio pack, but still it sounds normal to me.

perhaps you like the pedal board approach more becuase you're overdriving the input of the Clean amp more, which can add more harmonics or just change the sound compared to using the gain channel of the amp.

i think this may come down to amp natural compression on high gain channels vs drives through clean channels.

have you played a real Friedman or other similar amps? i don't think the Friedman drive pedal and a real Friedman amp would sound the same either due to what i've mentioned.

maybe experiment with the INPUT EQ in the Amp block, increase some high end there, or add more gain to simulate what the pedal may be doing.

i quickly made something like this just to see what it sounded like, and there's more high end and clarity compared to it being at stock settings. personally i'd get these attributes a different way, but if it works it works.

Screen Shot 2021-03-26 at 11.36.07 AM.png
 
Dirty145 said:
I’m using Humbuckers. I have a Musicman Sabre
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Give that a shot and see if it's any closer to what you're going for. Note- I was just going for the amp sounds and turned the chorus/trem off as I was working on them, so if you load this up and find them off, that's why. Also, for some reason the wah was not shutting off at all for me, no matter what I set it to, so I cut it from the block then loaded it back in before uploading. Your desired wah settings may be off from your preset, so just take a peak at that.

As for the sounds themselves, I dialed in a little more high end than I normally would, but it'll be easy to dial it back a bit. I ended up adding a multi-band comp after the cab block to get rid of some flub and control the high's a bit. On the Atomica I used some post EQ in the amp block to kick up the 4K/8K a tiny bit. I could see what you're saying by the treble/presence not doing much. With the Mesa I dropped some bass with the post-EQ in the amp block to get rid of some of that Recto flub and cranked the high and presence up a bit. Between those and the multi-comp I think I might have gotten the blanket off.

When you go to tweak it, I'd start first in the amp block and get as far as you can in there before moving to the multi-band comp. Keep in mind that I made adjustments in the post-EQ for both the Atomica and Recto. I would just adjust the Level of the high's in the MBC, but you can also sweep the Crossover back and forth and see if there's somewhere along the way you're digging more.

Lastly, you can also go to the Speaker page in the amp block and play with the bottom row, which is affecting all the high end (HF Res Freq, HF Resonance, HF Slope and Xformer Hi Freq). That's an extremely power page that tends to go unnoticed by many people.

It's a little tricky to decipher what someone else is going for, so I didn't mess with any drive settings, I basically just tweaked areas that I felt were adding that blanket, so they should still be pretty close to what you posted, just minus the blanket.

Hope that helped a little, even if it only gave you some direction of where to tweak things.
 

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  • Main Live Rig Clean-RD.syx
    48.2 KB · Views: 3
Since you mention the BE and M25s...

For heavy classic British tones, I crank the treble to 10 and drop the bass way down, sometimes to 0. I don't usually touch presence but I might occasionally bump the mid. Instant classic rock. So don't be afraid to go to the extremes of the knobs.
 
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