Direct to FOH help....sorry in advance...

Kyle.E.Woyote

Kyle.E.Woyote

Inspired
.....I've been dreading making a post on "taming high end" or "needs more balls" for over a week now, but I'm losing way too much sleep staying up in the wee hours tweaking...Normally I lurk in the shadows figuring things out by researching past posts etc, so I appologise for yet another one of these posts..

A little back story..

I'm a recent Axe-II convert, from a GSP1101/Peavey JSX/'87 Marshall Jubilee head(s)(4CM) into a 4x12 Jube Cab setup running direct to board and "sometimes" out cabinet depending on venue size.

Recently we went to a full on "in-ear" setup and it's working great and love it (minus the carboard-y tone in my ear buds, pre Axe II) and I will be doing away with my 4x12 cab all together, and going direct to board.

I'm using Shure SE-425 earbuds live, and have been using those at home for tweaking hoping it will get it me in the ballpark when I return to rehearsal....


....enter Axe-FX II......


I started right away with Mark Day's presets and was MORE than excited to unleash them at rehearsal, sounded killer at home....but at practice into the Allen & Heath board..thin and lacking punch.

I have given the Pre-eq blocking a try, rolling highs off cab and amp blocks, (rest my ears for a bit) returning later to the same results....just not right...can't find a sweet spot of clarity AND punch.

I do though, think I'm on the right track with different Cab sims..I have been using the Marshall GT-75(last night) sim submitted by "Animal" in the preset exchange(thanks Animal), and I believe is a huge step in the right direction...sounds like I'm listening to my Jubilee cab in the ear buds, and really tamed high end as well as adding oomph. Does anyone have a "starting point" for these frequencies?

The reason I'm asking here for pointers is due to not having my rig readily available,(I just transport the Axe back and forth) so getting as close as possible to a working patch(s) prior to practice won't intrude on the others because I need to tweak things......

Many thanks all....
 
building patches from In-ears is a very tough task. The best way to tweak is from studio monitors in most cases, unless you can tweak through the actual PA to be used (not likely). Otherwise you will adapt your sound to the in-ears which won't likely sound that great when you send off to FOH PA system.

I think my sound is great through FOH, but sounds lacking slightly in my in-ears, but i'm cool with that, because I know FOH is good. For me, that is the downside of in-ears, you don't get the huge sound of the room, amps,all instruments interacting, you just get an enclosed sound. But the benefits hugely out weigh the negatives.

It also sounds like it could be a volume issue. You are used to the onstage volume being loud, and most folks have the sound much quieter through in-ears (which is another benefit of in-ears) and that could be throwing off the patches made too.

Just some things to think about.

I tweak to my KRK Rokit 5's, and then test on my floor monitor and my in-ears to try to get a good sound through all 3, but focus the most on the studio and floor monitors.
 
Thanks for the reply, and that makes total sense.

I knew eventually I would be needing to invest in some monitors for home use, will be doing that sooner than later now!

Is it a normal occurance to have some patches(verified for live use as plug in and go) to have the cab freq way up at max of 20000hz?...I would think that setting would annihilate FOH?
 
Meep-Meep!

Hey Roadrunner - lol!

Whatever you do (seriously!) DO NOT sell your '87 Marshall Silver Jubilee Head! I had one of those as a combo, and I always regretted selling it! Unfortunately, I have no immediate Axe-FX II advice to help your current dilemma, but hang in there, between your own ears and the help in these forums, your gonna get what you need. I believe that!

Bill
 
Hahaha,been a nickname of mine forever. I see the Jube going to the grave with me!

It has a tube freshen up waiting for it right now(first since new in '87,eeek!)...The cab I've used since '87...has seen better days, but it sounds great. Which is likely why I love Animals IR sim so much....

Ohhh I see you have ADA slant cabs,....I want. I have a couple Mp-1's still, along with a crap load of other "80's" preamps and gear...GEAR!!!!

I've been checking this forum out for some time, and before actually registering too. I've always found it to be helpful and drama free which makes it easier on everyone on the forum to get where they need to go in the quest for their tone,..that's the way it should be.

Maybe, I'll re-look at Mark's patches, back the verb and delay off and fix it at our board for the in-ears and see where that leads...I was told the patch should be good to go live....
 
have you tried making a tone with just amp and cab, starting from scratch?

i think starting from presets, no matter whose they are, is an ok idea, but to truly understand the machine you're using, you should start from the beginning and see what settings change what. many times the tones you are looking for are not in a preset.
 
I don't think the Shure SE-425s are as balanced as they claim. I think you'd get better results in translating your patches from home to live if you used actual headphones.
 
Another approach I should be adopting for sure.

I have only "tinkered" with going from scratch thus far changing amp models on patches(higher gain ones), disabling all other blocks etc, and double clicking controls(axe-edit) to get their defaults, for some reason I can't regain the amount of gain and grunt, but it could likely be a input trim here or there,...tinker tinker I must indeed..
 
Just checked out your links...looks like a helluva good time. Question: do you carry all of your own PA gear, or are you using venue-supplied FOH systems? The reason I ask is because it can be tricky going the pure direct FRFR route using in-ears since it is so very different than having a stage amp/speaker with which to monitor your sounds.

But first things first - getting happy with your sound. I think that whatever you do, you create your sounds at a very healthy volume, as you would if you were making tones with a real amp/cabinet. Low volume tone creation with the AxeFX can be very tricky as the tendency is to make the "smiley face" EQ to replace the lack of acoustic energy at low levels. So if you can, get your hands on a couple of really good sounding full-range PA/Monitor speakers and audition your sounds on these at a fairly loud level. Make your tonal adjustments in this environment, and if/when you are happy with these sounds, spend some time listening to the AxeFX through FOH during sound check....listen....tweak....rinse...repeat. This can be initially very time consuming, but once you are there, life is good.

+1 for spending time with different cabinet IRs
+1 for preset creation from scratch
 
For the smaller gigs we have a dedicated sound tech that brings a full on set up, otherwise for the bigger clubs we use the house system...though whenever in-ears are used, the same Allen/Heath board we rehearse with comes with us.

The last gig I went direct xlr out of the GSP-1101 (w/Peavey JSX in 4cable method) with monitoring only thru house monitors,no in-ears was fantastic. I KNOW the Axe will be fully capable, but to be honest it's overwhelming a wee bit right now,..I can't wait tiill it's locked in(I know it will happen) cause....

1. the in-ears,even with the issues I'm having now have more realism and clarity than ever, which I'm really excited about...and 2. Not lugging that JSX head and Marshall cab around,..is just dandy with me!!!..Hahahaha
 
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