Do your factory settings sound too thin?

S

shredding

New Member
Hey, Guys, just got an axe-fx ultra from a forum member and it was such a great transaction. I have a few questions here.

First, my setup is like this
guitar->ultra out 1 (with cab and power amp sim off) ->mesa dual rectifier effect Rtn-> mesa 4x12 oversize cab.

on the mesa, I turned send level to full and return to 100% and I'm only using its power amp section and use the ultra as a preamp.

I compare this setup to the dual rectifier's preamp and the ultra sounds just tinnnny. Super thin sound with no lows. So I turned up the lows in the ultra's GEQ (63 hz 12 db gain and 125 hz 8 db) then it's comparable to the dual rectifier's preamp lows. I know something must be wrong here since i checked out some of the patches in axe change and none has such high lows on the GEQ. Any suggestions? Thank you guys!
 
shredding said:
Hey, Guys, just got an axe-fx ultra from a forum member and it was such a great transaction. I have a few questions here.

First, my setup is like this
guitar->ultra out 1 (with cab and power amp sim off) ->mesa dual rectifier effect Rtn-> mesa 4x12 oversize cab.

on the mesa, I turned send level to full and return to 100% and I'm only using its power amp section and use the ultra as a preamp.

I compare this setup to the dual rectifier's preamp and the ultra sounds just tinnnny. Super thin sound with no lows. So I turned up the lows in the ultra's GEQ (63 hz 12 db gain and 125 hz 8 db) then it's comparable to the dual rectifier's preamp lows. I know something must be wrong here since i checked out some of the patches in axe change and none has such high lows on the GEQ. Any suggestions? Thank you guys!
Click to expand...


The factory presets are designed with poweramp section of the amp on. This has a profound effect on the tone. With the power amp simulation off, the depth and deep controls are deactivated; the master becomes a volume control and the presence controls turns into a shelving filter. The master volume when the poweramp sim is on can thicken and compress the tone some. You lose this when you turn it off. Turn the presence down on the amp sim and it will help a lot. A GEQ or PEQ is a great tool for sculpting the tone you want.

Most of the axechange presets are set up w/ the poweramp sims on as well.
 
Thank you for the fast reply... It really helps!

BTW, do you think the way i setup the GEQ (65hz maxed out, 125 hz almost maxed ) is reasonable?
 
shredding said:
Thank you for the fast reply... It really helps!

BTW, do you think the way i setup the GEQ (65hz maxed out, 125 hz almost maxed ) is reasonable?
Click to expand...

It sounds a bit excessive to me. I don't have a recto to test it with though.
 
shredding said:
Thank you for the fast reply... It really helps!

BTW, do you think the way i setup the GEQ (65hz maxed out, 125 hz almost maxed ) is reasonable?
Click to expand...

As long as you don't plan on ever playing with a bass player or recording, you'll be fine with those settings. For playing live and tracking, those eq settings, in most cases, would be complete disaster.
 
guittarzzan said:
As long as you don't plan on ever playing with a bass player or recording, you'll be fine with those settings. For playing live and tracking, those eq settings, in most cases, would be complete disaster.
Click to expand...

Well, that's the only way to get it close to the lows the recto preamp spits out. (i only tried this at very low speech volume though). I set my recto preamp's low at 11:00 only.
 
I have a Dual Rectifier too and the way I used the Axe with it is pretty much the same as you. I hooked up the Axe to the amp return to use the Axe as the pre-amp. The Dual Rectifier effects loop is pretty weird and I had to set the Effects Loop knob at 100% but I had to set the Mix knob at 75-80%. The Rec does not have a very good effects loop IMHO. I haven't used my Mesa in almost 8 months since my last outdoor gig. Just have no need to haul it arround anymore.

Here's what I did and it was easy to get the tone of the Mesa matched almost perfect:

First dial in your Mesa exactly how you like it. If you can record it that is recommended that way you can dial in your FRFR tone and match the mic'd recorded sound using an FRFR speaker and use an Axe cab (I used the stock V30 4x12 to sound close to my 2x12 oversized slant Boogie cabinet with C90's). If you still want to use the Mesa as a power amp with live cab then do what you are doing and start matching the settings of the "real amp" orange channel. I found the Axe responded pretty close to the "real amp" eq. settings. I would plug guitar into front of Mesa, (play the guitar) then unplug and then plug into the Axe and switch the Mesa effects loop on --- match tone. I got so close in tone to the orange channel that I was pretty satisfied. What blew my mind is when I recorded both and listened. I couldn't hear much difference at all. I have never been real in love with the "green" clean channel of the Dual Rec and have found other amp models in the Axe to take the place of that one. The only channel I couldn't quite match was the "red" channel. I spent some hours with it back at firmware 7.25 or 8.02??? I can't remember but it was last year and I couldn't really get that sizzle that the real amp had for "red" channel. The Axe red channel didn't have quite the same sparkle??? Firmware 9.03 is so good and the Red Wire cabs are so good I may give it a nother try again but I'm having too much fun with other amp models and don't really miss the Mesa at all. To be fair I didn't spend a ton of time dialing in the Axe for the "red" channel and it should be possible. I mostly was going for the match on the "orange" and clean tone. After that I was happy.

Also a side note*** when I was working with the Mesa and Axe I wanted to use the Mesa as the Amp using all three channels and use the Axe as an Effects unit only (bypassed the Axe amp sim and Cab sim). After I dialed in all my effects for the Mesa amp, just for an experiment I hooked up through the Mesa Return and matched the tones of the "green" and "orange" channels using the Axe Amp sims (no Cab block...live Mesa Cab) and pugged into the front of the Axe like you are trying to do. I just wanted to match the tones I love on the Mesa so I could feel confident just taking my FRFR to gigs and leaving the amp at home. I was able to nail the green and orange channels but I desided I wanted the "red" tone for this live gig and ran out of time to dial in that tone so I hooked up the effects return & send and plugged right into the front of the Mesa amp. This way I could play an outdoor gig and use all three channels including the red tone I love. I think I had to set the "Mix" on the back of the amp to 75-80% and it was super touchy getting the right "Mix volume" set to use the Mesa Boogie as a pre-amp too but it worked out pretty good. Did I mentioin how much I hate the Dual Rec effects loop....LOL! If you ever want to use the Axe as just an Effects Processor for the Mesa Boogie it's critical to switch the I/O Input Source on the Axe to Anolog Rear instead of Anolog Front (default) if you are wireing up everything (Axe Input and Output in the back of the Axe) and using the Return and Send of the amp. If you don't switch it this way the Axe effects will sound real dark and muddy.

You may have already done these things but since you said the Axe was new to you I thought I'd share my experience. Hope this helps. Hope I haven't confussed you either. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
 
Im also adding a lot of low end para or graphic eq in rectifier and a few other amp sims used with my mesa 2:100 and mesa cab. Ive wondered about this before and it has been mentioned in other threads that playing the axe-fx pre amp sim only(power amp sim off) into the matching head's effects return doesnt always sound like just plugging into the front of the head and that quite a bit of eq is needed to get in the ballpark. I recall someone saying this about the jcm800 pre amp sim into a jcm800 effects return also. Now this could be just a case of the actual amp is slightly different to the modeled one but i dont think the difference would be that huge.

I myself used to own a mesa dual rectifier and with the mesa 2:100 (which is basically a dual rectifier power section) i do need to add quite a bit of low end para eq to match up what i remember the dual rec head to sound like.... I know thats not very a very scientific method..... but i do know thin tone when i hear it. FWIW i always tweak my patches at gig volumes.

I read about many people using tube power amps with power amp sims on instead of off and i believe that they are doing it because they are missing some lows when the power amp sims are off and are trying to compensate without having to go into parametric eqs.

It would be amazing if the axe-fx developer/s could test the pre amp sections of the modeled amps by isolating them from the modeled power amp sections and comparing them to the real thing, either just modeled pre amps vs real pre's or into the power sections of the real amps. I think the end result would yield more accurate sims in total. Maybe this has been done on some models already.... who knows. It certainly would be viable on the less exotic amp sims in the axe-fx (dual rectifier, 5150, jcm800 etc)

But im sure ill be told off in a second.
 
The preamps are tested on their own and compared to the models. The Recto preamp model sounds just like a real Rectifier preamp. If you have to add any bass you're doing something wrong somewhere.
 
I'd check the enhancer effect and make sure it is turned off. It is on some of the presets (specifically one of the recto patches that I like...), and sounds cool in stereo, but in mono some of the presets sound thin. I'm assuming its some phase cancellation thing when run in mono.

Just a thought. Hope that helps some.
 
I've never been a fan of running the Axe thru an actual tube power section, but FWIW, I've A/B'd the Recto Orange model on the Axe thru a SS poweramp (the SLA2) against the orange channel of Recto head thru the same cab. Without adding any EQ's, I can get the two to sound very, very similar at gig volume levels. If anything, the Axe's model has a bit more "body" and bottom end at similar settings, whereas the Recto has a bit more its signature sizzle up top.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom