It doesn't have to be the band... you can get any drummer and bass player to sit down with you. Offer to buy them lunch. Or beer if they like it.
I think that's how I got ( and stayed ) in the band anyways. This is actually really great advice.
Thanks. This might actually work.
Based on the vid which I know isn't the best way to tell I would say a little more volume and less effect, your sound in buried pretty good in that mix.
I had 1 day to figure something out between a day job. EH,.....not bad for an iPhone though, huh?
It's basically the same tone I'm using now, exactly as you recommended.
Clean tone is beautiful, and I'm constantly refining for live play. It's getting better all the time, ( pun Intended )and I think I have what I prefer to use, at least for right now.
The crunch , which isn't featured in the video, sounds great s a lead, but I need something as a rhythm patch, and sound. It's incredibly shrill/bass, at the present moment. That's what this is about mainly.
The ultimate dream is that perfect picture of sound like Ty Tabor/King's X kinda thing. Where your tone rhythm wise really rounds out a sound, and paints a picture as a whole band unit.
I know this isn't going to be easy.
Another thing to be aware of is that sometimes it's not you, it's the room/stage/sound system. Before you go tweaking your presets to compensate, be sure what you're hearing on stage is in fact what the crowd is hearing. In one of the places I play the stage monitors are sitting on a wood stage which resonates and creates a nasty, farty, bass sound. If I try to compensate (with the low cut), the mains end up sounding weak. Another place I play has cheap stage monitors that make me sound like a tin can. Completely opposite problems, but the same presets.
I have been around playing with Bill Clements live for a few months, just doing open mic nights, and have felt the sting of this very effect. Here in Kalamazoo, a "MAIN" is basically not gonna happen if you want jump in or play a one night stand somewhere. It's the main reason I went with the ALTO 1X15 ACTIVE. I A/B optioned them at Guitar Center with a sound man I've known over 10 years through various models of the same and different brands of FR/FR, and settled on this after trying them out for a week.
Stage wise, completely put of my control. I've never even seen or heard of the places we are lined up to play until I get there, as we are starting to travel a lot all over Michigan. As far back Home in Kalamazoo, even the old regular places have had a million changed since I saw my favorite local bands as a kid, back in the day.
I've overall been happy with Alto, on a stand or somewhat raised and used as a wedge facing the crowd.
It's been the closest I have been able to get across the board with a consistent sound.
Thanks, I was waiting to feel the comfort of people knowing exactly what you just mentioned.
Its good to know it's not always me just being clueless
Dig around online and find the isolated tracks to some of your favorite pro mixed albums that match your band's sound and style and use the isolated guitar tracks as a guide for your overall eq. If possible play the tracks through you axe fx rig like a backing track and try to match up the response while playing along. It won't be perfect by any stretch, but it will get you in the right ballpark for a "mixed with the band" sound. From there you can do the final tweaking live with your band at gig volume. A good pair of flat response studio headphones might help you too. You can crank those to match up the EQ without pissing off your neighbors. Again won't be perfect, but better than nothing. Unfortunately there is no substitute for final tweaking with the band at gig volume.
Unless you knwo where I can find King's X stuff after the Dogman era ( which is my ideal band mix guitar tone ). Been there and tried that.
I dug up a decent RUSH guitar tone patch thread and got that going for the show in a couple of hours.
It sufficed, but didn't make me very happy. It was loud enough and fit "okay", but who wants okay. Good enough isn't good enough for me. Shit, look at who I'm playing with and what I'm expected to play.
I really hate routing to play things through the Axe. its just a preference i don't enjoy.
Also, instead of tone matching on the front of the amp, I , against all rational thought, prefer the old method of matching things with Ozone, and using Voxengo Deconvulver. I got these working with my Mac Pro, and the reults are scary great. I just think It get closer and transfers to different guitars, and pickups, and over all across the board as a patch to share on the forums better than the Tone Match option.
It's just a personal thing.
Here's an example that shows what my results were, and how I got them with links an VERY DETAILED instructions.
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-f...st-peace-album-guitar-tone-eq-matched-ir.html
This is not rocket science you know.
It never ceases to puzzle me why people who have spent $2.5k+ on a complex versatile rig would baulk at spending a few extra bucks on rehearsal studio fees to get this problem under control.
Take is easy duder.
It's just not an option at the moment, I'm a little broke, but now that you've mentioned it, it may be.
That's actually a really good idea. I know quite a few guys who own this unit, and even own a studio or two around town. Consider this and Matts idea of buying pizza and beer strong considerations for the winning prize!
[/QUOTE]All I did was take my rig to a good rehearsal studio, hire the biggest room, took backing CDs to play along with and tweaked my patches with a laptop and axe edit until I was happy with them. It's important to stand in different places and decide on the physical placement of amp to ear; and try and find a physical configuration that will work at the kind of gigs/stages you expect to play in. That got me about 80% there. Then I arranged 3-4 jams (once again at a rehearsal studio) with fellow gear freaks who like playing and testing their rigs. This pretty much got me there.
While I was at it I ran o/ps to the studio PA and tweaked the global out eq until I had a sound (with a flat desk eq) that I was happy with. The one time I gigged and went direct to desk the sound guy really liked the sound and barely tweaked it. A minutes worth of rhythm and lead and we were done.
This setup translated very well to rooms of different sizes, and I have not had to do any tweaking on the fly. If I did I would just use the Boss Sniper GE-7 that I run in front of the axe to even out the gain between Strat and LP. I've always just left the eq flat.
All this cost me around $150 in studio hire for an enjoyable time tweaking away at gig volumes. My gig rig now lives packed up in the garage and the duplicate Ultra in my home studio rarely gets turned on. I do most of my practice on my ES-175 unplugged.
I understand that many axe owners have not had to go this path so YMMV. What's not to like though? I got to jam (not rehearse) with friends and experiment with my gear. Win/Win I say.[/QUOTE]
WORD!
It's GOING TO BE OPENLY TALKED ABOUT AT PRACTICE. I'm considering this in the cards right now.
Thanks so much for this idea. I was just initially hoping to be able to do it at home myself. Which, is one of the reasons I bought the damn thing in the first place.
To comment on effects volume levels, I'm also a sucker for Reverse pedals, and love freaking people out LIVE with them.
Who's constantly doing that? Hopefully its a cheap way to be original, and work towards something unique.
This may have been mentioned already but see if you can find the thread on here about Yek's mid-boost trick - it totally solved the problem you are describing for me.
Essentially, place a filter block near the end of your signal chain in the Axe Fx, and set it for a 3-4dB boost to the mids.
You can assign the bypass of this block to an unused controller so it can quickly be engaged/disengaged in all patches.
This works great for me - I turn it off at home or low volume and on at high volume.
Oh yeah - your bassist is really good! When I realized he was playing with one hand my mouth dropped open!
I can't find Yeks thread. Does anyone have a link???
I'm more than game to try it.
I did find this though -
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-fx-ii-preset-exchange/66851-yeks-presets-v14-blog.html
Ive just had trouble making "MY SOUND" out of his layout. Which I have always thought kinda meant I was an idiot, and kept it to myself, and left it at that.
Same thing with Scott Petersons' layout
I love the idea behind it
Scott Peterson your in Detroit right?
Want Pizza and Beer?????????
My bassist - ha, I'm his guitar player. Yeah the one hand thing. Blessing and a curse. He never cease at the drop of a hat to help those with similar circumstances though, and there is a couple from Toronto ( similar problem ) who have come to see us play twice now.
Nice dude, and I forget he's only got one hand. I'm always wondering why he cant grab more gear, or hold the door, and asking him to take a million notes. And then I'm like, oh yeah....sorry dude.
Im covered in tattoos and i even forget they are there.
maybe I can Hit up Scott Peterson for a try out with this tips, as we will be playing Detroit again in a few months.
We were asked back.
Here's a bit of FM wisdom that caused me to program a pseudo anti-Fletcher Munson GEQ a while back. Unfortunately the block is no longer compatible with the current firmware, but that doesn't mean it can't be recreated fairly simply. I forget who posted it originally, but it's worth a read:
My Anti FM EQ is a little rought to say the least for a number of reasons. Firstly its a Graphic EQ Im using, which wont generate a smooth frequency curve. Secondly there are only 2 available EQs (one on each global), so you can only set up for two volume levels - deviating from those levels will make the settings less effective (sometimes a relativelty small increase/decrease in volume has a noticeable effect). Lastly it depends on the room - we all know some a boomy, some are bright etc.
That said, I took one of the many FM curves published, and chose a loud level (110db in my case) as my reference. Thats my flat EQ, and represents my gig volume level. i then chose a quieter level - 80db initially though I think I play louder than that at home - and mapped the "offsets" - ie how much each freq differed from the reference. then I played at both levels and fine tuned by ear - actually the offsets were generally reduced because I was louder than the 80db I plotted on the chart.
using this doesnt mean i dont have to fine tune to a room, or to a live volulme but its pretty close normally. My "home" eq curve doesnt change as I generally play at the same level.
All that waffle out of the way, Ive settled on the following EQs for my home use:
32 hz: +4db
65 hz +2.4db
125 hz +1.5db
250hz -0.5db
500hz -1.2db
1 Khz +0.5db
2 Khz +1.75db
4 Khz +1.5db
8 Khz +3.0db
16 Khz +0.5db
I inverted all of the settings on the GEQ block I setup, and as you might imagine, it cuts lows and highs while boosting the midrange. Not necessarily a panacea, but a good place to start.
Gonna give this a shot as well
That took a lot of time, and it's greatly appreciated. That picture is currently my Screen Saver right now
THANX!
Tons of good info in this thread. To the OP, if I read your post right your somewhat new to playing live or with other people. Were you a bedroom rock star before that? (just asking because that is what you sort of said.) It sounds to me like you have a very simple (and common) case of bedroom tone. FM is one explanation for it, but what I have found with bedroom guitarists is that when they play alone, they seem to try to fill out all the sonic space. They try to include frequencies that are the domain of the bass and cymbals in their sound, because when all alone it sounds better to them. The guitar the way it SHOULD SOUND by itself sounds naked and thin because the bass and drums are not there to complete the sonic picture for you. SO... you end up dialing up a bunch of bass and treble, and then when you play with other instruments you disappear.
The answer is to download some backing tracks (as suggested by someone above) and go to your practice space, blast the tracks through the PA and jam to them at full volume. Try
Free Guitar Backing Tracks @ GuitarBackingTrack.com
Then you can at least get a somewhat closer idea of what you should be sounding like. It won't be the same as real drums and bass, but far better than guessing at it in your bedroom. When in doubt, add more mids. This is where guitar lives. By itself, it can sound a bit "honky", but live it will work much better.
Yes I am a legend in my own mind, at least in the bedroom( drum roll)
And your right about the frequency thing. I usually adjust it in the mix with some EQ, but damn it JIM, live, I'm not an engineer, I'm a guitar player, so......
I'm definitely gonna try this, and then try to refine it, and keep them handy when we go in to record a single or so in a few months.
Thanks for the links dude
To the original poster…
You didn’t mention how your sound is going to front of house (FOH). If your Alto TS115a is also your stage monitor, you might be hearing the effects of that particular amp / speaker. If you are feeding a more flat (truly FRFR) PA for FOH, the Alto may be giving you a distorted view of your actual signal.
So, you might want to look at your playback system as well as the effect of Fletcher Munson. Try your presets at a local store that sells monitors, and play through several at volume. Many FRFR floor monitors are designed with enhancing vocals. Many PA mains enhance bass and treble. Despite the flat looking EQ curve on the Alto web site, their price point leads me to believe they are sort of an entry level unit. Even the “prosumer” tier, generally have some non-linear EQ curves. The published curves are usually smoothed, to create a nice flat looking picture. The bottom line is you may not notice a harsh compression driver or muddy low end at low volume, but feel like it is a knife in the ear when it is turned up. The higher end units have a whole lot of engineering to make sure they sound good (possibly flat) at a wide range of volumes. That’s why they cost so much, even if the surface specs (woofer size, compression driver type and throat, power amps capabilities, DSP if any) look similar to less capable systems.
An option might also be to borrow a dbx DriveRack, SMAART, or other spectrum analyzer to see what it takes to truly flatten your monitoring system’s EQ. I run a DriveRack between my power amps and monitors all the time, to EQ them to close to flat. You can get an inexpensive Dayton mic, and apps for your iphone / ipad that will give you a decent little spectrum analyzer and sound pressure level meter to do similar EQing with the global EQ block in your Axe.
I have been around playing with Bill Clements live for a few months, just doing open mic nights, and have felt the sting of this very effect. Here in Kalamazoo, a "MAIN" is basically not gonna happen if you want jump in or play a one night stand somewhere. It's the main reason I went with the ALTO 1X15 ACTIVE. I A/B optioned them at Guitar Center with a sound man I've known over 10 years through various models of the same and different brands of FR/FR, and settled on this after trying them out for a week.
Stage wise, completely out of my control. I've never even seen or heard of the places we are lined up to play until I get there, as we are starting to travel a lot all over Michigan. As far back Home in Kalamazoo, even the old regular places have had a million changed since I saw my favorite local bands as a kid, back in the day.
I've overall been happy with Alto, on a stand or somewhat raised and used as a wedge facing the crowd.
It's been the closest I have been able to get across the board with a consistent sound.
When I show a guy the Axe, just explaining it to him, which is fun, takes more time than setting up.
Running in to a main isn't an option sometimes, at least not yet.
I figured that when this issue arose I'd see how the funds were looking, and hit up the forums with how to run it, and use it as an option, or just book Matt Picone or Scott Peterson for a day of patching fun.
You got any Ideas or a patch or picture I could check out to use as a routing example for a front of house sound
It's all new to me. I know it's been done to death on the forums, but I have had the time, and it unfortunately, as of late, hasn't been my main focus.
I'm basically using the Axe as a head, and going to the Alto, like an old school cab rig.
Also how loud t do you play with the band -- kill small children and animals loud?.
I actually had a very dear friend come see us this past weekend, and have someone come from a next door business and ream his ass out about how loud we were playing.
We are King's X loud. If youve seen them, they , in my opinion bring MANOWAR to shame.
Most of the time, we are the only "Rock" band in an acoustic setting, or the only band playng somethign that need a detailed attention, note selection riff wise.
A lot of it is three chord rock bands at local clubs, or acoustic stuff, and we show up with GEAR.
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Lastly Im using these headphones
Amazon.com: Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Professional Studio Monitor Headphones with Coiled Cable: Musical Instruments
Audio-Technica ATH-M50 Stereo Headphone Review by Dale | Stereophile.com
