Gain Enhancer and reverb questions

Rafa Diaz

Rafa Diaz

Experienced
Hello guys, hope you all are safe and coping with this situation in the best way you can.

Last week we were lucky to see Pete's preset and they sound amazing.

Something was surprising to me,
  1. No use of Gain enhancer and just use of the drive
  2. The use of Room/Air in the cab block instead of a reverb
What do you guys think? I personally find the gain enhancer amazing for classic rock tones and not a big fan of Room/Air replacing a reverb but Pete's preset sounded damn brilliant (Plexi) would be interesting to know your thoughts? @2112 could be an idea for a video? haha

Cheers
 
I used the gain enhancer all the time, but after the last few minor updates I don’t need it anymore.
 
I’m not PT but I don’t use those features, either.
 
Yep I was a big fan of the enhancer bur loaded the Marshall preset of @Burgs and some nice shared of @camilovelandiamusic and they all sound damn awesome without using the enhancer at all and the response to clean up the tone with the volume knob is as well amazing o_O

The room and air in the cab block is interesting tho I kind of prefer the reverb or just dry and let the sound engineer do his magic FOH
 
I know a lot of guys here swear/swore by it, but I never did get what the Gain Enhancer does exactly. I just sounded like more gain to me. I am sure that's not all it did but that's what it sounded like to my mortal ears.
 
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Satch4u3 said:
I know a lot of guys here swear/swore by it, but I never did get what the Gain Enhancer does exactly. I just sounded like more gain to me. I am sure that's not all it did but that's what it sounded like to my mortal ears.
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It was supposed to emulate the feedback look of playing guitar in front of a loud amp. The sound of the amp vibrates the strings reinforcing your playing. If you're really using a loud guitar cabinet of FRFR speaker to hear yourself at stage volumes you're probably getting it naturally, but if you're at bedroom levels or using headphones then it adds back in a part that might seem lacking.

It's probably slightly more than a gain boost, since it would only boost after seeing signal (I think it's similar to a reverse compressor, as output signal gets loud it juices the input signal. Which is why it's in the output compressor modes). So there's a slight time element to it which can add to the playing feel. For mid-gain tones it probably means that your attack is at your natural gain level but the sustain is boosted.
 
Gain enhancer to me is like a different flavor of more gain. Don't have a good handle on what it does technically, though I'm pretty sure I've asked that here, but I like it. It's not an always-on thing for me, but it's a cool option.

Re reverb, my guess is that Pete is targeting live somewhat, where rich lingering spaces may not be your friend.

That said, I need to make time to check out those presets. Keep meaning to, and end up just playing through my last experiment, and/or working on it. Have I mentioned that the Axe III is just the coolest device?
 
re: Gain Enhancer
It may not be used in those presets because most likely they were crafted for higher volume stage levels where the cab/monitor and guitar interaction is optimal. Riding the gtr volume pot is sweet!!

I took it that the gain enhancer would benefit at lower levels where we tend to add higher gain levels to compensate for the lost magic we get at higher volumes.

Since at lower volumes with our gain levels set higher ...our “riding” of our gtr volume pot does not behave like in higher volumes as the gain does not lower by riding our volume pot.

The gain enhancer allows us to maintain the lower gain settings we set at higher volumes for lower volume stage or bedroom levels.

Some players really limit their live use of reverb and delay. Some to the point of no use at all.

The room level adjustments in the cab block provides the ambience they are looking for.
 
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Yeah, I prefer a touch of “always on” room reverb, to give the sound some space, but it’s mainly just for my own in-ear pleasure. Plus, my bands and my church all use M32 or X32-series consoles, so the Axe FX blows them out of the water as far as reverb quality.

If I were doing big-name shows or touring with a solid FOH engineer, I’d probably cut the always-on reverb out of my presets and just use reverb as a switchable effect, to give the FOH engineer more control.
 
reclavea said:
The gain enhancer allows us to maintain the lower gain settings we set at higher volumes for lower volume stage or bedroom levels.
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I had to reread this a few times before I understood what you were saying :grinning: but once you've seen the light, it makes perfect sense 👍
(you didn't write 'Animal Farm' by any chance, did you?)
 
Stumbled on the room/air adjustment by accident by muting all the cab blocks and finding the leak. Not a fan, personally. When you add it back in, sounds like what happens when you have phase problems on a source. Makes the sound washy.
 
Reaper said:
I had to reread this a few times before I understood what you were saying :grinning: but once you've seen the light, it makes perfect sense 👍
(you didn't write 'Animal Farm' by any chance, did you?)
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In Essence, instead of adding more gain at lower volumes (which we all tend to do)...try adjusting in the gain enhancer, to help keep that magic and riding the volume knob.

I think maybe this is more beneficial to edge of breakup tones, dirt, grit and breakup tones....and some higher-gain tones.
 
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The thing is we dont know how long Pete had the FM3 and how much time he spent programming the patches. Yes, they sound great. But given more time he may have actually tried a few other things and the patches could be different. I dont read anything into the fact that he didnt use the gain enhancer and such.
 
2112 said:
I don't like sugar or milk in my coffee, other people do. Use whatever gets you where you're going.
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The wife and I just discovered “French Press” coffee! 😋☕️...a gift from my daughter a few years ago. It sat in the cabinet at the start and my daughter noticed that we haven’t touched it. We was in a “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” thing. We gave it back to her and she was more than happy.

She moved back in with us for the pandemic lockdown and noticed that we been using instant coffee since our brewing coffee pot broke. She brought back the $15 french press!

OMG! 😳....there was a huge difference with the regular Folgers Classic grounds we use between the regular filtered brewing machine and the $15 French press!

My daughter says a lot of the oils and flavoring ingredients actually gets retained and lost in the brewing paper filter. It’s amazing how the press captures and removes all the coffee grounds.

With the French press....everything the coffee beans have to offer is there in spades! She wasn’t joking!! It’s night and day! 😋☕️👍🏻

We’re hooked! No more filtered coffee for us!!👎🏻

Just the right beverage when messing around with that Gain Enhancer thing! Lol
 
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