Getting Better "in the room" sound with headphones

S

SLM

Member
Hello,

Yes, lots of talk on this subject, and I have done research... but still not satisfied with my sounds. So here is the deal. With speakers, monitors, or performance live, sound is good, natural, and fits in with the group. However, I use In-ears, either molded or headphones depending on what I am doing. I cannot still get a good sound that replicates a mic'd amp... everything sounds sterile to me. During a show, I hesitate make any changes on the fly, as what I hear in my head is not what the audience hears...

If anybody has additional suggestions to assist, I would appreciate it.
* I do run stereo in-ears...
* I usually use a combination of NF and FF cabs... with air, presence...
* I have light reverb on everything (not enough to hear in the room, but stands out in the in-ears).
* I do some slight tweaking via EQ (not enough for the room, but works for in-ears)
* I will sometimes put in slight chorus/enhancer/flanger to expand the sound field a bit.
* I have downloaded RW IR's and have been going through them, trying to see good combinations.

Perhaps there is some combination of reverb/delay/chorus mono/stereo that may better replicate the environment better?

Overall I am just concerned about 2 primary sounds. A nice sounding clean for rhythm work, and a good solid rock/distort for other songs. I normally use either Marshall amp/cab or fender... but have been leaning towards pretty much just Marshall to simplify my sound and get more consistent tone across all my presets.

I appreciate any feedback people can suggest...

S
 
Hmm... do you use the dedicated Headphones output on the front for your monitoring, or do you use a mixer send?
The headphone jack on the Axe sounds awesome and with high quality headphones, I can say for sure that your experienced sound should be on par if not better than your live sound, which is affected by bad room acoustics, feedback and additional noise through all the routing.

One solution could be to add a second reverb block in parallel in front of an FXL block, so that you got additional reverb in your headphones and then use output 2 for your monitoring.
 
Hello,

Yup, I actually just run from the axefx headphone jack directly into a small person mixer. I either ask for a mono mix of vocals and our leads guitar, or I just drop a SM57 somewhere on the stage and run it into my mixer for hearing the rest of the group.

Currently I have both reverbs in use, so I don't have any additional ones to spare. However, I should be able to try with Delay and perhaps put in another block simulating small room reflections... I'll try that, or see if I can figure out some type of multi-delay block to add a bit more room feel... Again, suggestions are more than welcome.

S

Zwiebelchen said:
Hmm... do you use the dedicated Headphones output on the front for your monitoring, or do you use a mixer send?
The headphone jack on the Axe sounds awesome and with high quality headphones, I can say for sure that your experienced sound should be on par if not better than your live sound, which is affected by bad room acoustics, feedback and additional noise through all the routing.

One solution could be to add a second reverb block in parallel in front of an FXL block, so that you got additional reverb in your headphones and then use output 2 for your monitoring.
Click to expand...
 
Hmm, if both reverbs are already in use, I think you should already have plenty of "room feel" to your headphones. Are you playing in a cathedral? Oo
And are you sure it's not the headphones that are to blame here?
 
Yup, I had thought of that as well and upgraded to molded in-ears, which helped a bit. I actually run Acoustic and electric through the Axe so I have 2 separate chains in use, so currently only one reverb per chain. I'll keep working on it... I guess I keep expecting to hear the axe like I would a recorded song from my ipod... but can't quite get it along those lines...

I'll keep working on it. Thanks for the thoughts...

S
 
Have you tried not using the headphone out and use the main left right outs? the way i run my ears is left right out into a mixer panned hard left and right, and I add some low end and a tad of highs to thicken up my triple drivers as they are pretty flat.. I'm leary of using the headphone out as I dont know whats going on with it, seems to not sound as good IMHO. I have an xlr split wired into my rack panel to go out to FOH.
 
Have you experimented with the room settings of the cab-block? I find that many times increasing room level to 25 - 50 % really brings my patches alive when using headphones.
 
dpeterson said:
Have you tried not using the headphone out and use the main left right outs? the way i run my ears is left right out into a mixer panned hard left and right, and I add some low end and a tad of highs to thicken up my triple drivers as they are pretty flat.. I'm leary of using the headphone out as I dont know whats going on with it, seems to not sound as good IMHO. I have an xlr split wired into my rack panel to go out to FOH.
Click to expand...

I am going to try this. Need to get a mixer. I am not getting good sounds out of the headphone jack. I have audio tech 50 . Some people are getting good sounds, so not sure what is going on.
It's almost like I am getting very high treble , but it can be harsh. I tried EQ , etc, but there is a certain harshness comes thru.
I plan on sending my unit in for a check on the MFC jack I may have messed up, so I will ask fractal to check the headphone jack while it is there.... Just don't want to be without my axe fx, so I keep putting it off,,,
 
The headphone jack is very good, but like everything it has it's sound, maybe a mixer or headphone amp would color more to your liking.

Have you tried 2 cabs and use the delay in the Cab block to add a little delay to one of the cabs? Doesn't take much to get some comb filtering going on or other effects simulating an imperfect room (like the way we hear real amps).
 
I personally don't like the sound from the headphone out.
It is different comparing it to when the Axe and the headphones are plugged into the sound card. Maybe my ears are just used to it, but there is some major difference for me.
 
Proximity and motor drive are the next areas to explore.

I run a second parallel stereo cab with the OH Room 1 and OH Farfield C-1, the FF at -.5 db, and the entire cab 2 at -12db.
 
Jack up the room level in the cabinet block - adds back some reflections you miss if you're using headphones. Mark Day was using 70% room level in his patch at the Axe-Fest and it sounded great in the room as well. It'll add a little distance to the tone, but that can work if you want that. But for headphones it sounds great.
 
Everybody,

Some excellent suggestions, let me work through them and see what I come up with. I have contemplated using 2 cabs, but not in a way to give different reflections... great idea. Also, I have played with the room settings on the cab, but been relying more on reverb...

I tried using the back connections (not headphone) and its pretty much the same sound, I could not detect any difference in sound. Currently, I have the XLR going out to FOH, and usually either the rear 1/4 outs going to my in-ear mixer, or the headphone jack going to mixer.

One of the good things I have found is that you have some wiggle room if you are going stereo in-ears. You can add in effects that to FOH are minimal, but in your head they are significant. I just have not found the right combination yet...

Working on it. Any other suggestions, please pass them along.

S

CodePoet said:
Jack up the room level in the cabinet block - adds back some reflections you miss if you're using headphones. Mark Day was using 70% room level in his patch at the Axe-Fest and it sounded great in the room as well. It'll add a little distance to the tone, but that can work if you want that. But for headphones it sounds great.
Click to expand...
 
IMO getting a good sound through headphones is really simple with the Axe: raise the room level in the cab block to 30-80% and use an enhancer block (set to taste). I also often use a reverb block, usually with small or medium room settings. Make sure your output 1 is set to stereo.

Of course, which headphones you're using is going to be a huge factor. The Axe works best with "studio" headphones with a fairly flat response. Many headphones on the market are going to have hyped lows/highs and a recessed midrange. Not that you couldn't get a good tone with such headphones, but it will be much more difficult and will require more extreme settings.

I actually prefer playing the Axe through headphones over any other medium.
 
Der JD said:
I actually prefer playing the Axe through headphones over any other medium.
Click to expand...

It's funny that you mention that. I'm feeling much the same. My in-ears and my studio monitors are a very close match, but I find that when I crank my patches through my studio monitors I get a nasty upper-mid "bite". I don't get any of that with my in-ears. Now, if I invested in some room treatment I'm sure that bite would be a thing of the past! It's not there when I keep my levels down.

Terry.
 
SLM said:
Hello,

Yup, I actually just run from the axefx headphone jack directly into a small person mixer. I either ask for a mono mix of vocals and our leads guitar, or I just drop a SM57 somewhere on the stage and run it into my mixer for hearing the rest of the group.

Currently I have both reverbs in use, so I don't have any additional ones to spare. However, I should be able to try with Delay and perhaps put in another block simulating small room reflections... I'll try that, or see if I can figure out some type of multi-delay block to add a bit more room feel... Again, suggestions are more than welcome.

S
Click to expand...

I think this is your prob....

you essentially need two sets of tones..
one for studio and one for live..
the studio / practice tones can be too rich for stage volume
and likewise, live tones need to be a little tamer with the gain / eq / ambient fx

let's imagine that your tones all employ a single amp / cab block
and let's assume that you have a ton of spare CPU

I'm wondering if you could create a dual stream of tones
one stream is all nice and rich with a great monitoring vibe
the other is a little calmer and better suited to stage volume / pa / backline delivery

your input feeds both streams but one of them leaves the Axe via the FXL so you can split them
one leaves via out1, the other leaves via out2
one is nice and vibey in the monitoring, the goes to what ever you use to deliver it on stage..
 
I have a Shure wired P4M IEM mixer (4 inputs) and P4HW beltpack. I feed my monitor signal (mono) into one input and my Axe-FX II Output 2 into two other inputs (stereo). The Shure stereo signal out goes to an old DBX IEM in-ear monitor processor that I picked up for about $200 on E-bay. The DBX IEM output goes to my beltpack.

I had been using a good quality, semi-portable A&H mixer before, along with it's headphone output, but I discovered that the Shure beltpack sounds noticeably better. It's clearer, more crisp, and very balanced. My lesson-learned was that headphone amplifier quality may not always be as good as you think.

However. . . . the DBX IEM is my secret weapon! It was a $1500 tool in it's day, and the Lexicon reverbs on it sound great. It also has a compressor / limiter, parametric EQ, stereo simulation and a peak limiter to protect your ears. I use it to create my "room", and to make sure that my IEM's match my studio monitors (I had to add a few dB of boost at 4K). When I play live everything sounds full and lush. The Shure IEM mixer allows me to place my monitor mix a little to the left and my Axe-FX II a little to the right. That bit of separation in the stereo field, along with all that the DBX IEM does, gives me a clear and enjoyable mix.

Terry.
 
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