getting more volume without internal clipping

D

dschaaf

Experienced
Just wondering if there is anything else that I can do to boost output volume without causing internal clipping. The high gain amp seem to have tons of output whereas with some of the cleaner amps I have to really crank to output 1 knob.

I just tried the SV Bass for example, with the 8x10 SV Bass Cab and am having trouble getting a lot of volume out of it. Here is the setup

  • Running 12.04B
  • all global settings as they should be..flat
  • I/O set to tickling reds
  • SV Amp set to defaults, and then raise amp level from -12.0db to -5.0db
  • cab level at zero
  • Utility shows output 1 level at 85% or so
  • 2 active CLR cabs gain staged at 1:00 on the channel 1 and the master volume set up 1:00 as well (should be loud)
  • Output knob 1 one the Axe set to 2:00-3:00 (I normally never go past 11:00ish)
  • no volume block etc...etc in patch....just amp and cab

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
D
 
The 8x10 cab has tons of low frequencies. So it is already "loud", you just can't hear it.

dschaaf said:
Just wondering if there is anything else that I can do to boost output volume without causing internal clipping. The high gain amp seem to have tons of output whereas with some of the cleaner amps I have to really crank to output 1 knob.
Click to expand...
Due to the nature of "high gain" sound, there is a lot of compression already involved, while "cleaner amps" have a far greater dynamic range. You should "flatten" the spikes with a compressor and thus be able to crank the level knob without hitting internal clipping.
 
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That is the key with the cleans, juts turn the compression up some and you should be able to raise the volume up.

But another solution is just turn the high gain sounds down.
 
Cleans have much less compression, IOW more headroom and peak. so, the average loudness of them will be less, than (high) gain stuff.

1) level the high gains to the cleans, not vice versa or
2) compress the cleans to raise the average loudness w/o clipping. (Try the compression knob in the Amp block or CMP Block)

I recommend 1)
 
Chris@KatsuKuriMedia said:
my video here shows my concept on this:

Preset Gain-Staging and Preventing Internal Clipping – Axe-FX II : Katsu Kuri Media Blog

as mentioned above, anything with boosted low frequencies may not "sound" loud in the room, especially if the speakers used don't produce the low frequencies, but a boost is a boost regardless of what frequency it is and can cause clipping.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys, and thanks Chris. Yes, I did follow your video.... which was excellent btw.

My issue is not so much balancing volume levels between high gain and clean presents, it is simply being able to get enough volume out of a lower gain present. I will try the compression method.
Probably 90% of my presents are low to medium gain with the AC30.

Thanks,
D
 
It's the exact same concept though. Low gain, high gain. Whatever. You need to leave headroom for boosts and hard playing, especially for lower gain more dynamic tones.

Compression will make your quiet sounds louder. If that's what you mean by volume, then you really want to reduce the dynamic range of the preset. It will also tame the loud bursts if you play hard. But it can still clip after all that work.
 
Isn’t the way to think of this in reality the exact opposite? It’s very easy to get more volume by increasing amplification (on the CLR as jeppekristoffer pointed out). The problem is only then the relative volume. Since there’s no benefit of running the AF2 close to it’s maximum level, you can just leave enough headroom in the AF2 so that regardless how you boost it, you will never reach any clipping. And if your clean preset is the softest, adjust all the other presets so that the relative volume is what you want it to be relative to the clean preset. If that means that you’re running your crunch volume at -50db, who cares. You’ll just turn up the volume in the power amp/monitor anyway.
 
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