Good high gain through headphones

[milkman33995]

I just got an FM9 and have been struggling to get a good sounding high gain tone through my headphones. I will have to use headphones as I live in an apartment so I got a professional mod unit specifically for that reason. I am trying to start with a simple setup (drive -> gate -> amp -> cab -> enhance -> reverb) and have followed multiple Axe Fx tutorials and read forums on how to tweak setups for headphone usage. While they did help, it still isn't sounding great to me. I've been playing around with so many settings trying stuff but on most things I cannot really tell any difference at all besides amp/cab and eq adjustments. I'm sure this is user error, but damn this thing is not easy to use.

I can share my current preset I am testing with but am not sure of the best way to do that here.
Does anyone here have a good high gain preset specifically on headphones? Or know more

Btw my pickup is a SD JB and headphones are AKG K240 which I aren't amazing but should be good enough as open back.

 

[mr_fender]

Reverb helps a lot. Dial in a healthy dose of room, small chamber, or ambience to replace the room interaction that's lacking with headphones. It
pushes the tone back in the soundscape a bit so it doesn't sound like it's coming from the tip of your nose.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

I just got an FM9 and have been struggling to get a good sounding high gain tone through my headphones.

Headphones are not going to sound the same as using a FRFR or guitar cab because you're not getting the acoustic coupling between the speaker and guitar. The air moving from the speaker and hitting the guitar's strings, which vibrate and excite the pickup, which then sends additional signal back to the amp, increasing the gain and making the guitar sound fatter. See "The "Modelers Don't Clean Up with the Volume Knob" Myth" for more information.

The Amp block's Amp > Dynamics > Compressor Type > Gain Enhancer setting helps. Cliff said this 'bout that…

The gain enhancer is an algorithm that attempts to recreate the effect of playing in front of an amp. What I did was measure the spectrum of a guitar and then compared that to the spectrum when played in front of an amp. The physical feedback into the guitar is marked. I don't remember the exact numbers but it was at least several dB in the midrange.

So what happens when you play in front of an amp is that the sound waves hit the guitar and reinforce the tone. It's a positive feedback loop which effectively increases (enhances) the gain in the midrange.

When playing through monitors at low volumes or headphones you lose all that so the gain enhancer can be used to simulate the feedback loop.

Additionally, with headphones, people tend to turn the gain up too high, which sounds terrible when they're actually on stage. I think that's mentioned in the tech note above.

Experience with building presets with headphones is important when using the preset for recording or on stage. We keep a quiet house and I use Ollo S5X headphones when I'm EQing presets and/or setting up the Cab block's sounds. They're very flat and the preset translates well when I connect to the EV PXM-12MP monitors I use.

Lots of people use desktop studio monitors for creating presets. The closer your head (and guitar) is to the speakers, the louder they are, which helps reduce the overall volume in the room.

Remember also, our brain reacts to lows and highs differently at low volume than it does at ~90 dB so turn up to a stage volume when setting gain, lows and highs. That's true whether you're using headphones or speakers.

PS - The factory presets have been EQd at stage volume. Listen to those with your headphones on at stage volume and pay attention to the lows and highs, and try to match that sort of sound, because the presets are designed to sound good right out of the box.

 

[Rex]

The K240s are pretty much entry-level headphones. There are limits to how good they'll sound.

 

[JoKeR III]

I found that using the 'Room/Air' page in the Cab block yields more satisfying results than a Reverb block. Play around with the size and reflections to get the spacious sound you're looking for. Leon Todd delves into it on the FM3, video should start at the Room/Air part.

 

[HarrySound]

Try my Ultimate 5153 preset on axechange
….though I used a similar ish ir the factory one had to do.
It definitely depends on the IR , the hi cut on the cab block normally around 6500hz for me which seems low but really get rid of the fizz and you can then pump the highs and the presence in the amp.
Also some kind of stereo helps. I use open back Sennheiser 560s headphones.
I also use a Seymour Duncan JB on my main guitar. I normally use the Ownhammer OH5 Mesa v30 from the Heavy Hitters pack.

 

[Marioverkill]

For headphones, I add some room sound . In the cab block, go to Room/air page. I use room size 10m, room shape set to room, floor reflection 50,room diffusion 50. Set room level between 30-50.