Gritty Sounding Clean Tones

CrazyBadGuitarist

CrazyBadGuitarist

Inspired
Hey guys, maybe some of you have had this problem and have learned to resolve it.

I've been finding new tones and creating my own and it's been working great. However, I'm yet to find a clean tone that is purely clean. Every clean tone I find, preset or not, has a gritty sound to it. Almost like something is clipping somewhere, but I can't find where. It's coming out of all 4 of the speakers in my cab, so it's not that a speaker is blown a little bit or anything. When I hook up my Orange Rockerverb 50 head to it, it has great clean tone, no grittiness to it.

Anybody else had this problem and learned how to resolve it?

Thanks

Dan
 
I don't think there are enough clean tones on it either mate, sick of every demo showing drop tune hairdryer sound which doesn't demonstrate anything but thats all cool. Preset 80's Clean and few others are proper clean no grit. If you have grit in that preset go to amp edit and check. But for preset it is as it says on the tin. Failing that try creating a new patch start with Fender amp, default should be clean too. Good luck mate
 
CrazyBadGuitarist said:
Hey guys, maybe some of you have had this problem and have learned to resolve it.

I've been finding new tones and creating my own and it's been working great. However, I'm yet to find a clean tone that is purely clean. Every clean tone I find, preset or not, has a gritty sound to it. Almost like something is clipping somewhere, but I can't find where. It's coming out of all 4 of the speakers in my cab, so it's not that a speaker is blown a little bit or anything. When I hook up my Orange Rockerverb 50 head to it, it has great clean tone, no grittiness to it.

Anybody else had this problem and learned how to resolve it?

Thanks

Dan
Click to expand...

Have you set the input level correctly?

on the front panel, press the I/O press the arrow right to select input 1 if you are using 1
turn your guitar all the way up and strum the hardest you will actually strum and adjust the level until the LED's are "tickling" red.

I Have to set it for each guitar as even 2 same guitar builds with the same pickups, one needs to be at 30% while the other is at 50%. I was told that you can set it for your highest one and not worry, which is 30%, but my Fender needs to be @ 100% and if I leave it at 30% it's got no life or sustain. I have currently 13 guitars and they all have different settings.

Hope that's it :), otherwise I'm sure some of the other busy bees will be along to help.
 
Turn the drive/gain down. Even to 1.00. Turn up the Output Level to compensate.

You can always upload a preset for others to try and troubleshoot for you.
 
^ what he said, after that got to global and make sure gain is at 0db. If thats good just experiment, theres a lot of good very clean amps such as the double verb, tx star, and mr z. Keep the drive and mids low and use the level to make it louder
 
CrazyBadGuitarist said:
Hey guys, maybe some of you have had this problem and have learned to resolve it.

I've been finding new tones and creating my own and it's been working great. However, I'm yet to find a clean tone that is purely clean. Every clean tone I find, preset or not, has a gritty sound to it. Almost like something is clipping somewhere, but I can't find where. It's coming out of all 4 of the speakers in my cab, so it's not that a speaker is blown a little bit or anything. When I hook up my Orange Rockerverb 50 head to it, it has great clean tone, no grittiness to it.

Anybody else had this problem and learned how to resolve it?

Thanks

Dan
Click to expand...

What type of clean tone are you after? What type of guitar and pickups are you playing? I think you may have the problem that I had where the output is clipping all the time. If you play max volume on the clean presets, most likely it will clip and causing the gritty sound. I never play more than half guitar knob volume on the clean preset and still have this issue. I had to edit all of the presets to match the clean preset volume and the gain sounds and avoiding output clipping.

One other thing to pay attention to is that most of the clean amps on the axe are meant to play with volume knob control on your guitar. You roll back the volume to get the crystal clean tone and crank the knob to get into the tube breakup territory. If you want to play at max volume all the time, try the preset call Mr Benson. I think that is the chorus jazz 120 from Roland, and it's a solid state.

Most of my tone are clean tone, so I do have to choose the right type of guitar, pickups, strings, set up,amp, cab....etc. in all fairness, don't expext too much in getting a great clean tone from a shred metal guitar with active high output pickups ....lol.
 
What kind of strings are you using? I tried Ernie Ball Cobalts last year and they made everything sound gritty. Upon going back to regular slinky's the problem was solved.
 
My suggestion would be turning down the Master Volume control. 5 might be a good starting point. Adjust Level accordingly.
 
Guitar strings are very subjective, so many type are made for a reason. For my Gibson R9 guitars, I could not find anything that would suit my need other than the Gibson Vintage Strings. They are over priced IMO and are junk. But, it goes with this particular guitar and the tone that I want. I had tried many expensive strings ($20+/set (Thomastic) and did not like it on the Gibson. Not to say that the Thomastic is bad in anyway, they are excellent, just not my taste). I have not like any of the Ernie ball for any of my guitars including the Music Man Super sport that I have... kinda weird isn't it.... Same thing goes for my PRS. I could not get a well balance set up using any other type of strings other than the Elixir strings. It's a little bright, so you'll have to use the tone knob very often... And yes, I had tried almost every brand and string type. So, it will all come down to your taste and what you like. It has to be the whole combination of your instrument including the guitar cable and the pick you're using.
 
your first check point is how hot the input level is to the Axe itself..
as in, how aggressively are you 'tickling the reds'?
so check the I/O instr in level

if that's good.. set the input-trim lower in the amp block and all will be good
 
Just mostly reiterating what's been said. Input trim WAY low and gain WAY low, lower than you'd typically put them on a Fender amp does the trick. You can get amazing cleans. If it's sounding gritty, start turning input levels down until the grit goes away and compensate with the master out. You can still blow the output levels out with output gain even when an amp is squeaky clean. USA Clean is a great clean. I think it's based on the Mesa Studio Pre (or whatever full amp model was the equivalent). Super tight and rounded clean sound, as on actual preamp which has one of the great cleans anywhere. More full than Fender clean which is typically what I've used.
 
The axe fx is full of great clean tones - sounds like some of your parameters are not adjusted right. My faves are shiva, usa clean, custom audio, jazz120, dr z, and tons of fender amps.
 
I run my input at 20%. Don't hit reds, but i don care. It sounds good..

Clean? Drive down. MV down. Input trim down. Check your global amp drive too....
 
Most of the amp models in the Axe can be made crystal clean if the gain is set low enough.
 
I've struggled with getting a clip free Clean since I bought the AxeFx2, the tips in this thread helped in a big way Thanks!
Keep Amp drive down and I tried Shiva Clean, made a few tweaks and done. :mrgreen
 
Kriig said:
I run my input at 20%. Don't hit reds, but i don care. It sounds good..

Clean? Drive down. MV down. Input trim down. Check your global amp drive too....
Click to expand...

I'm still a newb on this thing, but I'm pretty sure the input trim on the I/O shouldn't have anything to do with it. If I understand right, turning it down would actually increase your signal to noise ratio, though probably not noticeably. If it were too high, you could get input clipping, but not the "grit" that the OP is concerned with. I could be totally wrong about this, so feel free to correct me if I'm totally misunderstanding it. I've only had mine for a couple months.
 
I can get crystal cleans with 59 Bassguy, Shiver Clean and TX Star Clean though my PRS with \Metal/ pickups which are really high output.

I lower the input trim and gain on the amp as needed.
 
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