Guitar buzz words…

GuyJames

GuyJames

Inspired
What do the terms ‘chime’ or ‘sparkle’ mean to you in regards to tonal characteristics?

To me, it means string to string clarity and definition with guitar wide open and volume rolled down and balanced across the lows and highs. Lastly a little bit of that pick attack in there but not like a metal pick or floppy pick tone.

I’m trying to get a little more “chime” out of my presets across the board. Today I discovered that the treble knob isn’t as aggressive as Ive found real amps are which is nice. I was running treble on the dirty Shirley at like 8 and the clarity was nice but it’s still lacking some “presence” perhaps.

Well I turn the presence up to about 2-3 but I’ve never liked or really noticed or understood what presence did on real amps so but I noticed a slightly harsher high end.

what are some other approaches to get more “sparkle” or “chime” to a tone.
 
Cliff, 2008 HRI: "IMHO, the essence of 'chime' is plenty of high-frequency boost and a decent amount of nonlinearity. Now, by nonlinearity I don't mean clipping but a transfer function that deviates significantly from a straight line. Power amps with no negative feedback are inherently less linear and that's why they sound chimier. The nonlinearity adds overtones which makes the notes sound more bell-like. The other effect of no negative feedback is increased treble as the impedance curve of the speaker imparts a treble boost due to the coil inductance."
 
There is no lexicon defining the meaning of the words used to describe the sounds of guitars; We resort to onomatopoeias and they fail because everyone has their idea of what a guitar’s sound sounds like and we have no agreed-upon vocabulary.

A good exercise that might help would be to search the forums and Wiki for instances where Cliff (@FractalAudio) used a term to describe a particular setting of a parameter in an amp or effect block. For instance:
"If you are right on the edge of breakup the triode hardness is very powerful as it controls the harmonic series. Higher values will cause the overtone series to have a less steep decay and will increase perceived "sparkle". Together with the preamp bias you can control how chimey and "round" the tone is (preamp bias effectively controls the ratio of even/odd harmonics)." [184]
Click to expand...

But that also could fall short because many of the sounds rely on the guitar’s pickups’ type and how the amp or overdrive reacts to their volume. And speaker choices can make the amp react differently which causes the guitar’s sound to change.
 
Last edited:
GuitaristGuyJames said:
Today I discovered that the treble knob isn’t as aggressive as Ive found real amps are which is nice.
Click to expand...
Fractal strives for accuracy over all else, so this may be a case of:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/why-your-amp-doesnt-sound-like-our-amp.172907/

GuitaristGuyJames said:
Well I turn the presence up to about 2-3 but I’ve never liked or really noticed or understood what presence did on real amps so but I noticed a slightly harsher high end.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that presence is a Treble control for the power amp.

I have no experience using a real amp that had Presence so dialing it in on models has always been confusing for me.

Also, that particular control does not always have an authentic taper (by Cliff's intent) on some models, so any "matching" of settings to real amps will need to be done by ear for that.
 
unix-guy said:
I have no experience using a real amp that had Presence so dialing it in on models has always been confusing for me.

Also, that particular control does not always have an authentic taper (by Cliff's intent) on some models, so any "matching" of settings to real amps will need to be done by ear for that.
Click to expand...
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/what-does-the-presence-knob-on-a-guitar-amplifier-do/ is a good general description. I’ve seen descriptions of the circuitry too if you want to look for those.
 
To me it's all about edge-of-breakup, which is to say, some distortion, but still some dynamics. Not very compressed. Tim Pierce talks about this a fair bit.

The right balance between compression and punch.
 
Brewce said:
Cliff, 2008 HRI: "IMHO, the essence of 'chime' is plenty of high-frequency boost and a decent amount of nonlinearity. Now, by nonlinearity I don't mean clipping but a transfer function that deviates significantly from a straight line. Power amps with no negative feedback are inherently less linear and that's why they sound chimier. The nonlinearity adds overtones which makes the notes sound more bell-like. The other effect of no negative feedback is increased treble as the impedance curve of the speaker imparts a treble boost due to the coil inductance."
Click to expand...
This is all Greek to me 😂 any direct tips to get closer to those “bell like” harmonics
 
elvis said:
To me it's all about edge-of-breakup, which is to say, some distortion, but still some dynamics. Not very compressed. Tim Pierce talks about this a fair bit.

The right balance between compression and punch.
Click to expand...
Absolutely! I run the studio comp at stock settings basically but at 50-60% mix. It’s just beefs things up a bit but I don’t notice a pick dynamic squash or coloration at all
 
GuitaristGuyJames said:
This is all Greek to me 😂 any direct tips to get closer to those “bell like” harmonics
Click to expand...
Don't ask me — I just play or read ;) But yeah, some of the things named there are also parameters in the amp block, so tweaking them might help (after you know or have decided what chime is... ;) )

Here's another opinion from a valued member in the past that may be more practical and part of the whole thing...

Radley: "FWIW, I tend to think of a 'chimey' high end as having an emphasis bump around a particular frequency (5k, 6.8k, 8k, etc.), whereas a typical 'treble' response tends to be boosted equally from 2k to 20k."
 
Brewce said:
Don't ask me — I just play or read ;) But yeah, some of the things named there are also parameters in the amp block, so tweaking them might help (after you know or have decided what chime is... ;) )

Here's another opinion from a valued member in the past that may be more practical and part of the whole thing...

Radley: "FWIW, I tend to think of a 'chimey' high end as having an emphasis bump around a particular frequency (5k, 6.8k, 8k, etc.), whereas a typical 'treble' response tends to be boosted equally from 2k to 20k."
Click to expand...
Thank you for this
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom