Help with Tone Bender model

InsideOut

InsideOut

Power User
I installed 8.02 and everything seems to be okay, but the new Tone Bender model is not working. No matter what I do with level/drive etc settings, it sounds completely choked and very bad digital distortion (not clipping however - no red light). I tried it on a bunch of different clean patches. Is it possible that something got borked when loading the firmware? I updated patches too (even though Cliff said he made 8.02 backwards compatible). Help please :cool:
 
InsideOut said:
I installed 8.02 and everything seems to be okay, but the new Tone Bender model is not working. No matter what I do with level/drive etc settings, it sounds completely choked and very bad digital distortion (not clipping however - no red light). I tried it on a bunch of different clean patches. Is it possible that something got borked when loading the firmware? I updated patches too (even though Cliff said he made 8.02 backwards compatible). Help please :cool:
Click to expand...

No, it is not possible that something got messed up when loading the firmware. It does a checksum first. It sounds like something else is going on. I haven't tried the tonebender w/ 8.02, but it worked great in a 8.01. I'll look later this evening. I would look at the advanced parameters and see if any of those look unusual.
 
I sound like a broken record, but thanks Sean :cool:

BTW, none of the advanced params look funky, and twisting them all over the place doesn't seem to help.
 
To my ears ( and with my guitar anyway) that fuzz doesn't sound good unless you have the drive ALL the way up and the level pretty high too. It sounds thin and kind of weird in highs if the drive is anything less than all the way up. It seems to smooth out a lot once you do crank it up.
 
Have you checked the bias? It can sound broken if the bias is set too far to the right.

Maybe you have a bad digital tube...

DZ
 
Thanks for the reply's fellas :cool:

Genghis, yes, it does sound it's best with drive all the way up and level fairly high.

Dweezil, thanks for taking the time to help me out. Each time I've tried it, I started at the default settings, but lowering the bias does seem to help it out.

This is a really weird thing I'm experiencing. It happened to me before too. If I start a patch from scratch (all shunts) and just add drive, amp and cab, it's REALLY bad. Even without gate on at all, it just sounds choked. It's definitely better when I just add it to an existing clean preset, but still sounds really thin even with drive all the way up. Maybe it's supposed to sound this way, but the other fuzz models are just IN YOUR FACE with the drive all the way up. I'll try to make a recording of it for you guys.
 
The Tonebender has a lot of treble boost. If you're using it with a modern, heavy-sounding amp it will sound like cr*p. It works best with vintage, dark amps like the Class-A. It was originally designed to complement the British amps of that era which were very dark.

Put it in front of the Class A model and it sounds killer.
 
Thanks guys and thank you Cliff for your ear :cool: . I've tried it in front of clean brownface, class A, and plexi 1 with same results on all. I just made a quick recording on the link below. The first part is with all default settings. I'm not strumming hard at all, but getting an initial "bad" distortion that quickly disapates. The second part is with drive all the way up. The bad distortion goes away, but if you listen closely when it goes to single high notes, the high end comes in and out like it's getting choked. I'm not picking any differently, yet the highs come and go.

Please listen to the clip below (hopefully with headphones) if you would be so kind. The clip is called fuzz choke. Thanks a bunch guys!!



http://www.soundclick.com/insideoutUS
 
Yup, sounds like a Tonebender. What were you expecting?

That "chuff" at the beginning of the note is the edge of your pick. I'm guessing you hold your pick at an angle to the strings.
 
FractalAudio said:
Yup, sounds like a Tonebender. What were you expecting?

That "chuff" at the beginning of the note is the edge of your pick. I'm guessing you hold your pick at an angle to the strings.
Click to expand...

Thanks Cliff. Yes, I do hold my pick at an angle :lol: . I'm curious that no one is hearing the highs coming and going though. I can hear it clear as day and it's much more pronounced at volume through my rig. I'm not trying to cause trouble - just would like to know what might be causing it so I can get rid of it. Thanks :cool:
 
Hey Inside out,
I listened to your clip. Are you running your Fractal direct?

From your descriptions I expected to hear some horrendous sounds. I actually didn't hear the choked sounds or extra crispy hi end stuff you were complaining about. I heard some occasional clipping on the mp3, I attributed that to output clipping from a mixer. It didn't sound like artifacts from your playing.

The Tone Bender is not meant to be a super smooth distortion. It will have some character. The choked sound you described just sounds like distortion overtones that you would hear on an old pedal especially with a low battery. I personally think that is a good thing. The pedal will sound a little smoother on an amp with a bit of gain added as opposed to a stock clean sound.

Have you tried it with a Plexi set with medium gain. The Plexi shouldn't be set set too bright, nor should the tone bender.

I thought your playing sounded good and that tone actually had some "old school" analog character to it.

DZ
 
dweezil zappa said:
Hey Inside out,
I listened to your clip. Are you running your Fractal direct?

From your descriptions I expected to hear some horrendous sounds. I actually didn't hear the choked sounds or extra crispy hi end stuff you were complaining about. I heard some occasional clipping on the mp3, I attributed that to output clipping from a mixer. It didn't sound like artifacts from your playing.

The Tone Bender is not meant to be a super smooth distortion. It will have some character. The choked sound you described just sounds like distortion overtones that you would hear on an old pedal especially with a low battery. I personally think that is a good thing. The pedal will sound a little smoother on an amp with a bit of gain added as opposed to a stock clean sound.

Have you tried it with a Plexi set with medium gain. The Plexi shouldn't be set set too bright, nor should the tone bender.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for the response Dweezil :cool: . Yes it was direct. I think the clipping you heard was my crappy file converter. I was not near clipping in Sonar, nor did the clipping light come on the Axefx. I will absolutely try the suggestions you gave - much appreciated.
dweezil zappa said:
I thought your playing sounded good and that tone actually had some "old school" analog character to it.

DZ
Click to expand...

I'm going to go ahead and print and frame that :lol: Thanks!
 
Glad you started this thread. I've been playing around with it some more myself now. My first patch used Plexi 2 with the amp set not quite clean with a little bit of warm breakup. I don't like it so much into a totally clean amp, but it sounds great with the right amp and just a touch of amp gain... mostly power amp distortion.

I started a second patch with the Class A from Cliff's suggestion and he's right! (Of course!) It really sounds nice with that amp. Just getting started, but I've got the tone controls right in the middle, drive around the middle and the master volume cranked to just past 9, so it gets a little breakup on it's own and I'm really digging the tone when I kick in the Bender. So glad Cliff added this one to the collection!
 
I was trying the tonebender with the JTM and the highs were too much. I used the high cut down to about 1.5k and it sounded pretty cool. Drive was about 75%.
 
InsideOut said:
FractalAudio said:
Yup, sounds like a Tonebender. What were you expecting?

That "chuff" at the beginning of the note is the edge of your pick. I'm guessing you hold your pick at an angle to the strings.
Click to expand...

Thanks Cliff. Yes, I do hold my pick at an angle :lol: . I'm curious that no one is hearing the highs coming and going though. I can hear it clear as day and it's much more pronounced at volume through my rig. I'm not trying to cause trouble - just would like to know what might be causing it so I can get rid of it. Thanks :cool:
Click to expand...


Also, remember you have three bands of EQ to play with. If you don't like the highs coming through, dial out some highs maybe add a touch bass. If the offending frequency is in the mids turn up the mids all the way in the drive block, sweep the freq until you find the offending freq, then dial that back. The tone shaping capabilities of the drive block are pretty deep now,
 
Thanks Sean! Yes indeed, I'm very excited about the tone shaping abilities of the new drive block. It's something I quietly wished for all along so I guess Cliff is telepathic :cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom