High and Low cut: My Latest Experiment

hbucker

Inspired
Forgive me if this falls into the "well, duh!" category for most of you. But I recently did a little experiment and it seems to have helped my dial in the sound of my patches a little better.

I was playing factory patches through my full range PA monitor, also with a line out to a power amp and my 212 cab (loaded with WGS Retro 30 and Reaper HP). While I didn't mind the sound coming from my monitor, I found myself much preferring the sound I was getting from my actual guitar cab. This was disappointing to me.

After back and forth and back and forth, I realized that the monitor was giving me a much more hi-fi version of the tone than my cab was giving me, which makes sense. A guitar cab has a very narrow response, by comparison.

From what I can tell, it seems pretty typical for the cab block High and Low cuts to be set around 80 on low, and around 8,000-10,000 on the top end. I know, there are no rules, but that seems to be what I've seen and heard. So I've been defaulting, initially to the 80-8000 setting until further adjustments needed to be made.

With my "hi-fi" observation, I decided to clamp down on the frequencies being cut on my cab block. Changing that default setting to more like 150-6000. This is not a rule, just a starting point. The sound coming from my monitor matches my actual cab more accurately. It sounds less like, "Wow!" but it sounds more (to my ears) like I'm listening to a real guitar cab. And it is less fatiguing to listen to over an extended period of time.

As I go through different presets, both factory and personal, these settings seem to need adjusting from as low as 100 on low and as high as 8500 on high, depending on the model. Low never going above 150 so far, and high generally gravitating more toward 6000 than 8000.

The only reason I'm posting this is that this range seems to be substantially narrower than what I generally see talked about on this forum, or see in other people's presets.

No rules. Set them where it sounds good to you. But removing that "hi-fi" quality in the tone through my monitor is important to me (and something I've usually disliked about some modeling sounds I've heard through the years.). I feel like it sounds more real now.

Your results may vary. And over the long haul, I may change my approach. This is what I'm playing around with right now though.

FWIW
 
I'll typically do the cut's in the Cab Block and my starting points are around 80 on the lows and 10-12k on the highs,.. then tweak to taste from there.
 
It does make a substantial difference, that's for sure: and it depends on the amp, cab, desired tone, the guitar, genre and the enthusiasm of the bass or keyboard player. A well chosen low cut will generally open up the mids some. The AX8 defaults to a 6db/octave roll off: which is generally optimal: keeps the high end from getting woolly, and the bass in line. But a -12db cut on the low end is sometimes the ticket (at 60hz on a Baritone in C tuning, for example). In a busy live mix with a Jaco style bassist, a normal tuned guitar rolled off below 400hz was just right: so let thy ears be thy guide.

Don't forget there's the also the cut parameter in the amp block which is sometimes a better way to control the low end than at the cabinet. There's also the possibility of going for the Pultec EQ vibe of setting a low cut and having a boost at the cut frequency.

A typical amped guitar raw wave form shows a lot of signal level in the 90 - 110hz range, and knocking it down a few more db by setting the cab low cut around 135hz-150hz can be just right - especially at high volume. Sound guy might do it anyway if you don't. Its no accident that the SM57 became the default mic for guitar cabinets - it rolls off the low end below 200hz at about 5db per octave, and the proximity effect from close micing gives back some of the attenuation above 100hz. So, that's sort of what we're used to hearing and preferring.

As far as the high end: As low as 4500hz for some dirgey distortions, around 9.6khz for clean sparkly airy-fairy ambience in a live context. (For lower levels - studio or home - 12k-16k is my preference for cleans) Nice that this sort of thing can be saved on a patch by patch basis.
 
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Forgive me if this falls into the "well, duh!" category for most of you. But I recently did a little experiment and it seems to have helped my dial in the sound of my patches a little better.

I was playing factory patches through my full range PA monitor, also with a line out to a power amp and my 212 cab (loaded with WGS Retro 30 and Reaper HP). While I didn't mind the sound coming from my monitor, I found myself much preferring the sound I was getting from my actual guitar cab. This was disappointing to me.

After back and forth and back and forth, I realized that the monitor was giving me a much more hi-fi version of the tone than my cab was giving me, which makes sense. A guitar cab has a very narrow response, by comparison.

From what I can tell, it seems pretty typical for the cab block High and Low cuts to be set around 80 on low, and around 8,000-10,000 on the top end. I know, there are no rules, but that seems to be what I've seen and heard. So I've been defaulting, initially to the 80-8000 setting until further adjustments needed to be made.

With my "hi-fi" observation, I decided to clamp down on the frequencies being cut on my cab block. Changing that default setting to more like 150-6000. This is not a rule, just a starting point. The sound coming from my monitor matches my actual cab more accurately. It sounds less like, "Wow!" but it sounds more (to my ears) like I'm listening to a real guitar cab. And it is less fatiguing to listen to over an extended period of time.

As I go through different presets, both factory and personal, these settings seem to need adjusting from as low as 100 on low and as high as 8500 on high, depending on the model. Low never going above 150 so far, and high generally gravitating more toward 6000 than 8000.

The only reason I'm posting this is that this range seems to be substantially narrower than what I generally see talked about on this forum, or see in other people's presets.

No rules. Set them where it sounds good to you. But removing that "hi-fi" quality in the tone through my monitor is important to me (and something I've usually disliked about some modeling sounds I've heard through the years.). I feel like it sounds more real now.

Your results may vary. And over the long haul, I may change my approach. This is what I'm playing around with right now though.

FWIW
What you don't mention is whether you have the 12dB or 6dB setting, which makes a big difference.
 
What you don't mention is whether you have the 12dB or 6dB setting, which makes a big difference.

With any patch I set it however I think it sounds the best. It really does vary from patch to patch. So do my low and high cuts. The settings in my o.p. have simply become my latest starting point.
 
I cut lows at about 110hz and highs at 4600 @ 12db
I also use the tone controls on PRS and LP's near 5 on bridge pickups.
 
A long time user of the cab block high and low cut feature! I rarely venture below 80 or above 120Hz on the low cut and 5600 to 8K High depending on the IR.
 
I cut in the cab block
- lows usually around 120
- highs usually around 7k

I'll usually then play around with the proximity effect to add back in some of the low mids
 
I sometimes like a PEQ better, though I'm not doing FRFR anymore. The PEQ can do more than just shelf or block, so you can get a more realistic speaker emulation. If you can find a response graph of the speaker you are emulating, it's even easier.
 
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