High Gain Live Sound

Julien Meirone

Julien Meirone

Inspired
Hello,

i recently read on ask.fm that most bands using high gain patches are cuting the bass and treble to 120hz between 6kHz or 5Khz on the cab block. What do you think of that ? It seems a little extreme to me.


Misha mansoor about the cuts in live "I believe we are passing low at 5500 or so and high passing around 120. 5500k sounds low, goal When You are hearing it at 100dB or more, it sounds plenty bright. Gotta take it easy with high frequencies at volume, not only are destructive to our ears They, goal There Is not much musical information as you go higher and higher, and you lose the "hi-fi" quality as it literally turns Into ear piercing quality. "


Aaron Marshall of intervals said almost the same thing.

Thanks for your answers guys.
 
Yes, I agree to a certain extent. Just as with gain.....higher levels ...lower the gain, cut highs. Also, simply boosting mids on your high gain patches in general for live is a big plus as well.
 
Oh thanks, it's a nice tips.:)

By the way, when you are two guitar players in a band, do you think it's best to use the same IR for more coherence or a different one ?
 
cutting at 6k doesnt mean there istn anything above the frequency ;) personally i dont cut anything .. if the FOH thinks there is too much low end in the sound he can easily cut it by himself
 
Yesterday I had a gig. Had my two CLRs in front of me.
I told the soundguy about the high cut (low pass) in my presets, he asked me to remove it (I moved it to 8 kHz).
During the gig I found my tone to be less focussed. Loud enough but it didn't cut like it should. The bass player also mentioned it.
So I adjusted the high cut (Cab block), changing it to 5.5 kHz, and yup, everything was great again.

Lots of ways to do this. As explained in another thread, the new preamp sim's tone controls (Cab block) can also be used.
 
yek said:
Yesterday I had a gig. Had my two CLRs in front of me.
I told the soundguy about the high cut (low pass) in my presets, he asked me to remove it (I moved it to 8 kHz).
During the gig I found my tone to be less focussed. Loud enough but it didn't cut like it should. The bass player also mentioned it.
So I adjusted the high cut (Cab block), changing it to 5.5 kHz, and yup, everything was great again.

Lots of ways to do this. As explained in another thread, the new preamp sim's tone controls (Cab block) can also be used.
Click to expand...

I will give such low high cut values a try tonight again. I also find the tone sweeter when I cut around those frequencies. Do you also recommend this for recordings?
Also, do you use low cut? if yes, how many Hz? :)
 
yek said:
Yesterday I had a gig. Had my two CLRs in front of me.
I told the soundguy about the high cut (low pass) in my presets, he asked me to remove it (I moved it to 8 kHz).
During the gig I found my tone to be less focussed. Loud enough but it didn't cut like it should. The bass player also mentioned it.
So I adjusted the high cut (Cab block), changing it to 5.5 kHz, and yup, everything was great again.

Lots of ways to do this. As explained in another thread, the new preamp sim's tone controls (Cab block) can also be used.
Click to expand...

Yek, do you find this also reduces the Fletcher Munson problem as well?
 
If you think about this logically, most speakers in guitar rigs don't cover these frequencies very well. Take a vintage 30 as an example, they respond from about 70 hz through 5.5k. They have response higher than that, but it is significantly less as you go up. If you were micing a cab, the mic may have a higher range, but there wouldn't be a ton of information (sound) up passed that 5.5 k mark. With CLR's or rigs with tweeters you can certainly get higher, but I'm not sure that is desirable, or at least I don't find it desirable. The low pass itself, as mentioned above, isn't a brick wall, but more of a hard taper, so some of the information still makes its way through. For example if you have a low pass at 6k, you will still get information at 12k (one octave higher), just significantly less.

This also means that if the sound guy cuts the high frequency on your channel (which is typically shelved at 12k) information will be lost at 6k as well, the sweep tends to be pretty large there. For that reason I like to take care of my tones at the Axe, so I don't have an overzealous sound guy hacking all the definition out of my guitar because it has some nuances at 10k or 6k that he doesn't like. The way I do this is with a global eq that basically works out to 150k high pass and 6k low pass. I will occasionally remove additionally in the 2-3k room depending on how the tones come out in the room.

In the end, just because your guitar sounds good by itself doesn't make you a good citizen in the mix, so I focus on leaving room for the other instruments. Unless you are Steve Vai, the vocals are probably more important in the mix, and all the other instruments equally important, so you don't want to take over all of their space.
 
yek said:
Yesterday I had a gig. Had my two CLRs in front of me.
I told the soundguy about the high cut (low pass) in my presets, he asked me to remove it (I moved it to 8 kHz).
During the gig I found my tone to be less focussed. Loud enough but it didn't cut like it should. The bass player also mentioned it.
So I adjusted the high cut (Cab block), changing it to 5.5 kHz, and yup, everything was great again.

Lots of ways to do this. As explained in another thread, the new preamp sim's tone controls (Cab block) can also be used.
Click to expand...

I really like the PEQ Shelving 2 type for a low pass. It has a bump around the knee point that just sounds like an old analog desk EQ to my ears.

In this preset, I wanted the JCM 800 to have all the distortion and high harmonics so I put the PEQ after the AMP block.

I've got a real low knee here, 2K, but this preset really cuts and gets a great vocal sound without being harsh.

I monitor like a half stack at some shows, fairly loud and beefy, so the harshness can really be a drag.



brit800modpeq_zpscc7aa54c.jpg


brit800modamp_zpscdaf720e.jpg


brit800modcab_zps5f9b6c58.jpg
 
Nice progressive high cut :). Exact, it's not because the isolated guitar sound is good that the mix will be great, at gig volume you have to make more compromises than in studio situation where you let much more high end in the guitar tone to have a rich top end in the mix. Also, in studio, most engineers tell that you must mixe between 80db and 90 db in your room to have the best possible listen.

Sorry if i make some mistakes in my sentences, i am french.
 
ertan said:
I will give such low high cut values a try tonight again. I also find the tone sweeter when I cut around those frequencies. Do you also recommend this for recordings?
Also, do you use low cut? if yes, how many Hz? :)
Click to expand...


Yes, I usually set it at 120, 150 or 199 Hz. Depends on the room.
 
Julien Meirone said:
Hello,

i recently read on ask.fm that most bands using high gain patches are cuting the bass and treble to 120hz between 6kHz or 5Khz on the cab block. What do you think of that ? It seems a little extreme to me.

Misha mansoor about the cuts in live "I believe we are passing low at 5500 or so and high passing around 120. 5500k sounds low, goal When You are hearing it at 100dB or more, it sounds plenty bright. Gotta take it easy with high frequencies at volume, not only are destructive to our ears They, goal There Is not much musical information as you go higher and higher, and you lose the "hi-fi" quality as it literally turns Into ear piercing quality. "


Aaron Marshall of intervals said almost the same thing.

Thanks for your answers guys.
Click to expand...
Back in the Ultra days Scot Peterson post about using hi and low cut and he referenced an article from an old guitar player magazine. I believe it was called 5 FOH guys you should know. This guys run front of house for Bands like Metallica ect. I looked up the article and it I recall correctly all 5 of them shared that they use high and low cut on guitars arounf 120 and 6 or 7 k. The reason was because that is the range where the guitar naturally lives. Much lower and you are in Bass range and much higher in you are in keyboard/cymbal range. This is one of the many reasons why guys struggle with their miced up tones vs their raw amp tones. We are stepping on other guys toes and it does not sound good though we all think our amp tone is of the gods. Low cut and high cut changed my tweaking life. I show up to every gig basically mixed ready and that plays a huge part. Sound guys always complement me and some have offered to by my axe. It is essential to me and I am not going back
 
Julien Meirone said:
Hello,

i recently read on ask.fm that most bands using high gain patches are cuting the bass and treble to 120hz between 6kHz or 5Khz on the cab block. What do you think of that ? It seems a little extreme to me.


Misha mansoor about the cuts in live "I believe we are passing low at 5500 or so and high passing around 120. 5500k sounds low, goal When You are hearing it at 100dB or more, it sounds plenty bright. Gotta take it easy with high frequencies at volume, not only are destructive to our ears They, goal There Is not much musical information as you go higher and higher, and you lose the "hi-fi" quality as it literally turns Into ear piercing quality. "


Aaron Marshall of intervals said almost the same thing.

Thanks for your answers guys.
Click to expand...

when they say high cut at 5500, that doesnt mean that there is 0 dB at 6000 and above. its not a brick wall cut off, its a steady descent. same with down the other end at 120, everyones counterargument is always "but low E is 88 (i think?) so you cant cut above that!!" , yes you can, because its still there, just quieter, and it should be quieter 99% of the time
 
Julien Meirone said:
By the way, when you are two guitar players in a band, do you think it's best to use the same IR for more coherence or a different one ?
Click to expand...
If you want the crowd to hear both guitars, its' better if they have different tones.

Listen to some AC/DC. You'll hear one guitar that's heavy in the upper mids and another one that has more body. Together, they sound huge.
 
Of course it's not a brickwall lol, i record a riff with my patch and hopefully, i have still some frequencies above 5Khz lol.:)

AC/DC is a mid gain exemple and harmonic content is very different in comparison with high gain tone especially above 10Khz where very distorted have some fizzy frequencies thaht crunch sound obviously don't have. But, i also noticed that heavy cuts reduce the difference between two guitar tones in the end IMO.
 
Julien Meirone said:
AC/DC is a mid gain exemple and harmonic content is very different in comparison with high gain tone especially above 10Khz where very distorted have some fizzy frequencies thaht crunch sound obviously don't have.
Click to expand...
True. But the principle still holds. If you want two guitars to be heard as two guitars, give them some sonic differences.


Julien Meirone said:
But, i also noticed that heavy cuts reduce the difference between two guitar tones in the end IMO.
Click to expand...
True again. All the more reason to help them stand apart. High- and low-cut aren't your only EQ options. Cabs—or any post-amp EQ, for that matter—make a difference :)
 
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