How to dial out harshness (V10)?

Stringtheorist said:
This is something to do with Axe Edit. I don't use Axe Edit or cabinet modelling.
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Not really. It concerns the system data area of your Axe-Fx. That's where also the global blocks data reside and other stuff.
Installing a fresh system bank will probably not help. But it doesn't hurt either (back up first). It's all up to you.
 
I have to make the amp models work with my real guitar cab that I have decided to use. This means that there must be a "frequenzy-balance" in the amp modell itself.
In that respect the IR business is of secondary interest. But of course it can be important for recording or line-situations.


javajunkie said:
Some of the advanced controls are most apparent at high master volume levels, other are more prominent at low master volume. With my presets, many of mine either got very flubby and/or shrill,
Rather than dink around w/ advanced parameters. I started fresh with the amp/cab combination.

I reset the amp (double clicked the bypass button, then switched to another amp and back ) and went through the cabs until I got the closest tonal response I wanted. If it didn't sound like the amp I was using was going to work I started switching amps.
After I settle on an amp, I adjust the drive and master to the desired drive and compression levels. After that I dial in the tone controls. Some of the tone controls, like the plexi, sound best for me in extreme positions. This is true of my real plexi as well. Don't let the knob positions guide you, trust your ear. Generally, the higher the master volume the less effective the tone controls are. I will also many times see if I like the bright on or off (note you many have to adjust drive settings when doing this)

If that doesn't get me their then I have my tried and true advanced parameters I mess with.

If flubby - turn bass tone down, turn low cut up. I turn up until the bass loss is quite apparent then back down until it get flubby. then I find a happy medium. Usually if I mess with it, it winds up somewhere between 80-240 hz. I then will add depth, if needed to add back some low end). If even more low end shaping is needed, I go to the amp eq block.

For high end. There is treble, presence, hi-cut and bright cap.
If shrill and the bright caps is on, I try lowering in the bright cap values. That usually does the trick.
If it doesn't then I try lowering the treble and compensate by increasing presence as needed. I also may lower the hi-cut in the advanced parameters.

that approach usually get me there.

After that, if it does feel right I go to the dynamics section and refine there.

If I feel it need more dynamic eq shaping I will try messing with definition, character, triode plate freq, sag, xformer match, xformer drive.

After i'm done, sometime I will just use the eq section for final polishing.

For me, having a systematic approach saves me time and achieves more predictable results.
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I used AE 1.9 with no issues to rebuild my patches. I was not impressed with V10 until I rebuilt the patches from scratch. I was blown away. My V9 patches did not even come close even after resetting the amp. Start fresh if you can.
 
hussamd said:
I used AE 1.9 with no issues to rebuild my patches. I was not impressed with V10 until I rebuilt the patches from scratch. I was blown away. My V9 patches did not even come close even after resetting the amp. Start fresh if you can.
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I concur, hussamd ... I did a bunch of preset rebuilds (with AE 1.9) over the weekend because I was not "hearing the greatness" I kept reading about here on the forum. Way huge difference - takes a little noodling with with amp/cab settings, but it's well worth the time. The biggest difference for me was the noticeable reduction in "brittle" tone/presence. Just my opinion, but in my case, the difference/correction was in accounting for added "presence" control and the extra high band of eq in many of my Amp(s) selections for each preset. Lots to be said for "starting fresh" in V10. The other change I made over the weekend was making my own "Humbuster" cables for my Axe-Amp Output 1 connections. I was a little skeptical, but there's a noticeable reduction in line noise, even in non-hum cancelling positions on my Strats. These connections are very short since both the Axe and amp are in the same case.
 
Stringtheorist said:
Since updating to V10 I'm finding most of my presets sound harsh, even after doing a system reset and re-EQing. Knocking back the treble and upper mid frequencies in the amp's graphic EQ helps somewhat but I still don't know how best to soften the aggressive attack
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What I heard in V10 is the "crack" (remember the infamous crack-thread!), the attack of the models is true to real amps.
Cliff wrote that real amp has a harder clipping... I was referring to this aspect, but didn't manage to explain.
If this is the case, suppress your high help just a little bit to tame the "clipping velocity". V10 has some useful instrument, as other suggested.
Maybe a variable "clipping hardness/fastness" could be useful to create fine unique dynamic behavior, from smooth (pre v10) to nasty...
 
(In resonse to JAVAJUNKIE's reply)
This is great Sean! Every line I read, I think yeh, that's what I do too.
You will find these to be "nuggets of gold" from all the old Gen.2 guy's. (senior members)
They really immersed themselves in Fractology in the early days.
The only way to make the box really work required a massive amount of advanced tweaking.
FAS has improved the product greatly, which requires less tweaking, but like Sean sez, sometimes you are looking for a "non-stock" tone which will need some advanced tweaking to get there.
I like that all that I have learned on the old Gen.1 Axe, is applicable with my Mark II.
Take the time and LEARN the fine granularity of the extended parameters, it will pay off in the end.
 
if your having problems with the new ver 10 just re-install it and once re-installed do a system params reset its in the utility menu 3 pages over under reset just a heads up i had issues with this and just did a re-install and params reset and boom my ax came to life sounds like it should and not harsh and thin like it did when i first installed the beta ver i also downloaded the public ver again and installed it hope this helps everyones axe seems to react different at some point so this is a easy way to weed out any problems you may have had with ver 10 it worked for me should work for everyone just do it and see what happens its a simple fix i bet you it will fix most of the problems that everyone is having .....
 
If anything when I switched to V10 everything got more bass/middy! With a few adjustments, everything sounds amazing now!! If you say you need to turn on the bright switch to get the right drive, that might be your problem right there! Instead of using the bright switch, just try putting a tube screamer in front of the amp and puting the tone knob a little above 12 o clock if you arnt doing that already! Try some different amps! There are so many paramiters in the axe that you reaaaally need to tweak to get the desired tones. The easiet way is to start as simple as possible and slowly add to your tone little by little.
 
FractalAudio said:
Use better monitors.
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To be 100% honest, so far, I've never been totally convinced with the Axe-II sound going to my 2 Adam A7X which are pretty decent monitors (playing music with them is awesome). Sound is *very* harsh and boomy. I don't really know why, even if I suspect the "environment" to be the root cause. I'm playing on a room that I use as my office and this room is pretty "empty" right now so there is a lot of sound reflections. More, the Adams are sitting on a big wood desk which is probably the worst place to put them... lol

98% of the time I'm playing using my headphones (AKG 271 MK II) and the sound is so good that I'm even more frustrated to not hear the same thing when I switch to the Adams...

Any suggestions ?

Side note: I connected the Adams to Axe ouput 2 with unbalanced cables (jack => XLR). Axe is configured to copy output 1 to output 2. Do you think connecting the Adams to the output 1 with XLR cables would improve the overall sound ?
 
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macphistoo said:
To be 100% honest, so far, I've never been totally convinced with the Axe-II sound going to my 2 Adam A7X which are pretty decent monitors (playing music with them is awesome). Sound is *very* harsh and boomy. I don't really know why, even if I suspect the "environment" to be the root cause. I'm playing on a room that I use as my office and this room is pretty "empty" right now so there is a lot of sound reflections. More, the Adams are sitting on a big wood desk which is probably the worst place to put them... lol

98% of the time I'm playing using my headphones (AKG 271 MK II) and the sound is so good that I'm even more frustrated to not hear the same thing when I switch to the Adams...

Any suggestions ?

Side note: I connected the Adams to Axe ouput 2 with unbalanced cables (jack => XLR). Axe is configured to copy output 1 to output 2. Do you think connecting the Adams to the output 1 with XLR cables would improve the overall sound ?
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No, using balanced cables shouldn't make a difference. Post a preset to test?
 
macphistoo said:
Sound is *very* harsh and boomy. ... I'm playing on a room that I use as my office and this room is pretty "empty" right now...

Any suggestions ?
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Threat the (upper) corner of the office; first step is to keep away the boominess.
 
I vaguely remember reading that you get +6dB if you use the balanced XLRs on output 1, versus the unbalanced on output 1 & 2. Other than level, shouldn't be any other difference though.
 
Markom said:
I concur, hussamd ... I did a bunch of preset rebuilds (with AE 1.9) over the weekend because I was not "hearing the greatness" I kept reading about here on the forum. Way huge difference - takes a little noodling with with amp/cab settings, but it's well worth the time. The biggest difference for me was the noticeable reduction in "brittle" tone/presence. Just my opinion, but in my case, the difference/correction was in accounting for added "presence" control and the extra high band of eq in many of my Amp(s) selections for each preset. Lots to be said for "starting fresh" in V10. The other change I made over the weekend was making my own "Humbuster" cables for my Axe-Amp Output 1 connections. I was a little skeptical, but there's a noticeable reduction in line noise, even in non-hum cancelling positions on my Strats. These connections are very short since both the Axe and amp are in the same case.
Click to expand...

What do you guys mean by "starting fresh"? I've just dialled to the next amp model in the list and back again to reset it, made a few tweaks from there. Is that sufficient?
 
Stringtheorist said:
What do you guys mean by "starting fresh"? I've just dialled to the next amp model in the list and back again to reset it, made a few tweaks from there. Is that sufficient?
Click to expand...

Starting an Amp block fresh would mean doubleclicking Bypass in the Amp block, resetting all parameters in the block (including Drive, BMT, Presence etc.).

Starting the entire preset fresh would mean that you also default the Cab block, get rid of PEQs etc.
 
yek said:
Starting an Amp block fresh would mean doubleclicking Bypass in the Amp block, resetting all parameters in the block (including Drive, BMT, Presence etc.).

Starting the entire preset fresh would mean that you also default the Cab block, get rid of PEQs etc.
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Oh right, I've done that.

Some folks seem to think it's necessary to load V10 firmware twice. Is it really so?
 
Stringtheorist said:
Oh right, I've done that.

Some folks seem to think it's necessary to load V10 firmware twice. Is it really so?
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Can't tell for sure. It shouldn't matter. A loading issue would probably result in an Axe-Fx which would refuse the firmware, and not in a functional but less than optimal sound.
But there are some people indeed who write that repeating the upgrading process cured their problem.
It doesn't hurt and takes just a couple of minutes, so....
 
Isn't there another Axe-Fx II user nearby, so you can compare your stuff?
 
macphistoo said:
Here is it : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22235519/GnR.syx

This is my GnR "WIP" patch. You will need the IR "OH Beta SM57 Brit Modern 5" to make it works.
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Ah, you picked the Brit Super. That's a nasty harsh amp, IMHO.
It's just how that amp sounds. I created another preset with just an Amp and Cab block, picked the same settings, and it sounds similar to your preset.
What guitar are you using? Anything with single coils sounds horrible with that amp, again IMHO.
 
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