How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower notes?

J

Justin Saosin

Member
So I'm about three weeks old axe fx time and I ran into something while recording and a/bing next to a Hughes and kettner triamp.

I was using a Tom Anderson hollow droptop and a Hughes and kettner 4x12 with a 57 on it. Going into pro tools.

when I look at the waveform of the Hughes and kettner track compared to the axe-fx through straight into the H & K effects loop return waveform. There are spikes in volume of the axe fx track and the Hughes and kettner one is much more uniform. I also recorded a track with a sovtek head through the same cab and it has the same uniform volume waveform. I have noticed this spiking in the past with other amp modeling and emulators. It shows up mostly when you palm mute lower notes. Is this natural "compression" with tube amps a non-replicable thing or is it attainable with the axe fx?

Has anybody else experienced this?

I don't really want to put a compressor on it because you can hear the ducking.

Any advice?

Thanks for your time.


Justin Shekoski
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

1 word:

multi band compressor.
:)
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

PEQ/GEQ/adjust your low cut/adjust your Global Eq.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

It could it be that there is to much gain in your presets. Tubeamps can sound fat without much gain.

Turn your system very loud when you tweak, if you listen to low, you could set gain higher then necessary.
Just lower the gain in the amp-block. Get back the lost fatness (lost because of the missing gain) with eqs or multicomp adding lows and low mids and listen if the spikes are still there.

The target might be, to get a full and fat sound, with less distotion than before. So you have more control over the dynamics in your hands. Like with a good tubeamp.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

adjust lo cut in the adv. parameters of the amp block.
if this doesn't fix it or only by altering the sound/timbre too much, put a PEQ after the amp block with a low shelf or high pass setting.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

chrisallen8888 said:
1 word:

multi band compressor.
:)
Click to expand...

Your correctness is inversely proportional to your ability to count. :D
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

octatonic said:
chrisallen8888 said:
1 word:

multi band compressor.
:)
Click to expand...

Your correctness is inversely proportional to your ability to count. :D
Click to expand...

hahah yeah i know :) did it on purps...

but seriously, the multiband compressor will take care of that. just use the lowest band and turn off the mid and high band. i use this on my rhythm patch so i can chug, but it tames the low frequency spike a bit.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

Apparently I need to read up on the multi band compressor as well. It doesn't happen often, but every now and then I'll hit a lower note in a really high gain patch just right and the sub 100Hz volume shoots through the roof. It's definitely something I should read up on.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

MBC will help tame those low end spikes, but personally I'd prefer to just turn down the bass in the amp section (or maybe use a different, less bassy cab IR). Anything below 100Hz is going to be better handled by a bass guitar, and I'd just end up bringing it down in the guitars to make room for the bass in that part of the mix anyway. :)
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

I've had this problem a lot (dunno maybe my cheap FRFR/cabs are boomy).

I tried the MBC tonight with great results. I put the MBC first in the chain, set the first section to "Mute", set the 1st crossover to about 200Hz and turned the other bands off. This really improved my hi gain sound a lot (I used the mute setting just out of curiousity thinking it would be extreme, but it's quite tame for guitar at this frequency). As indicated above adjusting Amp EQ or changing CAB would be better but this is the best result I've gotten so far for taming low end (better than the filter trick for me).

I'll now try to duplicate the effect using Amp/Cab adjustments so I can get my block back.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the much publicized "tightening" method of putting a highpass filter before the amp with the frequency linked to envelope. I've not tried it, but I would think that would tame the giant >fwomp!< of a heavy palm mute. Check the Wiki HERE for details.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

Rich G. said:
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the much publicized "tightening" method of putting a highpass filter before the amp with the frequency linked to envelope. I've not tried it, but I would think that would tame the giant >fwomp!< of a heavy palm mute. Check the Wiki HERE for details.
Click to expand...

I did mention that above ("filter trick"). I think the MB compressor works better.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

sprint said:
I did mention that above ("filter trick"). I think the MB compressor works better.
Click to expand...

Oops! Sorry-- Missed that one.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

Had the same problem.....before throwing in MBC's and Filters, play with the Master Volume....it does wonders.
 
Re: How to eliminate volume spike while palm muting lower no

chrisallen8888 said:
1 word:

multi band compressor.
:)
Click to expand...

Well yeah but that's just ignoring the real problem. The real problem is that you've got too much bass which is the biggest flaw in the Axe-Fx IMO. No real amp + cab does that especially after been mic'ed.

How to solve this problem? Lowcut. It's booming at 125hz so you can use global EQ to lower the boominess. I have 63hz fully off. 125hz at -6dB and 250hz at -10dB. This all depends on what cab you are using but all of the cabs I've tried peak like hell. (I really dislike the mic sims on the cabs) This way you're not compromising any of your dynamics. If you use a MBC you'll have the same amount of low end all the time.
 
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