Mesa Treat of The Day = USA Sub Blues + 43: 4x12 Recto V30 (RW)

smcrosby

Power User
Swap in a USA SUB BLUES amp into the amp block of Preset 15: Recto Vintage (with factory cab 43) and play some single coil blues. Enjoy! :)
 
Thanks for the tip!

You are welcome - the Mesa USA Sub Blues really is a great amp sim that matches very very well with the factory IR# 43: 4x12 Recto V30 (RW) - Cliff really did a great job with this one (of course)! :encouragement:

Let me know what you think and if you hear a high frequency hiss (soft and constant - like someone left water running in the next room).

The hiss will only go away as I turn the AXE front panel top output knob off. Turning the guitar volume pot down has no effect on the hiss.

Gotta get that hiss worked out because I would like this to be one of my go to amp sims and I want to control distortion with the guitar volume pot.

I like to ride the guitar volume pot (usually from from 2 to 7 on my single coil guitars) and so I crank the front panel output to 11 or 12 O'Clock and run through CLR NEOs in stereo (really loud wedge speakers at my feet).

Also - I can't seam find a drive that is subtle enough for this amp (maybe the BBPre or tape drive). Or maybe I should just stick to using an expression pedal and or scenes to modify the amp input trim or drive and forget about using a drive pedal for this particular amp (I don't have the amp sim in front of me at the moment).

Hiss or no hiss I plan to use this as one of my main single coil blues amps - if I have to I'll just stick a volume pedal block in between the cab block and delay/reverb blocks to get rid of the hiss when I am not playing (e.g., for those quiet moments between songs or when there is no guitar part, say, during an acoustic piano or woodwind solo, acappello vocal parts, etc.).
 
have you tried turning on the noise gate? :)


Hi Simeon. I am sure it is on but I'll double check tonight. BTW - its not the traditional amp "hum" that the gate was designed to suppress. There is a typical amp hum in the Sub Blues too but I can deal with that, either with the gate or by turning down the guitar volume pot when I am not playing.

What I am hearing is separate from the typical amp hum that follows the guitar volume pot - I am also hearing a separate hiss - a steady "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" sound - that (I believe) is independent of the gate and guitar volume pot. Instead, it corresponds to the AXE output volume level (I believe).

Its a soft shhhhh when I keep the Axe front panel output knob to between 9 to 10 O'Clock. But if the output knob is 11 O'Clock or above its really distracting.

Moreover, I really want the dynamic response that I get from keeping the guitar volume pot between 2 and 7. I find that if the AXE output volume is less than 10 O'Clock I end up having to keep the guitar volume pot at say 7 to 10 and that is too hot with too much breakup in "soft touch" circumstances. So keeping the guitar volume pot at 7 to 10 really works against my playing style as I am looking for that dynamic response - which the AXE has plenty of - as a fantastic source of inspiration for improvisation.

The Sub Blues tones underneath this shhhhhhhhhhhh with a single coil guitar and the volume pot throttled back between 2 to 7 are clearly distinguishable under the shhhhhhhhhhh and are just phenomenal - really dynamic in response - incredible amp sim. :encouragement:

Its really worth it for me to chase this problem down which I hope can be pinned down to something I am doing wrong, or something inherent in the Vintage Recto preset I copied and dropped the Sub Blues into. I just hope its nothing baked into the Sub Blues amp sim because (I believe) that would be beyond my control and ability to chase away with a few tweaks. :)

I am not having this problem in other sims so I can't imagine its the CLRs. They are incredibly quiet with even a slight gate threshold on. So quiet that I have knocked myself out of my chair on more than one occassion when I feared the CLRs were powered down and hit a power chord chop to test whether it was on or not. :)
 
well you can do various tests to track this down. first, i would unplug your guitar and cable from the front of the axe to rule out any rf interference

if the noise is still there, then simply try turning down the level of the amp block. if the noise disappears, then you know where it's coming from

page right a couple of times from layout view and turn the first two noise gate knobs all the way to the right. that should kill the noise entirely

plug the guitar back in and then reduce the threshold until the noise reappears and then dial it back so the noise goes away. do the same with the ratio. reduce attack and release, so the noise gate releases as soon as you touch the strings and stays out of the way as a note sustains.

if the noise is overbearing, it just means that you have too much gain. reduce gain and level and increase guitar volume. you may get less dynamics, but you could probably compensate with a couple of the advanced parameters...
 
Ahhh ... guidance at last! Will do. Thanks Simeon - I'll keep you posted.

EDIT: Thanks Simeon - I followed your steps above and dialed something in I can live with. Once I dialed it in I also turned the sag down and bumped up the B+ time constant. 'll keep tweaking over the weekend but, man, its a very dynamic preset, I can pick and or finger strum lightly and get that chime and then dig in just a little more and maybe bump up the guitar volume slightly and I am off to the races with solid sustain. Just great.

Got to figure out the amp's speaker parameter edits next that will complement the FAS 43 cab I am using (a RW IR).

Any other advanced parameter edit suggestions - I can really learn a lot through this exercise.. Thanks again Simeon. :)
 
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Ahhh ... guidance at last! Will do. Thanks Simeon - I'll keep you posted.

EDIT: Thanks Simeon - I followed your steps above and dialed something in I can live with. Once I dialed it in I also turned the sag down and bumped up the B+ time constant. 'll keep tweaking over the weekend but, man, its a very dynamic preset, I can pick and or finger strum lightly and get that chime and then dig in just a little more and maybe bump up the guitar volume slightly and I am off to the races with solid sustain. Just great.

Got to figure out the amp's speaker parameter edits next that will complement the FAS 43 cab I am using (a RW IR).

Any other advanced parameter edit suggestions - I can really learn a lot through this exercise.. Thanks again Simeon. :)

UPDATE: FW 12b04 has removed a lot of the hiss and really made this preset/amp sim come alive. Thanks you Simeon for the noise gate suggestions and Cliff, well, for everything! :encouragement:

In short - after loading in FW 12b04 - this preset screams, "how do you like me now!!!" :lol
 
lol! sounds like you're having fun, bro!

another parameter you might like to have a look at is the transformer match. it's very powerful....so give a nudge to the right or the left and see what you think. to the right is a touch more compressed...to the left is more "open"
 
lol! sounds like you're having fun, bro!

another parameter you might like to have a look at is the transformer match. it's very powerful....so give a nudge to the right or the left and see what you think. to the right is a touch more compressed...to the left is more "open"

:LOL will do Sim! Any additional speaker parameters to tweak? As much as I love factory 43 cab I'll need to audition the OH open backs next and use Cab Lab to mix in the back (aka, rear) of the cab. I really like Scott's mix of the Alnico Silver but I want to check out everything.

So much work to do - but what a journey! :)


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the only thing i do on the speaker page in the amp block is tweak the low frequency resonance "frequency" if i'm using a high gain amp. if you can be bothered, you could visit the homepage of the speaker manufacturer that make the speakers in factory 43 (no idea what that one is) and find out what the resonant freq of the speaker is. add 10hz to that value for the speaker res freq.
the other thing i sometimes like to do is increase the room level and time in the cab block and i also reduce the proximity parameter sometimes, if i feel the cab is too boomy...you'll hear the amount of bass reduce as you reduce this parameter
 
AHHHHH! :encouragement:

Reseting the amp block seemed (I could be smoking something here) to help lower the hsss floor a little bit.

But turning the Bright Cap value in the Tone Page down (cc) to 54pf really brought the hsss way down. :)

Cliff notes on the Tone Page one day? :eagerness:

EDIT: several tone tweaks later - wow - the Tone Page parameters radically effect the tone and in a good way - go figure! :)
 
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