My battle with Mr Fletcher-Munson.............

F-M is a huge issue at the church where I serve as Worship Director. Most of the soundboard people keep the volume way to low. Gee... why did it take a very loud (bombastic) piano player to fill the room...? Hmm...)

Shoot, they even had the signal chain all wrong. Now that I'm there, there's no more hiss coming from the PA.

Anyway, yeah, it's not easy.
 
Is it really the case that a unit that cost well upwards of £2000 in the UK doesn't have some kind of feature to combat the deterioration in tone that occurs when going from 5 watts to 50?
There are too many factors that feed into the Fletcher-Munson effect to be able to account for it automatically. for example, how loud was it when you dialed in your tone? You can't go by the Axe's output levels. Depending on your monitors, a given level in a given level might by moderate or whisper-quiet. How loud is it at the gig? That depends on the room and the entire FOH system, as well as your wedges.

A 20 dB difference between home and gig doesn't translate to the same F-M differences. Look at the curves. The F-M changes between 40 and 60 dB are very different from the changes between 80 and 100 dB.

And the room is a huge factor. If you're at home, and you're not practicing in a treated room, there are big low-frequency effects that just aren't present in a typical performing space.


As others have said, you gotta dial in at gig volume.
 
One of the things that I find when playing with backing tracks - at any volume - is the amount of reverb & delay that I end up dialing in. When I play the scene without a backing track it always seems like, "Whoa! That's a lotta delay." But if rein it in, then when I play with a backing track then the guitar just sits on top and seems out of place. If find the difference pretty dramatic.

Maybe the reverse is true in a live band situation; if you want your part to stand out without pushing up the volume then dial back the reverb/delay a touch. Of course, you also have to deal with the natural reverb of the room as well.
 
I am going to try this for FRFR tweaking at volume. Capturing the band at a gig for playback with my guitar muted, setting up one side of our FOH system at home and tweak each preset at volume to mix with the band capture. I know it's a lot of hassle to go thru so I hope it works great!
This may help as well. There is a site called guitarbackingtracks.com that has a lot of recorded music sans guitar. You could play along with that as well to adjust your sound.
 
It's so interesting that all our ears hear different tones. I find increasing my volume creates a more fluid tone, where I may have to add gain.
I agree you have to be at performance level, in order to get the accurate tone for that level. Otherwise all your presets will have too much bass.
I just read an interesting piece, by a national recording artist's guitar sound tech, (this was specific for guitar tone using any type setup), where the tech setup the guitar cab at ear level. While standing directly in front of the cab, he set it at stage level and dialed in his comfortable tone.
So I decided to give it a try and was surprised to find all my presets would cut you in 2, with no bottom whatsoever. It was so thin that I thought I was playing through a cheap modeler and 6" speaker. I also found one interesting thing. I was using an EQ block at the beginning of my chain to just cut lows and highs. It was sucking the life out of the guitar. So I set up a low and high cut filter at the beginning. That made an enormous difference and was immediately louder and fuller. Then I went into the amp block's cab settings and adjusted a few things with the EQ. I kept in mind the fact that when the cab was set back on the ground the bass would increase. So I set my lows accordingly, just enough to hear them. Not only does my cab sound way better, and has a fuller tone, it made a huge difference to FOH. Before I tried this my tones in FOH were ok, but a little lifeless. I had to use my channel 1 EQ, at the end of my chain, quite aggressively to get the guitar to sit in the mix and sound similar to the cab. After doing this the FOH is perfect with little EQ. I just cut under 100hz and above 8k.
I have been told many times here there is no right or wrong and this worked well for me.
 
It's so interesting that all our ears hear different tones. I find increasing my volume creates a more fluid tone, where I may have to add gain.
I agree you have to be at performance level, in order to get the accurate tone for that level. Otherwise all your presets will have too much bass.
I just read an interesting piece, by a national recording artist's guitar sound tech, (this was specific for guitar tone using any type setup), where the tech setup the guitar cab at ear level. While standing directly in front of the cab, he set it at stage level and dialed in his comfortable tone.
So I decided to give it a try and was surprised to find all my presets would cut you in 2, with no bottom whatsoever. It was so thin that I thought I was playing through a cheap modeler and 6" speaker. I also found one interesting thing. I was using an EQ block at the beginning of my chain to just cut lows and highs. It was sucking the life out of the guitar. So I set up a low and high cut filter at the beginning. That made an enormous difference and was immediately louder and fuller. Then I went into the amp block's cab settings and adjusted a few things with the EQ. I kept in mind the fact that when the cab was set back on the ground the bass would increase. So I set my lows accordingly, just enough to hear them. Not only does my cab sound way better, and has a fuller tone, it made a huge difference to FOH. Before I tried this my tones in FOH were ok, but a little lifeless. I had to use my channel 1 EQ, at the end of my chain, quite aggressively to get the guitar to sit in the mix and sound similar to the cab. After doing this the FOH is perfect with little EQ. I just cut under 100hz and above 8k.
I have been told many times here there is no right or wrong and this worked well for me.
IMHO, this is more right for most to get their sounds without too many "cheap modeler and 6" speaker" gigs before hand.
 
The tone brightens up at gig volume, but it doesn't clean up. In fact, "just enough" distortion at low levels can become "too much gain" at high levels.

Not to my ear. My tone seem to lose distortion as the volume increases.
 
I wonder if it would be possible to add a Fletcher Munson mode to an EQ block or something. Just make it a single knob that starts off at 0 or flat EQ. Positive settings would behave like an inverse loudness knob, decreasing the treble and bass along the proper FM curve, and negative values would increase the treble and bass in the same way along the FM curve.

Dial in a tone at TV volume and want to turn it up to gig volumes? Turn up the FM knob. Dial in a tone at live volumes and want to practice with it at night in an apartment? Turn the FM knob down.
 
I try to set my tones at home at around 100 db's. I use a decibel meter app on my phone to see how loud I am and do it when no one is home. LOL! This has worked great for me as they have translated well at rehearsal and gigs. I'm using 2 CLR's to do this with. Great speakers to create your presets on.
 
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:eek:

If I did this, my house would be covered in toilet paper, eggs, and cat poop.
LOL! Ya, not something everyone can do. Luckily I live in a culdesac and the woods are behind my house. But I do have neighbors on either side of me. Not something I do late at night.
 
So I decided to give it a try and was surprised to find all my presets would cut you in 2, with no bottom whatsoever. It was so thin that I thought I was playing through a cheap modeler and 6" speaker.
When we first started gigging, I made my presets (MP-1) off-axis. When the sound guy said I sounded like an ice pick, I thought he was just being a jerk. Until I stepped into the beam of death.
 
I try to set my tones at home at around 100 db's. I use a decibel meter app on my phone to see how loud I am and do it when no one is home. LOL! This has worked great for me as they have translated well at rehearsal and gigs. I'm using 2 Atomic CLR's to do this with. Great speakers to create your presets on.
Where do you place your CLRs? I have two and put them in front of me as stereo monitor wedges. I leave the low cutoff filters on the CLRs off.
 
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Where do you place your CLRs? I have two and put them in front of me as stereo monitor wedges.
At home I do the same thing. My CLR's stay at home for creating presets and practicing. But for gigging I use 2 XiTone's in stereo and set them up like backline. One behind me and the other next to my bass players rig. Depending on the size of the stage I set them on their side pointing out like 1x12 cabs for big stages and set them like traditional wedges pointing up for smaller stages. I just prefer to have the sound coming from behind me cause I'm used to it I guess. Also noticed that some fans that would stand at the front of the stage couldn't hear my guitar because they PA was to far off to the sides or was to high above them so I know use my FRFR's like backline so those up close can still hear me.
 
I also find that less drive is needed at high volumes ...

In fact, "just enough" distortion at low levels can become "too much gain" at high levels.


100%

For example, I like to use Boutique1 - great amp with rich harmonics and grit ... but it just don't sound "correct" for the gain structure and break-up/distortion at low volumes; it needs to be pushed with volume. Now, for me - it could very well be (I imagine this is the case) that since I play through a pair of 2x12s cabinets loaded with V30s, that is part of the equation - energy i.e. volume to get those speakers moving, compressing, etc. But at low volumes, there just isn't enough "drive" or complex distortion that I seek.
 
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I made a recording which is intended to show the Fletcher-Munson. See this thread. Listen to it loud, only then it will shine :)
 
When we first started gigging, I made my presets (MP-1) off-axis. When the sound guy said I sounded like an ice pick, I thought he was just being a jerk. Until I stepped into the beam of death.
That's exactly what I experienced. So I now adjust tone at ear level. i will say that setting up a 2 x 12 open back that way will sound totally like crap through a 4 x 12 cab. So now I create 3 sets of presets. One for FRFR, one for 2 x 12 open back and one for 4 x 12 closed back. Ironically enough, with a little tweaking of my EQ block at the end of channel one to FOH, I get a perfect tone through the PA.
 
But isn't this the beauty of the axe? Depending on setup (large/small gigs, studio, bedroom, mancaves ect), to be able to use the same preset tailored to each scenario mentioned above? All my custom presets (roughly 20-30) each have 3 clones that are taylored for large/loud gig, studio level, and man cave. It took a lot of hardwork but I can tell u this, no matter where I show up, I'm usually the first one done with sound check and I'm drinking a beer as I watch people moving mics around, and all the other BS that comes with the job! If you put the time in, the rewards are phenomenal!
 
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