My Secret Formula

I've started using this parameter in FW13 I think. It is a great way of adding a twist on your tone once you've already kind of settled on the general sound. It reminds me of the "Contour" knob on a Marshall Jackhammer JH-1 distortion pedal but it is probably nothing like it as far as design.
 
I've used the "character" control a tad, on my clean sounds especially.

Often, I'll try an advanced parameter to see what it sounds like. If it sounds helpful, but i don't want to commit to a value, I'll leave it at a small value, like .1 (or, in this case, -.1) in order to remind myself that I DID mess with it some.

Cliff- when you're back from vaca...

After the new FW15 epiphanies, does your "secret formula" Character tweak still sound like an improvement for you? Or is this yet another parameter that the FW improvements have rendered unnecessary, to your ears?
 
Also curious about that.

I often find that this technique works really well, particularly with the Plexi models.
 
I will only use this to compensate for certain guitars. Only found it recently, but I find I play with this more than any other parameter.

One preset (plexi for example), I'll adjust this for guitars that are too dark, or bright. It will tone down a Tele, give 'SLAP' to a dark strat, or 'oomph' to a bright LP.

Mind I still play with my favorite params, but this tends to round it out to where I have wood.

Nice tip.
 
I hate it when you're right LOL

The "Character" parameters are two of the most powerful advanced parameters available but I bet almost no one uses them.

My secret formula:
Character Frequency: 3000 - 5000 Hz, adjust to taste
Character: -0.5 to -1.0, adjust to taste

Cliff have you used a Quilter tone block with the AXE and if so what Cab did you use?...thanks...I personally believe the AXE sounds its best out of an FRFR speaker....IMHO.......and that Character parameter is very useful brought the Bogners alive and a few of my cleans thanks for the tip Cliff....................................
 
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Before re-reading this post today, I was lowering the Character knob down 1 or 2 increment.
This tamed the little brightness/harshness I had in some presets. (live loud playing)

Now, I'll begin messing with the frequency knob too.
 
The "Character" parameters are two of the most powerful advanced parameters available but I bet almost no one uses them.

My secret formula:
Character Frequency: 3000 - 5000 Hz, adjust to taste
Character: -0.5 to -1.0, adjust to taste

This has to be one of the best hidden features I could imagine. Not sure what it does, but it does seem to add a lot to the feel. Thanks!
 
Thes controls fry my ears every time I try to use them... It's like "oh that sounds better... Or does it? No! ...yes... I CANT TELL"

Then I revert to saved ....
 
Thes controls fry my ears every time I try to use them... It's like "oh that sounds better... Or does it? No! ...yes... I CANT TELL"

Then I revert to saved ....
That's perfectly valid. If you're not sure of the difference, stick with what you're comfortable with.

If you want a better comparison, set up two presets side by side. Set up one of them your normal way, and set the other one the "secret formula" way. switch back and forth between them while you're playing.

And play it loud if you can. There are a lot of things that make a difference at volume but are hard to hear at bedroom levels.


And if you still can't hear a difference...back to home base. No harm, no foul.
 
I think tones become brighter and more percussive with harder picking. Therefore if you happened to need to make your amp sound brighter, during a softly picked or finger picked section, and you wanted to remain in that same tone when you started using your pick, but that brighter tone that was great while picking softly or finger-picking becomes shrill, you can offset and "darken" it with this setting. That is an extreme "what if" scenario, but I'm just sayin' it could have it's uses.

The next thing that comes to mind, is maybe copying the amp into x and y, but having one of them darker by use of this parameter, because you are going to use a different pickup at a certain part of the song, but you want the same gain structure, you just want to take a little harshness off of how that other pickup sounds, compared to your primary pickup. Perhaps, you are also boosting the scene's output volume for that passage, and at that slightly higher output volume, it just bites too much, and you want to shave that off a little.

Oh well, it sounds a little over rated and hardly necessary. I won't bother with this feature.
 
The "Character" parameters are two of the most powerful advanced parameters available but I bet almost no one uses them.

My secret formula:
Character Frequency: 3000 - 5000 Hz, adjust to taste
Character: -0.5 to -1.0, adjust to taste

without hearing it, it seems like this would do the same thing as the power amp sagging, when you dig in and the top end gets mashed cause there's no power left and the lows and highs start to mash together. like when you slam and sustain a low power chord and try to noodle the high E...nothing comes out. THERE ARE SO MANY WAYS TO SKIN CATS.
 
without hearing it, it seems like this would do the same thing as the power amp sagging, when you dig in and the top end gets mashed cause there's no power left and the lows and highs start to mash together. like when you slam and sustain a low power chord and try to noodle the high E...nothing comes out.
Nope, it's not that. ;)

See the wiki.
 
Will have to experiment more with Character. I regularly pull a couple of db out of my tone centered somewhere around the 2.2K range. Sometimes with a Para or GEQ block... Sometimes with the GEQ in the amp block... Sometimes with a special fan I own blowing across the front of my cab that knocks the 2.2K frequencies out of the air as the exit the speaker... whatever gets you home.

Karma

Is that a fractal fan by any chance :rolleyes:
 
Funny, I've been using a PEQ to cut a narrow band just over 3KHz by a couple dB lately... maybe this will spare me a block!

Funny, in my setup, it's almost routine to include a slight narrow cut at juuuuust under 3K. I find there to a be a bit of a whistle there that when cut, helps massage the "digital" away.
 
Funny, in my setup, it's almost routine to include a slight narrow cut at juuuuust under 3K. I find there to a be a bit of a whistle there that when cut, helps massage the "digital" away.

Yeah that's exactly right, that sort of whistle like when someone is playing a cranked gain monster but aren't muting with their hands very well.

But I have to say I quit doing this in recent FW. I still use a PEQ block for shaping, but it's more often just rounded to push mids.
 
Cliff wrote this back in 2014:

The "Character" parameters are two of the most powerful advanced parameters available but I bet almost no one uses them.

My secret formula:
Character Frequency: 3000 - 5000 Hz, adjust to taste
Character: -0.5 to -1.0, adjust to taste​

It is now almost 2018 with numerous subsequent firmware updates. Does anyone have updated thoughts on this? and what about the Character Type and Q?

Thanks for any thoughts.
 
I've not played with those controls for a while now but experimenting with them, along with several other advanced parameters, it definitely on my to-do list.
 
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