Need More Drive Output Level

sprint

sprint

Axe-Master
I often find myself maxing out the output level on the drive block into a clean amp in certain combinations but still ending up quieter than with the drive off. Anyone else run into this? How do you work around it? To compensate I've started putting a filter block after the drive in some presets to boost volume when the drive is on in order to keep the preset volume level to what I'd like. I guess the drives are modelling real world passive circuts but there are times (see attached preset (turn drive on and note lowish volume with drive level at 10) when I feel like there should be an outgoing boost on the drive (or increased volume range) to be able to keep level in more scenarios. It could be situations like the attached where I dramatically cut down the drive's high end, but, like in the attached, that's what I want in some cases. (Ax3-mk1, fw20, moderately hi output humbuckers, input gain flat, input sensitivity - 50%)
 

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Why are you maxing out a drive into a clean amp?

These are a new paradigm. Don’t treat the modeler like it’s a pedalboard into a Hotrod Deluxe, take advantage of the fact you can run models of the amps that you used a pedal into a clean amp to imitate. Crank the amp’s input and then use a little bit of pedal in front of the amp to push it just a little harder.

I almost never use distortion or fuzz or boost, I rely on the amp models for the sound that the pedals were trying to get, and am regularly surprised by how good even the FM3 sounds when treating it as a single-channel full-stack with just my guitar straight in, or a full studio rack, or a combo with a little pedalboard in front of it.

I’ll pull in your preset and look at it, but, in the meantime, don’t be afraid to turn the knobs.
K, it's loaded.

I started with the basic amplifier sound, then, added distortion/drive in front of it to fill out the sound. The green channel on the IIC+ is clean when the Amp block's Drive is at 10, so I turned its Drive to 10 and dropped the pedal's volume to 6 and it balanced out between when the pedal is on or off when looking at the Preset Leveling tool.
Scene 1 is the drive + the Green channel on the amp with its drive set to 10. Scene 2 is without the drive and the Amp on the yellow channel. The sounds are so close that I think it'd take a little bit of EQ to make them the same. I bumped the drive on the amp in scene 2 to 7 and it was an even closer match.
 

Attachments

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Greg Ferguson said:
Why are you maxing out a drive into a clean amp?

These are a new paradigm. Don’t treat the modeler like it’s a pedalboard into a Hotrod Deluxe, take advantage of the fact you can run models of the amps that you used a pedal into a clean amp to imitate. Crank the amp’s input and then use a little bit of pedal in front of the amp to push it just a little harder.

I almost never use distortion or fuzz or boost, I rely on the amp models for the sound that the pedals were trying to get, and am regularly surprised by how good even the FM3 sounds when treating it as a single-channel full-stack with just my guitar straight in, or a full studio rack, or a combo with a little pedalboard in front of it.

I’ll pull in your preset and look at it, but, in the meantime, don’t be afraid to turn the knobs.
K, it's loaded.

I started with the basic amplifier sound, then, added distortion/drive in front of it to fill out the sound. The green channel on the IIC+ is clean when the Amp block's Drive is at 10, so I turned its Drive to 10 and dropped the pedal's volume to 6 and it balanced out between when the pedal is on or off when looking at the Preset Leveling tool.
Scene 1 is the drive + the Green channel on the amp with its drive set to 10. Scene 2 is without the drive and the Amp on the yellow channel. The sounds are so close that I think it'd take a little bit of EQ to make them the same. I bumped the drive on the amp in scene 2 to 7 and it was an even closer match.
Click to expand...
Thanks for spending the time - much appreciated. My thoughts:

I understand the point about a pedal board approach - generally, and for some time now, I approach presets using drive pedals as you suggest, with amp drive up to a little beyond edge with some hair but clean with guitar rolloff, then OD pedals to push that into more gain and/or add their own gain - all the drive pedals become very usable in this way + I can still have some cleaner clean with guitar rolloff. So I'm on board with all of that.

BUT (u knew it was coming eh lol!), there's a scenario that I like with a few of the distortion based drives into a super clean clean amp. DS1 with gain hi and tone low is one of those scenarios for me. I used to really like this with my real DS1 (long gone now) into real amp and Axfx nails it including the struggle to get more output level from the pedal which is also authentic to the real DS1 I had with the amp I had. The other side of this scenario is that, with the pedal off, I like to have a really dynamic super clean clean with no hair and that's not on edge. I think the struggle with drive output level in this use case comes from this: trying to match volume (perceived volume) between a dynamic not yet on edge clean with a full distortion is difficult to start with + I think the DS1 drive models a passive circuit that can't add volume so a fully distorted pedal into a dynamic not yet on edge clean clean will not have enough volume (same with some of my real world stuff). I also recognize that I could just forget about using any distortion pedals and just find an amp model that comes close - absolutely, and normally I don't fuss with distortion drives and opt for amp gain given the nice options available, BUT (here I go again :D), there's exceptions (DS1) where the DS pedal's unique character is the goal, and if we have an excellent model of the pedal, why not. The flat filter block between drive/amp with a few db level boost that goes on/off with the DS drive solves it for me but it would nice to have a few more DB of output level on tap in the drives to avoid that (like a modelled active level boost that's not on the real pedal - actually, I've also thought of expressing my wish to also have a pre-boost in the drive block but that's a whole other thing).

Comparing to your preset, and tinkering around a bit confirms to me that only with the amp set at around 0 headroom (edge) do I perceive the DS (DS1 in this case) to have enough output level on tap to have what I would hear (with my tinnitus infected ears) as equal volume between clean (DS off) and a full distortion with DS on. To my ears your preset (scene A) sounds balanced between clean (DS off) and distorted (DS on) only if I set amp level 4db higher (edit: lower) and DS level to 10 - so it works in that case but I've lost some of my dynamic super clean clean with the amp set on edge, though I have to say, I was surprised how good your preset sounded clean (no DS, amp drive 10), so I think maybe I'll start looking through amp models to find the one that sounds the cleanest and is most dynamic when set at 0 headroom and try the DS1 into that. Some of this may also well come down to individual hearing and how different people perceive volume differences between dynamic clean sounds and compressed distorted sounds.

Merci
 
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sprint said:
Thanks for spending the time - much appreciated. My thoughts:

I understand the point about a pedal board approach - generally, and for some time now, I approach presets using drive pedals as you suggest, with amp drive up to a little beyond edge with some hair but clean with guitar rolloff, then OD pedals to push that into more gain and/or add their own gain - all the drive pedals become very usable in this way + I can still have some cleaner clean with guitar rolloff. So I'm on board with all of that.

BUT (u knew it was coming eh lol!), there's a scenario that I like with a few of the distortion based drives into a super clean clean amp. DS1 with gain hi and tone low is one of those scenarios for me. I used to really like this with my real DS1 (long gone now) into real amp and Axfx nails it including the struggle to get more output level from the pedal which is also authentic to the real DS1 I had with the amp I had. The other side of this scenario is that, with the pedal off, I like to have a really dynamic super clean clean with no hair and that's not on edge. I think the struggle with drive output level in this use case comes from this: trying to match volume (perceived volume) between a dynamic not yet on edge clean with a full distortion is difficult to start with + I think the DS1 drive models a passive circuit that can't add volume so a fully distorted pedal into a dynamic not yet on edge clean clean will not have enough volume (same with some of my real world stuff). I also recognize that I could just forget about using any distortion pedals and just find an amp model that comes close - absolutely, and normally I don't fuss with distortion drives and opt for amp gain given the nice options available, BUT (here I go again :D), there's exceptions (DS1) where the DS pedal's unique character is the goal, and if we have an excellent model of the pedal, why not. The flat filter block between drive/amp with a few db level boost that goes on/off with the DS drive solves it for me but it would nice to have a few more DB of output level on tap in the drives to avoid that (like a modelled active level boost that's not on the real pedal - actually, I've also thought of expressing my wish to also have a pre-boost in the drive block but that's a whole other thing).

Comparing to your preset, and tinkering around a bit confirms to me that only with the amp set at around 0 headroom (edge) do I perceive the DS (DS1 in this case) to have enough output level on tap to have what I would hear (with my tinnitus infected ears) as equal volume between clean (DS off) and a full distortion with DS on. To my ears your preset (scene A) sounds balanced between clean (DS off) and distorted (DS on) only if I set amp level 4db higher and DS level to 10 - so it works in that case but I've lost some of my dynamic super clean clean with the amp set on edge, though I have to say, I was surprised how good your preset sounded clean (no DS, amp drive 10), so I think maybe I'll start looking through amp models to find the one that sounds the cleanest and is most dynamic when set at 0 headroom and try the DS1 into that. This may also well come down to individual hearing and how different people perceive volume differences between dynamic clean sounds and compressed distorted sounds.

Merci
Click to expand...
I think about what the amps would sound like in real life and how they’re often used.

The Band Commander is great as a super-clean starting point. The Double Verb models are in the same ballpark. And, they’re both used for traditional country, clean and clear.

An AC-30 might work, though the actual circuit has some issues according to Cliff. The Jazz 120 is super clean and shouldn’t get in the way of the sound of the pedal.

Perhaps wandering through the various “ambient” presets will unearth some interesting choices. I was surprised to see some Marshall models used for that purpose, then remembered that they are super clean when not turned up.

And there’s nothing that says we even have to have an amp block; can’t get any cleaner or transparent than that.
 
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The Drive models match their analog counterparts. If you need more output level use a Filter or Volume block as an additional boost. Another option is to use the built-in boost in the Amp block with the type set to Neutral.
 
FractalAudio said:
The Drive models match their analog counterparts. If you need more output level use a Filter or Volume block as an additional boost. Another option is to use the built-in boost in the Amp block with the type set to Neutral.
Click to expand...
thanks - been using the filter, but ya, don't know why I didn't think of just using amp boost which is more like a level boost with amp set well below max headroom.👍
 
Admin M@ said:
Here's a novel level boost technique that works.

View attachment 102507
Click to expand...
lol! yes - I did think of that actually, but I remember posting a question about whether or not adjusting all sliders of an eq equally would result in some tonal change (or just level) - don't remember the outcome exactly but I thought consensus was that there would be tonal change depending on the Q values / overlapping of the eq bands, so adjusting all bands the same amount would do more than just a level change.
 
sprint said:
lol! yes - I did think of that actually, but I remember posting a question about whether or not adjusting all sliders of an eq equally would result in some tonal change (or just level) - don't remember the outcome exactly but I thought consensus was that there would be tonal change depending on the Q values / overlapping of the eq bands, so adjusting all bands the same amount would do more than just a level change.
Click to expand...
Yes, boosting all bands in a graphic EQ does not result in a flat spectrum. There will be ripple.
 
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