New axefx II owner: High gain patches sound flubby and farty

ollioj said:
What do you mean by out of phase? bit of a noob sorry :(
The mackie does make the axefx sound really sick at loud volumes in a band practise situation but at quiet volumes both through the mackie and normal home speakers (logitech z506) the sound isn't very nice!
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Maybe being a noob is part of your challenge (no offence intended). Google speaker phase.. lots of explanations.
I listened to ur soundcloud test and ur right.. it sounds bad. I'm not a high gain guy, but there are folks here that are that can help clean up the mud.

I'm guessing that the difference you hear in the Mackie at practice vs home us is what is called the FM (fletcher-munson) effect. It's a challenge we all face when creating presets that sound awesome at home or via phones, yet suck when we crank to gig levels. It's how we humans process different frequencies at differ spl's. We hear things differently at different volume levels (spl). When one is experienced enough, one can "allow for" the FM effect when creating presets.
 
Nothing wrong with basswood, my drop top anderson will beg to differ ;) There is no magic bullet, tweak, and it takes lots more tweaking now in 10+.
 
jlynnb1 said:
what are your master volume settings??
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Exactly; try to keep it below 4 and don't hestitate to go even lower if necessary. Do you boost the amp? Just as in the real world, try put a TS9 in front of the amp. And be sure to check out Ownhammer and Guitarhacks impulses; I can't say that I like the included ir's for modern (non-djenty) metal tones - wayy to much low end content.
 
That Herbert clip is your cleanest tone? Wow, I'm getting old....

And that first clip, I'm not sure if switching a cab or adjusting a freq would change anything ... It's just TOO MUCH GAIN! ;)
 
Roll off of the gain quite a bit and but a t808 or t808mod in front of the amp. On the od pedal turn your gain to 0 and your tone to 10.
 
Also sounds like your cabs need to be played with. The citrus and German v30 are what i prefer with my high gain patches.
 
yek said:
That Herbert clip is your cleanest tone? Wow, I'm getting old....

And that first clip, I'm not sure if switching a cab or adjusting a freq would change anything ... It's just TOO MUCH GAIN! ;)
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Haha sorry, i meant like cleanest high gain tone i have; clean meaning least problem frequencies!
 
I'll update to 10.5 tonight, try these hemen patches i'm hearing about, if that fails, i'll try 9.02 and see how I go.

For those saying i'm using too much gain, the heads gain is usually around 9-10 o clock haha with bright switch only and i'm already using a really clean boost (to clean up the mud) and t808 infront of it!

But... I am cranking the heads to around 1 o clock :S
 
@ollioj: I just listened to the samples you posted, and they don't sound as bad as I expected (listening through Yamaha HS80M and AKG K601-headphones). But ... there is way too much gain (as many others stated before). Also, what do you mean by "clean boost"? And how is your T808 set?

flyingfadr said:
Also, is your guitar body made os Basswood ? When I was selling guitars ( many years ago ) I tried Ibanez models with Basswood bodies, and the sounded lifeless and farty ... IMHO, they should have just dropped the "b" from basswood... ;-)
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I do not share this point of view. Decent high gain-guitarists like John Petrucci and Tosin Abasi play basswood-guitars (sometimes with quilted maple top or whatever), and they do sound pretty sweet and tight. The body's wood-type is not to be ignored, but not everything. There's a fingerboard, a neck, the construction-style, the workmanship, the pickups, the guitarist's fingers and the amplifier, too.

ADDITIONAL
For those saying i'm using too much gain, the heads gain is usually around 9-10 o clock haha with bright switch only
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On some models, that can be enough. Is your bridge pickup very close to your strings?
 
Ollioj - try using two amps side by side
pan one hard left, the other hard right
use a stereo cab and find a nice cab type for each of the amps [and pan those two hard too]
use quite a bit less gain
amp1: Herbert ch2+ or ch3
amp2: 5153Blue or Red

the tones of these will compliment each other...
although you're actually using less gain, it'll sound and feel like more
so you should end up with a tighter / fatter resultant tone..

and... you don't need to shove a drive block in front of these amps...
these amps will deliver more than enough gain just as they are..
 
+1 for v9.02. I'm really picky about my heavy tones, and after reading so many threads about issues with v10 I probably will never update. v9.02 sounds pretty amazing to me, I have got some super tight and heavy tones, you'll probably still have to tweak it to taste. v9.02 didn't (in my opinion) have anything mindblowing out of the box heavywise, but a lot of the cleans were amazing without having to tweak. Good luck!
 
I think like many others here, that the problems lie within the gain structure of your presets. You are using quite a bit of gain on your amp from what I can tell, and that's going to be a serious trip to slush-ville if you are putting a drive in front of the amp maxed to 10 on the level. If you want to hear more of the amp gain, and less of the compression that comes from using a drive in the front, try backing the level off to between 6 or 7 and starting from there. But seriously, on my FAS Modern patches, my FAS 6160, and my Diezel Herbert Ch 3 patch, the highest my gain ever really goes is about... 4 or so but mostly in the 2.75-3.75 range. My rectifier is up in the 4.75-5.5 range, but the level on my drive is like 8.32 on my drive pedal.

FW 9.02 was really nice for high gain, but I still feel like FW 10.05 has more benefits. It sounds more like an amp to me - the top end is better defined and not quite so "in your face" as 9.02, and the mids structure is just much smoother instead of pokey. I have to do more work to get the recording to sound "polished" as some say, but my mixes sound bigger, badder, and fatter now more than ever.
 
Your gain structure needs some tweaking. I would take the filters out and reset the amp block to default. From there, cycle through cabs to find one that sounds as close to how you want it as possible.

Next, tweak using the basic parameters but use subtle amounts of boost and cut. Remember that turning bass, mid, and treble all to 10 is the same as leaving them all at 5, aside from the volume boost, because the shape is all about the ratio between the three.

Use WAY less gain and your tone will be much more defined, have more punch, and actually be more aggressive. It'll fit better in a mix too!
 
I say you're new to tweaking. I play metal and people love my sounds. Always use just amp and cab block and that's all.

There are soooooo many settings in the amp block so no need for anything else. Master level between 3-4 and gain around 6 with modern amps is enough gain for anything. More than that is just wrong IMO.
 
The main reason i've been using extra filters and stuff is because i don't like the mackie limiting at loud volumes because it has such a huge bottom end to it
I tried backing off the 'tone' and 'level' on the t808 and reducing the gain to 2.5 down from 3.5 and it didn't make that much of an improvement, it lost high end sizzle and sounded really dry haha

My pickups aren't too close to the strings, i've never resitted pickups so i can't really make a good estimate how close it is!

i'm about to try and roll back to 9.02 but I actually dunno how to do so hahah can anyone help? is there a like website that holds all previous firmware updates?
 
if your speakers have too much bottom end, then use the global eq to compensate. it will then apply to all your patches. when you come to record or run through the pa, use the other set of outputs with the global eq set flat
 
simeon said:
if your speakers have too much bottom end, then use the global eq to compensate. it will then apply to all your patches. when you come to record or run through the pa, use the other set of outputs with the global eq set flat
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But with my way i'm just saving myself having to put on a high pass in recordings and any decent sound guy should be high passing my sound anyway!
and this is only when my mackie is getting loud it produces this large bottom end, so reducing the low end frequencies in the global settings would greatly effect my bedroom volume tones

But, your advice does make sense and i'll try this in the near future thanks :)

I've just downloaded the 9.02.syx can i just roll back to that via axe-edit firmware update option?
 
yes

you could have one output with the global set with the low end rolled back and one without. choose which pair you use depending on circumstances - use the pair without eq at home and also for pa and recording. use the compensated pair for your speakers when at volume
 
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