New to AX8, most patches sounds dark and bassy

Prorenzo

Prorenzo

Member
Hello, I just got my AX8 a few days ago. However, almost every patch sounds unusually dark and boomy. Especially the Larry Mitchell Life Pad patch I downloaded on page one. I tried all my 3 electric guitars but still the same.

I am running into a pair of Adam F7 monitors (which are known for being bright) via Audient iD4. I've also tried plugging my AX8 straight into my monitors. Also quite dark sounding. I have to carve out quite a lot of bass, from tweaking low cuts to EQ to depth to resonance for nearly every stock patch.

My AX8 unit came with firmware Quantum 5.01 and I just updated it to 6.01. Also the same results.
Am I doing anything wrong or missing out something here? Perhaps need to adjust something in the Global settings?

Feedback would be very much appreciated!
 
Hmm, I have no idea why that is happening as that was not my experience at all! I just got my AX8 a short time ago but have been extremely pleased with its sound quality. If every preset sounds that way it sounds like there may be a global setting that might be causing that. If you haven't changed anything since it came out of the box then that is puzzling.
 
There is a global EQ for output1 and another for output2. if you feel all presets are to dark, try using some global EQ to brighten things up across the board.
 
Listen to your patches through headphones only, with the Adams powered off, and see if it still sounds boomy.
 
There is a lot of low end. From my experience this is the case with most modelers and the remedy is pre eq for amp, and HP filter for the cab.
IRs can also use a LP filter most of the time.
I'm only speaking about my preferences of course, but the AX8 provides all the tools needed to make us all happy.
 
New to AX8 as well and I find the stock IRs to be quite dark. so I just bought the dizzy cab pack, loaded a few IRs on the bright side (SM57) and it cured the issue.

Take advantage of the looper block to tweak your amps. Playing while tweaking is notoriously misleading.
 
With an 8 hours of further tweaking and more EQing, I can finally dial out the mud and darkness. Pretty happy now! Thank you to everyone who has responded :)

With a good rhythm tone done up, now I proceed on to lead tones. Can anybody recommend a transparent OD/boost with recommended settings? Most of the drive pedals ive tried end up colouring and masking the amp tone too much. It makes the tone it too rounded and kills pick attack, even tho ive set my amp settings in such a way to make the pick attack jump out.
 
Before adding a pedal, did you try messing with the sat switch and drive / master trim ? Big game changers for me. Some advanced parameters are worth trying, neg feedback, PA hardness, Xformer match/drive/grind, that sort of stuff.
 
Prorenzo said:
Hello, I just got my AX8 a few days ago. However, almost every patch sounds unusually dark and boomy. Especially the Larry Mitchell Life Pad patch I downloaded on page one. I tried all my 3 electric guitars but still the same.

I am running into a pair of Adam F7 monitors (which are known for being bright) via Audient iD4. I've also tried plugging my AX8 straight into my monitors. Also quite dark sounding. I have to carve out quite a lot of bass, from tweaking low cuts to EQ to depth to resonance for nearly every stock patch.

My AX8 unit came with firmware Quantum 5.01 and I just updated it to 6.01. Also the same results.
Am I doing anything wrong or missing out something here? Perhaps need to adjust something in the Global settings?

Feedback would be very much appreciated!
Click to expand...

Most default presets need work IMO, but they are there not to please tone. They are starting points to your tone.

Now, if you don't want to mess around with anything, get FREMEN presets, not free, but worth every penny.
 
I haven't used any of the presets for my sounds, but just created my own very easily. I'm not running into a system anything like yours but into guitar power amps and cabs, etc so my findings are probably different than yours. Mine were EXTREMELY easy to set up amps sounding like my great amp collection I have. Very little eq'ing and not much in the way of tweaking advanced parameters. . Anyway if you're looking for the 'drives' that are transparent those would be the MIcro Boost, the Tape Distortion , the SDD Preamp, the FAS Boost , etc. . They're great. Whether or not they work for you and your style of playing and setup,etc might be a different story. I don't use really high output HB's or SC pickups. I'm not that keen on the TS-variants, the Fuzzes, or the Rat-variants BUT I haven't updated my Firmware yet to the one that supposedly 'fixed/enhanced' those. (didn't want to have to reset all my programs, but I guess I'll have to sooner than later. . ha. .) ALSO, the "BOOST" feature, the "SATURATION" feature, the "FILTER" block etc to me have been even better than many of the 'drive pedals'. Hope you get it working great for your needs and good luck. Eric
 
Prorenzo said:
With an 8 hours of further tweaking and more EQing, I can finally dial out the mud and darkness. Pretty happy now! Thank you to everyone who has responded :)

With a good rhythm tone done up, now I proceed on to lead tones. Can anybody recommend a transparent OD/boost with recommended settings? Most of the drive pedals ive tried end up colouring and masking the amp tone too much. It makes the tone it too rounded and kills pick attack, even tho ive set my amp settings in such a way to make the pick attack jump out.
Click to expand...
I would suggest you try the Esoteric RC which is a take on the Xotic RC Booster. I am a huge fan of the pedal (which I have) and it is a very good model of it. It's very transparent, does not color your tone but just adds more gain. You could also experiment with your amp gain settings. I use both. Amp x/y with Y being a bit more gain than X (which is basically my clean tone which I set slightly on the edge of breakup) and then I use the Esoteric RC to take it beyond that. I also use a filter block at +4 db as a boost for either clean or higher gain.
 
Thank you for the suggestions! I will try them out tomorrow morning as it is getting late.

I am intending to have clean, rhythm, and lead scenes all in one patch for more seamless switching. That would take me to the conclusion of having an X clean amp, Y dirty amp, and Y dirty amp with OD/boost respectively.

Good thing I am on 8 day MC due to wisdom tooth extraction, plenty of time to experiment :p
 
speedloader said:
New to AX8 as well and I find the stock IRs to be quite dark. so I just bought the dizzy cab pack, loaded a few IRs on the bright side (SM57) and it cured the issue.

Take advantage of the looper block to tweak your amps. Playing while tweaking is notoriously misleading.
Click to expand...
For some reason, even when placing the looper at the front of the signal chain, the tone from the looper is ever so slightly different from actual playing. Looser, fatter mids, and with more high end shrill.
 
Prorenzo said:
For some reason, even when placing the looper at the front of the signal chain, the tone from the looper is ever so slightly different from actual playing. Looser, fatter mids, and with more high end shrill.
Click to expand...

Auditory illusion. The looper simply records what you play. It does not alter the signal in any way. It's digital, there is no change to the data.
 
Prorenzo said:
For some reason, even when placing the looper at the front of the signal chain, the tone from the looper is ever so slightly different from actual playing. Looser, fatter mids, and with more high end shrill.
Click to expand...
The difference is that, when you're playing, you're hearing the acoustic sound of your guitar along with your amplified sound. When you're using the looper, you take away that part of the sound.

It takes a surprising amount of volume to completely swamp your guitar's acoustic sound.
 
I remember hearing this phenomenon when I started playing with looping too. Turns out that your guitar's strings have a lot more of an effect on your perception of your tone than you'd think.

Actually, one of the best things you can do to improve your tone overall is to place a looper at the beginning of your chain and record a long loop of you playing stuff you normally play, then put your guitar down for a minute and adjust your settings while the looper is playing along in the background.
 
A returning newbie here and found the same thing.

A quick look in the Cab block showed the Lowcut Frq at 20Hz and Highcut Frq at 20KHz (on the Pg2 parameters) which occurred to me as way outside the norm for a guitar cabinet. I simply adjusted the Lowcut to ~70-80Hz and dropped the Highcut to ~7500-8500KHz and suddenly everything sounded fantastic.

Not sure if this was the right way to solve the issue but seemed simple to me and it worked very well.
 
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