New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appears

B

Barrios

Member
I have been in tone heaven for about 2 weeks with my Ultra now, but I am just getting into editing. I recognized a weird problem that is apparent in my high gain patches. Some sort of flanger/chorus like effect appears and it is noticeable especially when I hold a single note for a while. I hate the sound of flanger/chorus like effects in high gain sounds so I never include them in my effects chain. I tried disabling the blocks (reverb etc...) and it seems like the effects are not responsible from this issue. Disabling the enhancer made it less noticeable, but it is still in there. I have recognized this problem very recently and I am beginning to think that I probably messed something up in the settings of my Ultra.
I have a simple lead patch attached, I would appreciate the help from other people who had a similar experience.

Thanks in advance...
 

Attachments

  • Lead 1.syx
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Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Without looking at the preset you uploaded, I'm pretty sure your problems is summing-to-mono phasing artifacts.

You did not specify how your main output is configured. Is Output 1 Mode set to stereo, copy L->R or sum L+R? What outputs are you using? How are you monitoring the sound? Using one output only or a pair? Going into what? A mixer, a monitor, a pair of monitors, a guitar amp?

Once you provide details, others will be able to help. But I'm guessing you have Output 1 mode set to sum L+R, and are feeding all that to a mono system (mixer, amp, monitor, whatever). Some effects cause phasing artifacts when collapsed to mono. The Enhancer is the worse (I *never* leave the enhancer in any of my presets for that reason. Other effects can also cause these phasing artifacts under certain conditions. In all of those cases, summing to mono in any manner may sound weird. And by any manner, I mean any manned: sum L+R is only one way to collapse to mono (having a mono block in the signal chain *after* a stereo block also collapses to mono, or feeding a stereo signal to a mono mixer or even a stereo one but not panned hard L and R).
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

That's probably caused by phase cancellation. Are you running mono or stereo?
Mono or stereo cab? Disabled ALL other fx blocks? Listening through phones or amp?
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Thanks for the quick responses. I am using the front instrument input and running it stereo to my soundcard and to my monitors from there. The cab is stereo. The patch has L + R SUM selected for Input 1 and Output 1 mode appears as stereo. I will be trying different settings and options, but I would appreciate suggestions.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Barrios said:
Thanks for the quick responses. I am using the front instrument input and running it stereo to my soundcard and to my monitors from there. The cab is stereo. The patch has L + R SUM selected for Input 1 and Output 1 mode appears as stereo. I will be trying different settings and options, but I would appreciate suggestions.
Click to expand...
Ok,

If you're using the front instrument input, you should set Input 1 to Left Only
Output 1 set to Stereo is ok.
Your stereo cab may be ok, but if it's not panned hard L and R, then you have some blending going on. This may cause some phasing artifacts. Try panning them 100% L and 100% right.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Ok, I adjusted my settings accordingly. The cab is panned hard right and left, input 1 is left only and output 1 is stereo. I still have some degree of that weird oscillating effect which becomes enhanced with the enhancer:) This rather odd, because I have been using the enhancer for a while, but this problem did not become obvious until recently. I am pretty sure that it was not present when I first connected my Ultra to my soundcard (and I made no I/O adjustments at the time...)
I am starting to think that maybe I should reset the device to factory settings ?
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Happens also if there's only one amp+cab and nothing but shunts in the preset?
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Barrios said:
I am using the front instrument input and running it stereo to my soundcard
Click to expand...

which leads me to think the problem isn't Axe related at all.

connect the Axe directly to the monitors.
If the problem is gone, then you have some kind of monitoring/loopback feature of your soundcard enabled.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Yes, unfortunately the problem is audible even when the signal is going through the amp + cab only. When I went direct to monitors bypassing the soundcard, it is still there, but I noticed some improvement when going direct to the monitors, thank you for the idea.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

I looked at your patch and I found it odd that you use a stereo cabinet sim with the same cabinets on both sides.
One has a mic while the other doesn't, but still...

A stereo cab has half the resolution of a hires mono cab, and you don't have any stereo fx in fron of it, so I fail to see the point.

Set the cab sim to mono hires and see what happens.

I set the cab to mono hires, disabled everything except amp, cab and geq and turned down the noise gate (which was very high, btw.)
then I recorded one long note in my audio editor.
the waveforms on the left and right channels are identical, I zoomed in so far you could see the individual samples (44.100 to 48.000 or 96.000 per second, depending on you setup) and they were still identical. If there was phasing going on I would have heard and 'seen' it.

maybe you hear the noisegate fighting the signal when it approches the threshold.

please try my suggestions and let me know how it went
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Thank you very much for taking the time to test the patch. I switched to the mono hires cab and disabled other blocks apart from the drive + amp and cab. And while messing with I/O panel settings, I saw that the problem was far worse when the input was selected as "stereo" and I believe that is what I should call a real phase cancellation problem; it is like having a flanger effect turned on all the time. At the moment, that kind of problem is no longer my issue and I will know what I messed up when I come accross that sound again:) I think what my ears now perceive as problematic has more to do with the way a highly overdriven tube amp reacts to a signal. I tested this by putting my tube screamer pedal in front of my H&K Cream Machine (which is real tube preamp/mini power amp device). The type oscillating feel that disturbs me can also be felt in that setup as well, so I feel that I pretty much excluded a possible inherent problem in the Ultra. I guess I should also stay away from the enhancer effect, although this bothers me a bit:)

That being said, I also recorded a few seconds of audio with the signal path suggested by DonPetersen (the noise gate threshold is at zero, but I do not think the problem is the gate) and for those who have the time, I would be happy if you could inform me whether you think the sound in the recording is problematic. Unfortunately, the interface will not let me attach the file...

BTW, this community is awesome indeed:)

Tolga
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

hi.

do you get the same result with a different guitar?

old (dirty) strings can do weird things.
or maybe your pickups are too close to the strings.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Yes, the problem is present with different guitars as well. I wish I could attach the sound file; for some reason the interface keeps telling me that "the board attachment quota has been reached".
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Barrios said:
Yes, the problem is present with different guitars as well. I wish I could attach the sound file; for some reason the interface keeps telling me that "the board attachment quota has been reached".
Click to expand...

Add .zip as filename extension, even though the file is not compressed.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Nope, it still won't let me upload the file even when I change the extension to zip. It is only 185 KB but...
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Without hearing the sample I cannot say for sure but I do believe I know what you are talking about. I hear it as well, however, I have come to the conclusion that this is "normal", for me at least. When I specifically looked for it, I ended up hearing it everywhere on commercially recorded material. I do have a hearing defect (from birth) so that has a lot to do with it as well I guess but what I hear is very similar to what you are describing, a flanger/chorus like effect. Very subtle but quite evident. I do not hear it on a clean setting at all, only on a relatively distorted tone.

I can EQ it out for the most part as the offending freqs appear to live in the 2kHz-2.5kHz range although doing so is not entirely intuitive and seems to depend on the amp sim heavily. In some sims surgical cutting of specific freqs does the trick while in others adding gain to those freqs does it. One thing to note that I have not tried yet with any great zest is using off axis mic placements.

Lastly, for me at least, digging into a note hard will accentuate the "issue" while a controlled and light touch will mask it. It may be the note bloom that we are both hearing and not particularly liking, not sure since as I said my hearing is compromised. I have never had any complaints and only praise for my tone so I ended up ignoring it as much as I can. It still bothers me but such is life.

Good luck!

BTW, my hearing problem is as follows:

- up to and including 1Khz, my hearing is normal
- beyond 1kHz, it takes a steep dive (approx 20db less sensitive than normal)
- I believe what this predominantly means is that I have a hard time hearing the harmonic overtones of a guitar but hear fundamentals ok
- it also means I hear vowels in speech very well but have a hard time with consonants
- I do wear hearing aids to compensate but I just got them earlier this year and quite frankly cannot leave them on when listening to music, it sounds way to "tingy" to me and quite unnerving
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Thank you very much for your response. From your description, I believe we are referring to the same phenomenon, because I have recognized that I too can ignore it at times and then again sometimes it becomes unbearable. The "sensitivity to touch" issue is also present in my experience and it definitely has to do overdriven/distortion sounds rather than clean patches. I was particularly interested in the way you relate this to the certain frequencies; I will try messing with EQ settings and see what it does for me.

I have uploaded the file to hotfile, in case forum users have time (it is a small file) I would like to hear their opinion on this as well. The oscillating effects is evident at times and is most notable with single string passages, but can also be heard in chords as well. I turned off the noise gate completely in order to minimise gate's interference, this is jsut the drive + amp + EQ + cab. Please ignore the string noise etc... and focus on the way the notes sound.

http://hotfile.com/dl/91101156/5a5e728/ ... e.rar.html
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

What I hear mostly is the dissonance created by the distortion as harmonics add up with some of them not musically related to the original note. I am no guru in this area so anybody with more first hand knowledge please pipe up. Distortion adds all sorts of harmonic overtones that are not necessarily, and often not, present in the original signal. Its a good thing bad thing scenario as the overtones gives distortion its appeal. No real cure here that I know of except careful EQ or less distortion. Don't rule out the fret buzz as well as that will create harmonic nodes on the vibrating string which again are not likely to be musically related given that the string is bouncing off the very next fret more than anywhere else (i.e. original note = A, fret buzz artificial harmonic node = A sharp).

Do you hear the same thing when doing a pinch harmonic?

Question, what kind of pickups do you have? Reason I ask is that if you have single coils you may also be experiencing "stratitis" and may want to try lowering your pickups to minimize that effect.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

That pulsing sound is pretty normal and unavoidable IME, especially with a lot of gain.

Dinkledorf said:
I am no guru in this area so anybody with more first hand knowledge please pipe up. Distortion adds all sorts of harmonic overtones that are not necessarily, and often not, present in the original signal.
Click to expand...

I think the main cause is inharmonicity--the harmonics of the string itself not being perfect multiples of the fundamental. The phase relationships varying affects the tone. If you set up a tone where it's obvious you'll probably find it happens faster on the (plain) 3rd string vs. the same note on the 2nd string.
 
Re: New Ultra user requests help - Flanger like effect appea

Yep, the G string is the biggest offender in my experience. Having said that I just had a bit of loose jamming against BTs here and absolutely no issues whatsoever. Makes me believe that it has quite a bit to do with string attack and pick choices as well. Not to eliminate but to minimize.
 
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