Not getting the FRFR thing Too many highs coming through

zentman

zentman

Experienced
What do you guys do? EQ the shiz out of the highs? I would think the cab sim would sound like an amps cab through FRFR but I hear stuff in the high ranges I don't hear with a regular amp cab. Shouldn't that stuff not exist?

I have to block the tweeters on every system I play through to get a "normal" sound. Then it sounds great but I worry about what the house is getting.

So what's the deal? EQ?
 
some people are using the PEQ to shelf the HF's.

I wold give you an example, but I don't remember exactly what they were doing.

I use FRFR's and don't find it a big problem....maybe too many years with loud music ?
 
gittarzann said:
some people are using the PEQ to shelf the HF's.

I wold give you an example, but I don't remember exactly what they were doing.

I use FRFR's and don't find it a big problem....maybe too many years with loud music ?
Click to expand...


Maybe I just don't like the sound of tweeters in my face. :D

Seriously though, seems to me the ideal would be to have an amp block and a cab block sound just like an amp through FRFR not have to do a bunch of EQ stuff to it to trim excessive highs.

Maybe there is something I don't understand about the whole concept. I dunno.
 
zentman said:
I would think the cab sim would sound like an amps cab through FRFR but I hear stuff in the high ranges I don't hear with a regular amp cab.
Click to expand...

Maybe you don't like the IRs... perhaps the mic was placed in a position you don't like. If you listen to your cabs in front of the dust cap, with your ears a few inch away, you'll know what I mean. Try different IRs or use the eq, don't be afraid. Search for a sound, not for a "pedalboard reply" or "knob position". :mrgreen:
 
MKeditor said:
What are you playing through?
Click to expand...
Good question. Not all FRFRs are created equal. The M-Audio monitors I originally used have a harsh high end that makes 'em hard to listen to. When I got my HPR122i, things got a lot easier on the ear.
 
Saying you're trying "FRFR" and don't like it is analagous to say you're trying a "car" and don't like it. Those terms are so generic as to be meaningless.

It sorta matters what you're playing through, just as it sorta matters what you're driving.

Let us know what you got, and you'll get more useful responses.
 
KRK RP6, Tannoy Reveals, JBL 12 EONS, Behringer 12 inch powered floor wedges ( ewwwww).

There does exist some high end info that you wouldn't normally hear from a 12 inch guitar speaker even with a mic or your ear right in the cone.

If nobody else here hears it then I'll just have to EQ it out.

Just seems odd that it gets through at all with cab sims engaged. Through a combo speaker ot a 12 inch wedge with the tweeter blocked it sounds perfect. Just like an amp. Once that tweeter is exposed it sounds unnaturally high endy.

It may be designed to be this way. Fred Poole of Peavey once told me they put excessive highs in the VYPYR series because it was easier to dial them out then dial them in.
 
zentman said:
KRK RP6, Tannoy Reveals, JBL 12 EONS, Behringer 12 inch powered floor wedges ( ewwwww).
Click to expand...
Of the four you mention, I can say that the latter two will have likely HF issues on their own, independent of the signal that is applied to them. I can't say about the other two.

Just seems odd that it gets through at all with cab sims engaged. Through a combo speaker ot a 12 inch wedge with the tweeter blocked it sounds perfect. Just like an amp.
Click to expand...
My presets would all sound too dark with no tweeter or played through a guitar cab.

It may be designed to be this way.
Click to expand...
Which presets are you trying? What cab sims? Assuming that either the KRKs or the Tannoys are reasonably neutral, I'd use one of those (forget stereo for the time being) and start auditioning cab IRs.

Fred Poole of Peavey once told me they put excessive highs in the VYPYR series because it was easier to dial them out then dial them in.
Click to expand...
I've known some of the Peavey engineering staff (mostly ex- staff now) over the years. It was always a fight for them to be allowed to fix some of the huge anomalies (e.g., an octave-wide, 20dB deep notch at crossover) in some of the "tried and true" Peavey standard speakers. There's a lot of ego investment in some of that company's designs.

Peavey's practice is representative of neither common practice nor best practice. You can pretty well take it to the bank that Cliff didn't take his response-voicing cues from them. :lol:
 
I use the KRK RP series at times and they're reasonably flat. I have never had any weird high frequency issues with them (make sure the knob for high end response on the back is set flat).

If you are talking about the factory presets, I found them very bright in nature as well to the point I wouldn't really use them. I suggest starting with a blank preset and just trying to get an amp and cab right. Pick an amp whose sound you're very familiar with and start auditioning cabs. Assuming you haven't messed with any global settings or eq, you shouldn't have much difficulty getting a good baseline sound this way.

I've had unnatural high frequency issues with some low end wedges though. I would expect problems with both the Eons and the Behringers. This is no fault of the Axe-FX. It's simply design problems with the wedges. You would run into the same problems playing back recorded audio through them. It's the nature of the beast.

D
 
Well folks I appreciate the replies. It seems there can really be no answer to this as we all hear things differently and we all use different stuff. For what it's worth, I am not using factory sounds and I have experimented with cabs.

I generally just use the global EQ to totally squash the 8k then peel back the 4k but it's a little blunt.

I may have to add a PEQ block to my models and go from there. As I have a Standard I was hoping to avoid using more resources.

Again, thanks for chiming in.
 
Use the same FRFR to dial and perform through it at every gig regardless of the band PA.

Life will be a lot easier if it isn't a "budget" level FRFR.

Learn which frequencies tend to be exaggerated through the horns of the band PA.

Either dial those out yourself from the main board, or have a soundman with a clue who can.

Also, compare your own "familiar" live tone to your favorite recorded tones...are you running less high end? Are you used to hearing your old guitar cabinet off axis? What about on-axis?

Education, education education. I find the axe-fx is great for learning about rigs & tone. We just have to be willing to learn.
 
solo-act said:
Use the same FRFR to dial and perform through it at every gig regardless of the band PA.

Life will be a lot easier if it isn't a "budget" level FRFR.

Learn which frequencies tend to be exaggerated through the horns of the band PA.

Either dial those out yourself from the main board, or have a soundman with a clue who can.

Also, compare your own "familiar" live tone to your favorite recorded tones...are you running less high end? Are you used to hearing your old guitar cabinet off axis? What about on-axis?

Education, education education. I find the axe-fx is great for learning about rigs & tone. We just have to be willing to learn.
Click to expand...

There are some good tips here, but I don't agree with the first one. I think it is important to dial your tones in with a reasonably flat monitor that you know well. I do not think it needs to be the same one you monitor with at a gig. I dial in tones on a set of studio monitors that I know quite well, and as long as whatever I plug them into at a gig is reasonably well designed and flat I have good results.

This allows me to know that my tones translate well on any reasonably good quality, well designed system, and I can use whatever monitoring is most effective for the gig at hand. For me, the live monitoring solution depends on the gig. Lately it has included: EV stage wedges, Mackie 450, AVIOM in-ears rigs, Yamaha Club series wedges, PV wedges, Fender wedges, etc. Dialing in on a familiar, FRFR studio monitor allowed me to have tones that translated well through all these setups. Most importantly, I can be reasonably sure that it will work well at FOH also. I've yet to have a problem doing it this way for a year and a half now.

YMMV, but I think this is the best way to go.

D
 
I was trying to just bring the Axe and nothing else using whatever the house provided. Unfortunatly, it will probably not work out. Too many variables.

I play churches with about 4 different bands and I also play concerts. Sometimes, I get powered monitors , sometimes just the PA monitors.

I'll probably pick up a really good FRFR for myself so it's always consistent.
 
zentman said:
I was trying to just bring the Axe and nothing else using whatever the house provided. Unfortunatly, it will probably not work out. Too many variables.

I play churches with about 4 different bands and I also play concerts. Sometimes, I get powered monitors , sometimes just the PA monitors.

I'll probably pick up a really good FRFR for myself so it's always consistent.
Click to expand...

It absolutely can work out! Did you read my posts? I'm in precisely the same situation where I prefer to use a provided monitoring setup at a gig.

The key is to get really used to your home monitors (those KRKs should work just fine). Once you have a firm grasp on their sound (just listen to your favorite music through them for a while for starters), you should be able to dial in tones that work perfectly fine with a variety or setups.

When you say it won't work out, it just depends on what you're expecting. If your monitor has to be perfectly consistent from night to night for you to be happy, of course you'll be disappointed unless you haul the exact same rig everywhere. Some guys do that. To me, it isn't that big of a deal really. It isn't like your tone gets completely ruined with a less than ideal monitor. The highs may sound funny, you may have some distortion issues, but in the end these things aren't that big of a deal to me in a gig (the problems are usually pretty minor anyway). Even with the worst monitors I've been provided (that Fender setup), the problems weren't that bad and I had a great time playing the gig. The fact that I didn't have a top-of-the-line active box at my disposal really didn't kill me or anything.

If you want the convenience you're describing, the tradeoff is that you won't have consistency for your monitoring solution. If you have that consistency in your monitoring solution, the tradeoff is that you lose the convencience of not having to haul a monitor with you. You just have to decide which is more important.

D
 
zentman said:
Maybe I just don't like the sound of tweeters in my face. :D
Click to expand...

Assuming that you don't actually have the Cab block bypassed (check the 1st page of the Global pages) then maybe try *not* pointing the tweeters at your face.

You wouldn't point a guitar speaker right at your face, would you?
It stands to reason then that if the Cab Block is doing a good job of making the tonal qualities of your FRFR speaker similar to those of a guitar speaker that pointing the FRFR speaker right at your face would give similar results to pointing a guitar speaker right at your face.
Try angling the FRFR speaker in relation to your ears the same way you'd angle a guitar speaker.
 
joegold said:
zentman said:
Maybe I just don't like the sound of tweeters in my face. :D
Click to expand...

Assuming that you don't actually have the Cab block bypassed (check the 1st page of the Global pages) then maybe try *not* pointing the tweeters at your face.

You wouldn't point a guitar speaker right at your face, would you?
It stands to reason then that if the Cab Block is doing a good job of making the tonal qualities of your FRFR speaker similar to those of a guitar speaker that pointing the FRFR speaker right at your face would give similar results to pointing a guitar speaker right at your face.
Try angling the FRFR speaker in relation to your ears the same way you'd angle a guitar speaker.
Click to expand...

An ideal FRFR will have the same high response from the tweeter whether you have it facing you or off axis - that's one of the advantages of a good FRFR - you don't have the directional problems you have with a guitar cab. Of course in practice, some FRFR monitors are better than others with their HF spread.

With my Tele I've found it necessary to use a PEQ after the AxeFX cabs to tame high response with filter 5 set to blocking, freq somewhere from 4KHz to 10KHz and Q about 0.4 up to 0.7. Lower Q and higher freq gives a gentler roll-off. I haven't needed a PEQ with my humbucker guitar.

I've just started dabbling with the Redwire IRs and for the first time, my FRFR sounds like a real guitar cab. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom