Ok, what am I doing wrong (going direct to the PA)

[MrShredX]

Last night was the first time I took the AFX to rehearsal...Thankfully I took the power amp and cab just in case I did something wrong.

Anyway, set I/O on output 1 to L+R Sum and ran an XLR out of the left balanced out on Output 1 to the practice PA main board...I set that channel completely flat...in short, it sounded pretty darned bad...all of my patches (with cab emulation on) sounded like one of those little Smokey shirtpocket sized amps...

I quickly unhooked it, hooked up the unbalanced out to my power amp and then to my guitar cab and turned cab simulations off...all was right with the world.

This is the first time I've tried using the balanced outs to a PA...I promise I'm not a complete idiot, but it should have worked fine right? Granted, it's just a practice room PA with a powered mixer and two 15" passive cabs...nothing expensive or fancy.

I'm going to take the AFX to another PA I can test it out with, but my experience last night didn't jibe with the experiences everyone else has had running direct...it sounded bad, as if something was wrong

Shannon

 

[rudileo]

Do the PA - patches have the same layout and setup as your Poweramp into Cab-patches, just with a active cabblock?

 

[Jay Mitchell]

Anyway, set I/O on output 1 to L+R Sum and ran an XLR out of the left balanced out on Output 1 to the practice PA main board...I set that channel completely flat...in short, it sounded pretty darned bad...all of my patches (with cab emulation on) sounded like one of those little Smokey shirtpocket sized amps...

Sounds to me like you need to do some preset tweaking with an FRFR system. You can't jump back and forth among different types of amplification systems with the same presets and expect to get good results.

This is the first time I've tried using the balanced outs to a PA...

Go back and do a search for the accounts of Axe-Fx users who changed from guitar cabs to FRFR systems. You will find that they all went through an adaptation period, during which time they learned how to get the sounds they wanted from neutral amplification. It was never a matter of using the same presets without modification. If you don't have presets that you specifically developed while playing through an FRFR system, then you'll need to create some.

 

[finstah]

see if anything in here helps

http://www.setbb.com/axefx/viewtopic.ph ... orum=axefx

 

[javajunkie]

Last night was the first time I took the AFX to rehearsal...Thankfully I took the power amp and cab just in case I did something wrong.

Anyway, set I/O on output 1 to L+R Sum and ran an XLR out of the left balanced out on Output 1 to the practice PA main board...I set that channel completely flat...in short, it sounded pretty darned bad...all of my patches (with cab emulation on) sounded like one of those little Smokey shirtpocket sized amps...

I quickly unhooked it, hooked up the unbalanced out to my power amp and then to my guitar cab and turned cab simulations off...all was right with the world.

This is the first time I've tried using the balanced outs to a PA...I promise I'm not a complete idiot, but it should have worked fine right? Granted, it's just a practice room PA with a powered mixer and two 15" passive cabs...nothing expensive or fancy.

I'm going to take the AFX to another PA I can test it out with, but my experience last night didn't jibe with the experiences everyone else has had running direct...it sounded bad, as if something was wrong

Shannon

Did you double check your gobal cab sims were on? What about global poweramps sims?

 

[MrShredX]

For what it's worth Jay, I didn't just dial up the same patches...I reverted back to the 5.22 presets of Bank A and Bank B and not the patches I had for use with guitar cabinet...I also had a few of the proven FRFR patches from Axexchange loaded up just for this situation, specifically Scott's JCM800.

Shannon

 

[bluesdoc]

Yes, you didn't mention whether you turned your cab sims on/off. If you left them off, that would account for nearly everything, though I'm finding that I still need to change my amp parameters (ie, separate patch) to idealize each configuration. Weirdly, sometimes my cab sims ON setting sounds pretty damn good into a ss amp to guitar cab, but never the other way around (cab sims off to FRFR --->>> yuckk).

jon

 

[MrShredX]

Yes, you didn't mention whether you turned your cab sims on/off. If you left them off, that would account for nearly everything, though I'm finding that I still need to change my amp parameters (ie, separate patch) to idealize each configuration. Weirdly, sometimes my cab sims ON setting sounds pretty damn good into a ss amp to guitar cab, but never the other way around (cab sims off to FRFR --->>> yuckk).

jon

Jon, hey man, didn't know you'd gotten one of these.

Anyway, I believe I did mention in my post that I turned the cab sims off for use with the guitar cab and on for use with the PA.

For the first week I had the AFX I ran it mono from the unbalanced out to a pretty flat acoustic amp and used the cab sims a lot...when I got the power amp / guitar cab, I turned them off...I've gone back and forth enough between the two to be familiar with tweaking with cab sims vs. using the guitar cabinet and ss amp...hell, I'm even using Jay's IR's for some of the patches I built to go direct...

My point is, last night was the first time I'd used the balanced outs and it sounded bad as if something was wrong/broken...not trying to be difficult...I'm just trying to figure out if I missed something

 

[bluesdoc]

Yeah, I'm on it, Shannon!! One of the ways to know would be to run an unbalanced line out to a FRFR cab. I take it you don't have one (yet), but if you could find one to try it, you'd know more. Uh, did I miss something? If you don't have a FRFR cab, then you can't be sure how you've dialed it in for direct to board. ??

edit - reread - what Jay said. You have to have some sort of frfr system to dial in direct sounds. And, choice of cab makes a huge difference in sound character. Interestingly, I got some pretty cool tones out of the 1X6" speaker cab sim...... :shock:

jon

 

[MrShredX]

Yeah, I'm on it, ss!! One of the ways to know would be to run an unbalanced line out to a FRFR cab. I take it you don't have one (yet), but if you could find one to try it, you'd know more. Uh, did I miss something? If you don't have a FRFR cab, then you can't be sure how you've dialed it in for direct to board. ??

jon

I've ran it a few times using the unbalanced out to the PA and it sounded fine...same with the unbalanced out to the acoustic amp w/cab sims on...in otherwords, I've heard it sound good with cab sims on...last night was simply the first time I'd tried it with an balanced cable to the PA...granted the PA is pretty crappy, but we were cranking various CD's through it all night and it sounded fine...

I'll experiment more...If I continue to have a bad sound from the balanced out, I'll call support...

 

[MrShredX]

fwiw, I'm not attacking the AFX, so please, no one has to feel like they have to defend it. I love the AxeFX...I was just dismayed at what I've heard sound good from an unbalanced out to a PA sound bad from the balanced out.

 

[javajunkie]

Yeah, I'm on it, ss!! One of the ways to know would be to run an unbalanced line out to a FRFR cab. I take it you don't have one (yet), but if you could find one to try it, you'd know more. Uh, did I miss something? If you don't have a FRFR cab, then you can't be sure how you've dialed it in for direct to board. ??

jon

I've ran it a few times using the unbalanced out to the PA and it sounded fine...same with the unbalanced out to the acoustic amp w/cab sims on...in otherwords, I've heard it sound good with cab sims on...last night was simply the first time I'd tried it with an unbalanced cable to the PA...granted the PA is pretty crappy, but we were cranking various CD's through it all night and it sounded fine...

I'll experiment more...If I continue to have a bad sound from the balanced out, I'll call support...

did you try the other balanced out? If there is a significant difference (other than output strength) between the balanced and unbalanced output 1, then something is wrong. Did you try other cables?

 

[Jay Mitchell]

For what it's worth Jay, I didn't just dial up the same patches...I reverted back to the 5.22 presets of Bank A and Bank B and not the patches I had for use with guitar cabinet...

Still the same problem. We don't know what you want to hear. Only you know that. You need to dial in presets to your taste using oyur FRFR system. There's no way to shortcut that.

I'm not ruling out that there may have been a setting inadvertently misconfigured for FRFR use, but nothing in your experience is surprising to me. I would never recommend a jump from cabs to FRFR without some quality time spent adapting in advance. It's just too different.

 

[MrShredX]

For what it's worth Jay, I didn't just dial up the same patches...I reverted back to the 5.22 presets of Bank A and Bank B and not the patches I had for use with guitar cabinet...

Still the same problem. We don't know what you want to hear. Only you know that. You need to dial in presets to your taste using oyur FRFR system. There's no way to shortcut that.

I'm not ruling out that there may have been a setting inadvertently misconfigured for FRFR use, but nothing in your experience is surprising to me. I would never recommend a jump from cabs to FRFR without some quality time spent adapting in advance. It's just too different.

*sigh* You are missing the point...

it went from sounding thick and full as if a cabinet were active to thin, harsh and buzzy as if I was playing into a headphone amp...I'm not talking "Oh, it was bad tone", I'm talking "it sounded broken"

I HAVE spent time with an FRFR cabinet, I DO know the patches sound good with an unbalanced out to an FRFR cabinet...

*sigh* I'm actually sorry I started the thread now...

 

[MrShredX]

did you try the other balanced out? If there is a significant difference (other than output strength) between the balanced and unbalanced output 1, then something is wrong. Did you try other cables?

Tried both balanced outs though with the same cable...there was a huge difference between the balanced output and the unbalanced output...

 

[javajunkie]

did you try the other balanced out? If there is a significant difference (other than output strength) between the balanced and unbalanced output 1, then something is wrong. Did you try other cables?

Tried both balanced outs though with the same cable...there was a huge difference between the balanced output and the unbalanced output...

The unbalanced and balanced output 1 are the same signal and should sound the same. There is some circuitry afterwards that can cause one to be bad while the other is fine but it usually is only on one side if that happens. A bad cable could be the culprit if you didn't try swapping it, or something w/ the way you were inputting the balanced connection into the board (it is a line level signal not a mic level). I've heard of one side of the balanced outputs being damaged but not both, but it is possible.

 

[MrShredX]

did you try the other balanced out? If there is a significant difference (other than output strength) between the balanced and unbalanced output 1, then something is wrong. Did you try other cables?

Tried both balanced outs though with the same cable...there was a huge difference between the balanced output and the unbalanced output...

The unbalanced and balanced output 1 are the same signal and should sound the same. There is some circuitry afterwards that can cause one to be bad while the other is fine but it usually is only on one side if that happens. A bad cable could be the culprit if you didn't try swapping it, or something w/ the way you were inputting the balanced connection into the board (it is a line level signal not a mic level). I've heard of one side of the balanced outputs being damaged but not both, but it is possible.

I'm not counting any of that out...I'm just trying to get a handle on this as I play a lot of places where the PA gear is not my own...

 

[straighteight2003]

Last try I see (maybe you already tried this too) is try another cable.

Since I'm using the unbalanced out1 to go to the PA, does anyone know if the balanced out1 is wired differently to any "normal" xlr-cable? Hope I could make myself unterstandable.

 

[javajunkie]

did you try the other balanced out? If there is a significant difference (other than output strength) between the balanced and unbalanced output 1, then something is wrong. Did you try other cables?

The unbalanced and balanced output 1 are the same signal and should sound the same. There is some circuitry afterwards that can cause one to be bad while the other is fine but it usually is only on one side if that happens. A bad cable could be the culprit if you didn't try swapping it, or something w/ the way you were inputting the balanced connection into the board (it is a line level signal not a mic level). I've heard of one side of the balanced outputs being damaged but not both, but it is possible.

I'm not counting any of that out...I'm just trying to get a handle on this as I play a lot of places where the PA gear is not my own...

Right, just giving some ideas to check out. It doesn't sound like normal behavior to me.

 

[javajunkie]

Last try I see (maybe you already tried this too) is try another cable.

Since I'm using the unbalanced out1 to go to the PA, does anyone know if the balanced out1 is wired differently to any "normal" xlr-cable? Hope I could make myself unterstandable.

It is wired the same.