On the brink of giving up.

Lot of educational material here. Much appreciated.

I'll be home in a few hours. Will definitley try every option presented here.

I got the axe 2 not only cause of its qualities, but also so I can record at night without disturbing the neighbors. Tube amp I'm afraid is out of the question.

Also sorry if I missed anyone's responses. I'm on my phone.
 
Just tried your patch out. Output clips steady red here. As suggested, drop the MV and get everything out of the way other than your guitar and Axe. USB to computer straight. Process of elimination. Hope you sort it out.
 
swass said:
Just tried your patch out. Output clips steady red here. As suggested, drop the MV and get everything out of the way other than your guitar and Axe. USB to computer straight. Process of elimination. Hope you sort it out.
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That's odd to me. The preset on my end doesn't do that. If it does its not steady red. We'll see what happens when I start changing the rig up.

I read the wiki on digital clipping. One thing I noticed, it says to adjust level till the meters start to flash in the red. I tried doing this before and it didnt seem to want to go in the red. Hmmm another possible contributor to my issue?
 
MetalGarret said:
I read the wiki on digital clipping. One thing I noticed, it says to adjust level till the meters start to flash in the red. I tried doing this before and it didnt seem to want to go in the red. Hmmm another possible contributor to my issue?
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Nope. The part you're talking about has to do with the input meter. The problem is your output is clipping, and that's bad news. You definitely don't want to "tickle the red" at the output.
 
MetalGarret said:
One thing I noticed, it says to adjust level till the meters start to flash in the red. I
Click to expand...

i believe that's on the input. you should have no red on the out put. i'll get the same clipping in my DAW once in a while when playing with different IR's.
 
maby your tweaking to much which destorys the sound :) all my patches sound awesome with just choosing the right IR and balancing master volume and drive, after that i just use the bass treble and mid knobs a tiny bit
 
You know I have to apologize to you on your last thread man. Yes - your mixer could be fucking up your sound. I have never worked with an Onyx before, but I do know that unless there is any reason for you not to, you should be hooking your axe-fx up to your computer via USB and using it as your audio in before you try anything else.

Just for an example, I didn't realize one of my focusrite inputs was automatically set at a high-z input level, and I just couldn't figure out why I kept clipping in Logic until I realized that the software was adding 12 db of gain on top of whatever signal was coming in. It was awful for a while and everything I did was sounding like total and complete shit. Stereo patches were insanely difficult to balance. Things got ugly. Big time.

I don't know what the wiring in the Onyx is like - I don't know if the EQ's are completely neutral in the neutral position. Any EQ system only has to be bumped a very, VERY, small amount to affect the incoming signal. The gain staging might be off, causing a reduction or increase in volume at the mixer. Especially since people are reporting digital clipping - I am wondering if you aren't sending a loud signal into your mixer and then compensating by lowering the volume on the mixer itself. I don't know if you're using any preamps within the mixer, if the mixer colors the incoming signal, what type of cables you're using to get from A to B, etc.

What I do know is that for $5 you can connect your axe directly to your computer and say fuck all to having to route it through a bunch of stuff that might be mixing you up. Once you can figure that out than you can try things like sending in line signals to a neutral input or into a tube preamp to see if you like the sound better.

The only other thing I would recommend is to come out of the tree for a little bit. We've all been there. Endless tone quests that we think are hard work can really end up being a very harmful thing to us. When you're working on tone (especially high gain tone), get up every 15-20 minutes and go walk around. Put in ear plugs for five minutes, or run your head under some water for a bit. Go out in nature. Do anything that is unrelated to making high gain guitar sounds. Otherwise you just start tweaking and tweaking just to make things sound different. You never have a point of reference because you are always unhappy with the tone you are getting.

I doubt it's your chops. I doubt that you need to go buy an amp to be happy with recording tones. You do, however, need to eliminate some variables before you drive yourself completely bat-shit crazy.
 
MetalGarret said:
Input level too. Not on the red
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Not a problem...

The Axe-FX II manual said:
Adjust according to the level of input source material until “hot” signals “tickle” the red LEDs on the front panel INPUT meters. The red LED lights at -6 dB (below clipping). Some sources may not reach ideal levels but can still be used with no problems.
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@ MetalGaret

is the problem:
- the actual tones you are creating with the Axe?
- what you hear when you are monitoring the Axe?
- the sound you get when you record the Axe?

all of these are completely different and require different solutions..
 
ok. ive plugged directly in and setup the ASIO in PT10. But PT is getting no signal. I checked my I/O's. It all seems fine except no signal to record with. hmmm.
 
tried to load the patch, but axe edit didn't like it

i did look through the parameters and some stuff seems a bit off

you have bias set to 0.484. mesas usually run cold, so this should be more like 0.300

you have sag set to 6.17, which is way too high. this should be around 2

you have master volume set to 6.29. this should be about 3.5

you have power amp high cut at 3810Hz

and some other weird stuff going on too.

if i were you i would reset the amp, so all these go back to defaults

here's a heavy MKII patch that sounds great to me. i haven't touched the advanced params at all...except input trim, which is essential for the boogie sims, and the bias

i've no idea if this is close to what you're looking for, but it shows you can get a good sound without necessarily messing about too much

comparing this to petrucci's sound, i think dropping the mid in the peq slightly might be needed to get closer, but this isn't meant to be a copy

if you don't hear anything like this when you play through the patch, then something else is messing up your sound somewhere...


please excuse the sloppy playing...i'm an ambient guitarist...ok? :)
 

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Jeries said:
The Axe has multiple output options... why is the Mackie even in mix?

And overall I'd say a $300 mixer is more to blame then a $2200 guitar processor that changed the world,
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I also use a Mackie mixer (XLR into it and out to a pair of HD1221 wedges), and FWIW, there's no perceptible tone difference with it. I like having a volume slider outboard, so I can set my out 1/2 levels on the front of the unit for recording and just leave them be. It's pretty handy.
 
RockerAlex said:
Not to derail, but what input level do you guys use for EMGs?
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There's no 'set' level anyone could really give you as a 'benchmark' - just set it up to suit your particular EMGs (make sure battery is new might be good idea). I just set the input to tickle the red with my hottest guitar pickup being spanked - I have guitars with HSS EMGs, SD HSS passives and SSS singles. The EMGs and SDs are pretty much the same output while the singles are a bit lower output ..... but thats what they are supposed to be so I leave it alone and it sounds ok to me without needing to adjust the input level.

If you feel there's a really big swing in input levels which affects your gain when you swap guitars then you might want to dedicate an IA to a clean boost block somewhere in your preset chains that you can hit to restore the signal gain for a particular lower output guitar before it hits the amp block - or just remember to manually adjust the Axe input if you pick up the lower output guitar - or use an x/y solution - or ....... whatever tool you feel from the many in there
 
given that AE has a knack of trashing amp settings...

how about downloading the preset to the Axe via AE..
shutdown AE
make a node from the front panel of the following amp settings [because they will default and you'll need to change them back]:
- depth
- bright
- boost
- sat

switch to another type of amp and switch back
then put the settings above back to how they were originally set..
 
In my experience there is nothing wrong with having the master over six... BUT, I have to turn down the amp level to at least -12, if not (like Cliff mentioned) I'm clipping like crazy). Try to level out your preset to the volume level of the factory presets. Also, running Sag that high will usually darken your sound.
 
MG-Chris said:
I also use a Mackie mixer (XLR into it and out to a pair of HD1221 wedges), and FWIW, there's no perceptible tone difference with it. I like having a volume slider outboard, so I can set my out 1/2 levels on the front of the unit for recording and just leave them be. It's pretty handy.
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I didn't believe it's the mixer's fault from the very beginning of this thread. I've run my II through a lot of different mixers when doing session work. these included the cheapest Behringers up to high end SSL consoles and none of them ever colored the sound in a way that my dialed in patches didn't sound "right" (that is with flat EQs on the console). slightly different maybe, but never "off" and never really affecting transients, punch and such...
 
Jeries said:
The Axe has multiple output options... why is the Mackie even in mix?
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Can't speak for this guy, but I feed a viola, guitar and mic into a mackie and then into my II. Of course, I use the rear inputs.

But if you're ONLY doing guitar, hell yeah, get the mixer OUT of the picture!
 
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