Playing through FRFR in the same room as a real amp

bloodninja

Inspired
I saw this posted in the Ax8 forum and didn't want to derail the thread, so I'm posting here. Does this match your experience?

"I think if you are comparing any modeler (even *GASP*, FAS) through FRFR to a tube-amp-wielding guitar player "in the room" then you are going to always have this type of experience. FRFR and amp+cab just aren't the same. Even plugging a modeler into a effects return of a tube amp just doesn't sound the same.

The good news though, and where most modelers outshine the competition, is through the FoH PA System. That tube amp gets mic'd up sloppily and runs through the FoH and the audience hears a subpar sound, whereas your sound is exactly what you heard back through your studio monitors at home and sounds glorious."


EDIT: This is with respect to the modeler just not cutting through and getting buried in the mix
 
You can EQ the modeler to cut through. I’ve played many stages with a real amp and my Axe through a full range speaker with no issues.

I’ve had trouble playing real amps with someone else’s real amp just the same.

Main issue I think is people make their tones at home with just the guitar alone, then bringing to the band at volume, it doesn’t fit the mix. Make your tones at gig volume with the band - like people naturally do with a real amp - and it will work better.
 
The same people that don't know how to setup a sound for that purpose do also fail when setting the amp controls at home on their real amps. Wrong expectations about what they need in the mix.
The thing is that they can easily fix that in the rehearse with a real amp. They simply crank highs and presence and lower bass and they are done.
Such controls are missing on most of the modelers so that's why many tell about them to fail in live situations with FRFRs. Once you have your settings right the axe-fx blasts as good and as loud as an amp.
This means you can get a good result when you invest some work in it. The UI is not thought to allow for fast corrections over all sounds like you could do them with a real amp, so I can understand when people don't get it to run for them. The UI is thought for having programmed everything before you go to the rehrarse and you better have hit the right settings.
 
I have an Axe-Fx III and primarily use the Mark IIC++ model. I played in a band where the other guitar player had multiple Mesa Boogie amps he would bring a different one every practice it would seem, Mark V, JP2c etc. His guitar sound and mine were pretty much indistinguishable...
 
I play every gig opposite a guitarist with a conventional amp. I have no issues. I solved my problems by listening to my real amp and realizing its sounded pretty bright and edgy when I played without the band, but fit right in onstage. Frankly, my killer live amp tone wasn’t pleasant to stand in front of at home. You have to build your sounds for where they’ll be played, and once I learned to build presets for the band (generally more high end and less distortion than sounds good alone) I have been quite happy.

Morale of the story: if you play in a band, tweak your presets with the band.
 
@666was999 I'd love to be able to use a small outboard midi knob controller (4-8 knob-buttons) that could be mapped to specific controls like gain, bass, treble, presence, delay mix, reverb mix, etc. I saw some talk of this in the forum but don't know if anyone has a setup that uses knobby midi controller for on-the-fly tweaking.
 
It's definitely different but can be better IMHO. I play through my Axe III and my son plays through a Goodsell Deluxe Reverb tube amp and if I build a preset by myself it never mixes with the tube amp. But if I build/tweak it while he's playing I can dial it in nicely. AND, I don't have cabinet/tube rattle!!
 
@666was999 I'd love to be able to use a small outboard midi knob controller (4-8 knob-buttons) that could be mapped to specific controls like gain, bass, treble, presence, delay mix, reverb mix, etc. I saw some talk of this in the forum but don't know if anyone has a setup that uses knobby midi controller for on-the-fly tweaking.

I have something like that. I use my RAC12 as a midi controller for my III. There are filter blocks in my goto presets and they get controlled by midi commands from the RAC12. They add gain at 400 Hz before the amp block and at 1700 Hz and at 3500 Hz after it.

Another trick is to use global blocks to apply changes to many presets at once. You can make groups of global blocks to handle different sounds. That the way I grouped my global blocks: Global link 5 is always for my clean sounds, global link 1 is for the distorted sounds, global link 3 for lead sounds.
 
The RAC12 looks cool. I'm thinking of something a bit smaller and more portable (I don't have a rack system) with ability to map virtually any CC or message.
 
I play every gig opposite a guitarist with a conventional amp. I have no issues. I solved my problems by listening to my real amp and realizing its sounded pretty bright and edgy when I played without the band, but fit right in onstage. Frankly, my killer live amp tone wasn’t pleasant to stand in front of at home. You have to build your sounds for where they’ll be played, and once I learned to build presets for the band (generally more high end and less distortion than sounds good alone) I have been quite happy.

Morale of the story: if you play in a band, tweak your presets with the band.

You wont read / get better advice than this. It should be stick'ied !!!!

Ben
 
I play every gig opposite a guitarist with a conventional amp. I have no issues. I solved my problems by listening to my real amp and realizing its sounded pretty bright and edgy when I played without the band, but fit right in onstage. Frankly, my killer live amp tone wasn’t pleasant to stand in front of at home. You have to build your sounds for where they’ll be played, and once I learned to build presets for the band (generally more high end and less distortion than sounds good alone) I have been quite happy.

Morale of the story: if you play in a band, tweak your presets with the band.

This is sound and solid advice and quite frankly, it is no different when using a real amp.
As pointed out, what you hear at home is nothing like how it blends in with the mix of playing live. At home by it self, you like to crank the bottom a bit and drop the mids.....live, I drop the bottom a bit and bring up the mids and highs to fit into the mix.
 
Great advice here, but I would add that part of the "bug" is actually a feature. Part of dialing in a tube amp is the volume knob, and dialing in an "experience". The Axefx's volume knob is not a tone control so competing with a tube amp live looks/feels goofy. That's fixed by dialing in tones while in a mix, as has been suggested before.

Might call it lazy, but ditching the cab and going power amp + cab completely bypasses this problem. Actually I suppose it transfers the difficulty toward actually moving your rig around, lol
 
You have to build it where ever you build them and tweak them when your with the live amp. I think some weight has to be on what your playing i.e. rythm versus lead. I think if your on the back side it’s less important but still important. I am still going through the learning curve and to complicate matters, I haven’t been in a band in years. Believe it or not, the new joy instilled with Axe FX III inspired me. I am playing classic rock lead in front of two guys playing Marshal JVM’s. I gotta tell you it’s a little challenging but still, non the less, fun and inspiring. We’ve have been doing some home grown blue’s and I am using a bunch of Marco Fanton pre sets. They just seem to work well, especially the Marshall pre sets. Again, my experience is limited but I think it has a lot to do with how deep your knowledge is when building the patches, I would really recommend giving a Fanton patch a chance and see if it helps.
 
I saw this posted in the Ax8 forum and didn't want to derail the thread, so I'm posting here. Does this match your experience?

"I think if you are comparing any modeler (even *GASP*, FAS) through FRFR to a tube-amp-wielding guitar player "in the room" then you are going to always have this type of experience. FRFR and amp+cab just aren't the same. Even plugging a modeler into a effects return of a tube amp just doesn't sound the same.

The good news though, and where most modelers outshine the competition, is through the FoH PA System. That tube amp gets mic'd up sloppily and runs through the FoH and the audience hears a subpar sound, whereas your sound is exactly what you heard back through your studio monitors at home and sounds glorious."


EDIT: This is with respect to the modeler just not cutting through and getting buried in the mix
It’s all in how you dial it in & also what you are using to amplify your AxeFX/Modeler with. With audio, your sound can only be as good as your weakest link in the chain.
 
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