Problems with thin tone

kai_p

Member
Dear all,

To summarize, I have a hard time getting a good tone out of my FM3, firmware version 4.01. I have two general setups, either FM3 -> solid state power amp -> 2x12 Marshall cab with G12 vintage speakers or FM3 -> headphones. In the first setup, I e.g. use only an amp block (power amp sim enabled), in the second setup I use an amp block and a cab block, e.g. with the LT TV mix 2 IR from Leon Todd he uses in his videos, downloaded from axechange.

I run a Gibson SG standard or an Ibanez Jem 777 into the FM3, usually both with humbucker in bridge position.

I tried e.g. the 1959 SLP Jumped model and the Brit 800 Model. For the first, I used among others the same settings as in Leon Todd's "Pimp my Plexi video" so treble drive 3.8, normal drive 1.7, bass 1.8, mid 8.0, treble 8.9, presence 8.2. For the latter I also tried among other settings the same as in one of his videos, drive 6.2, bass 3.5, mid 7.3, treble 6.9, presence 6.7, master 4.6, some input boost.

The thing is, the tones I get, even though the settings are practically the same as in the videos, are so far away from being usable with both headphones and cabinet setup, I cannot imagine how I can even come close to them. The sound is totally thin and hollow with lots of bass and mids missing.

I am wondering how this sound can result. Is it a result of the pickup characteristics in the guitars? I cannot really imagine this, since I played e.g. with a graphic EQ added before the amp, with lots of bass and mids added, but still the sound is really bad. When I switch off the amp block, I hear a bass heavy sound, but as soon as I switch on the amp block, I get the same crappy sound again. For example for the Brit 800, when I turn off power amp sim, the preamp sound is also very thin, I cannot imagine how the power amp could fatten up things to an extent that would fix this.

I tried a lot of settings in amp and cab block but I cannot get this to work reasonably. In the above example with the 1959 SLP Jumped, If I turn down the bright cap value from the default setting to a very low level, the sound gets much more balanced from bass/mid/treble point of view, but I lose much of the distortion and the amp does not feel the same anymore. I played around with lots of values in different settings (presence, depth, input trim, speaker impedance curve, ...) but I cannot get this thing to have good sound...

...to be correct: for many amp models but not all! Interestingly, for some amp models the sound is very good, e.g. for 5F1 Tweed I get nice sounding bass and mids, but for lots of amp models I am interested in, like Brit 800, JM45 and 1959 SLP Jumped, I failed.

Any hints would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Does it sound more to your liking using the factory presets of those amps? I love Leon's videos and tone with HIM playing, but with MY setup, I have to change IR's and often amp setting dramatically or else I end up with it being too thin for my liking.
BTW, basic BMT (and an IR you like) should get you 95% of the way there before messing with other settings.
 
Thanks for your help, yes the factory presets often sound better than what I am able to dial in myself. I think this is exactly the problem.

In my impression, the presets might sound better because they are carefully tweaked, and most importantly have one or even two IRs that match the amp model in a clever way. However, I am not able to find the "correct" IRs matching my amp model + settings from the thousands available; and often even using a matching IR does not seem to be enough, but still some EQing needs to be done. Since I don't have a spectrum analyzer - don't know why this is present on the Axe FX but not on the FM3, I have a hard time e.g. finding correct parametric EQ settings.

Meanwhile, I tried to fix my above-mentioned 1959 SLP setup with the "Leon Todd settings". It turned out that the problem of the harsh, overly bright sound can be mitigated substantially using a post-cab EQ, e.g., using a minus several dB parametric EQ around 1.2 kHz. However, what I do not understand is: If I use the exact same amp settings with the same IR, how can the sound be so extremely different? Is there maybe some postprocessing in his video?

Also, the sound via solid state power amp + my guitar cab (with cab sim turned off, of course) closely matches the sound via headphones (with cab sim on). So it seems I would have to apply corresponding post-amp EQing before going into the solid state power amp. But this seems illogical to me. If the amp modeling in the FM3 is accurate, how can there be a necessity for applying such strong EQing when going into an actual guitar cab? Maybe something is still wrong here in my settings...
 
Is this a used fm3 ? Maybe try and reset parameters . When using power amp and speakers ,I turn off cabs . Maybe reinstall 4.01. I find I have to dial bass out ,add mids and treble . Try the brown factory preset
 
Whish I could help here...I just googled the vid and followed the steps and it sounds pretty close to the vid with my PRS SE Custom 24 when using the same IR in my monitors. I absolutely would not bypass power amp sim when using a solid state power amp. FWIW...he's going for a pretty biting tone here.
 
Whish I could help here...I just googled the vid and followed the steps and it sounds pretty close to the vid with my PRS SE Custom 24 when using the same IR in my monitors. I absolutely would not bypass power amp sim when using a solid state power amp. FWIW...he's going for a pretty biting tone here.
Thanks a lot for your efforts Will! This really helps me in identifying the problem! In the end, if I use the same amp model + settings, same IR, and same headphone on my FM3 and when watching the video, and the sound is extremely different, the only thing that would explain this is the different guitar/pickup...

If this sounds so close for you, maybe it's because your pickupts are a lot more similar to the tone zone than mine are. I did not think that this could have that much of an effect!

I have to check this. I tried using an EQ before the amp block to change the raw sound I get from my pickup, however did not find good settings in this respect. Maybe I simply did not yet find good EQ settings to compensate the pickup's behavior.

Thanks again!
 
I have to imagine a Ibanez Jem 777 stock humbucker is going to be in the neighborhood of a Tone Zone used in the vid (or my stock PRS pickups). Something else is wrong here. Explain the full routing of your setup, all cabling, interface, etc.
 
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What @Will Chen said - giving a thorough rundown of your signal chain will help us to troubleshoot things better :)

Have you tried starting from scratch without using LT's settings? Try throwing just an amp and cab block in a preset and see if you can make something happen.

Have you checked your guitar's setup? Pickup height okay? String gauge?

My used Axe-Fx III came with a fair amount of LT's presets and while they sound great in his videos they don't really work for my style of playing. This may be the case for you too.
 
Dear all,

sorry, I know that there are lots of threads on this topic, and I read a lot about problems with thin tone in posts and the wiki, but I did not find a solution yet, so I wanted to ask here.

To summarize, I have a hard time getting a good tone out of my FM3, firmware version 4.01. I have two general setups, either FM3 -> solid state power amp -> 2x12 Marshall cab with G12 vintage speakers or FM3 -> headphones. In the first setup, I e.g. use only an amp block (power amp sim enabled), in the second setup I use an amp block and a cab block, e.g. with the LT TV mix 2 IR from Leon Todd he uses in his videos, downloaded from axechange.

I run a Gibson SG standard or an Ibanez Jem 777 into the FM3, usually both with humbucker in bridge position.

I tried e.g. the 1959 SLP Jumped model and the Brit 800 Model. For the first, I used among others the same settings as in Leon Todd's "Pimp my Plexi video" so treble drive 3.8, normal drive 1.7, bass 1.8, mid 8.0, treble 8.9, presence 8.2. For the latter I also tried among other settings the same as in one of his videos, drive 6.2, bass 3.5, mid 7.3, treble 6.9, presence 6.7, master 4.6, some input boost.

The thing is, the tones I get, even though the settings are practically the same as in the videos, are so far away from being usable with both headphones and cabinet setup, I cannot imagine how I can even come close to them. The sound is totally thin and hollow with lots of bass and mids missing.

I am wondering how this sound can result. Is it a result of the pickup characteristics in the guitars? I cannot really imagine this, since I played e.g. with a graphic EQ added before the amp, with lots of bass and mids added, but still the sound is really bad. When I switch off the amp block, I hear a bass heavy sound, but as soon as I switch on the amp block, I get the same crappy sound again. For example for the Brit 800, when I turn off power amp sim, the preamp sound is also very thin, I cannot imagine how the power amp could fatten up things to an extent that would fix this.

I tried a lot of settings in amp and cab block but I cannot get this to work reasonably. In the above example with the 1959 SLP Jumped, If I turn down the bright cap value from the default setting to a very low level, the sound gets much more balanced from bass/mid/treble point of view, but I lose much of the distortion and the amp does not feel the same anymore. I played around with lots of values in different settings (presence, depth, input trim, speaker impedance curve, ...) but I cannot get this thing to have good sound...

...to be correct: for many amp models but not all! Interestingly, for some amp models the sound is very good, e.g. for 5F1 Tweed I get nice sounding bass and mids, but for lots of amp models I am interested in, like Brit 800, JM45 and 1959 SLP Jumped, I failed.

Any hints would be greatly appreciated.
Share a preset and your system+fc backup file that demonstrates the problem. Don’t ask us to imagine what your settings are.
 
I love Leon tone & feel. He plays many downtuned guitars, but the concept behind is the same: avoid excessive bass BEFORE distortion stage(s), recover bass after distortion stage. Check amp input filter, tweak it until the breakup in the lows sound right to your ears. Then use tremble, mid and bass to fine tune the distortion (TMB is after preamp, before poweramp... Leon lower the bass enough to sound big without pushing the poweramp into ugly farting bass...). Leon preset blast at giggin level, and to my ears are tuned to make room for drums, bass & voice. When isolated it may sound thin, but the resulting mix is a wall of sound.
Don't underestimate the perceived volume and fletcher-munson curve.
 
No expert here but find myself clicking in axe edit setup button to the top right and then go to output eq on left near botttom and play with that - its like a global eq
 
Whish I could help here...I just googled the vid and followed the steps and it sounds pretty close to the vid with my PRS SE Custom 24 when using the same IR in my monitors. I absolutely would not bypass power amp sim when using a solid state power amp. FWIW...he's going for a pretty biting tone here.

Yeah, I love LT, and he is such an amazing resource. We share similar tastes, guitars, and tunings, and approach.
That said, none of his presets work for me. That doesn't make anyone wrong either. It's just the lay of the land
with these things. :)
 
If it sounds thin both when you're using IRs and when you bypass the speaker block and when you're going into the power amp and regular speakers, you might need to rethink your patch. Check to see if you have a bright switch or a boost enabled.
 
I would not underestimate the differences in guitars/pickups. My buddy's Les Paul sounds COMPLETELY different than mine (as anecdotal evidence). Even pickup height differences can make a big difference in mids / power vs. openness and clarity.
 
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