Producing Natural Sustain & Feedback

rickgk

rickgk

Experienced
Hi,

I've had the ultra for a couple of weeks now and am finding it very hard to get the same responsiveness, natural sustain, and controlled feedback that i achieve with my tube rigs the main one being a marshall jvm410 head.

I find the ultra great for recording direct and the sounds sit in a recorded mix much better than pod's gt8's etc that i have used in the past, but it's also much more expensive than these units.

I was hoping that the axe would replace my current valve amp rig but at this stage the valve amp is staying. So i am in a bit of a bind because one has to go.

I am having no trouble matching tones from my amp and others amps with the axe, it's quite amazing being able to match up sounds so that they are almost identical. But i have not been able to duplicate the responsivness as far as sustain & controlled feedback goes, pick dynamics are quite good and backing off of the volume knob also quite good.
But notes seem to fade unnaturally, especially high up on the fretboard, they don't have the bloom, sustain, then decay that i get from the valve amps i have, when i pick a note for leads on my valve amp the note blooms, sustains then feeds back all over the fretboard no matter which string or which note, but not so on the axe so far, the lower notes on the e,a,d strings seem to feedback o.k. but the higher strings are very hit and miss and are not predictable like a valve amp.

I have tried the axe direct through my bands p.a. through my studio monitors, through the fx return of my marshall with cab & poweramp sims off, and through a 200watt ss poweramp into my cabs with poweramp sims off and on, the tones are really good but that note bloom & sustain for leads is lacking, and as any lead player knows these factors influence the playing experience greatly!

So has anybody got any tips here?

Don't get me wrong i still think it's a great unit but at the moment there is no way i could be happy to get rid of my valve amp!
It's probably 90% of the way there but that last 5-10% is what makes the playing experience truly inspiring for me.

I guess i just expected for it to do everything my valve amp did and more, and whilst it can cop the tones i haven't been able to cop the interactivity that i am used to from a valve amp.
 
Actually I couldn't disagree more ....

I used to own the POD, then the XT ..., added the DEQ-2496 ot make it as realistic as possible ( for back then ) ....

I even bought a Jackson, PC-1 with the sustainer so I could simulate the sustain & feedback !

Just couldn't make it work ( like you said the last 5% - 10% just wasn't ever going to be there ). Ditched it all for an OD-100SEPlus and was happy ....

Got my Ultra after my wife and I had a baby, now I'm thinking about selling the PC-1 because the sustainer just isn't needed. Even with the neck pickup I get enough sustain to satisfy. O.K., maybe not controllable feedback without really cranking my monitors. But pretty darn close !
 
well getting a sustainer system is exactly what i am thinking of doing with the axe so i can get that aspect back to where it is with my valve amps.
But because i use a parker fly mojo it's probably an impossibility.

You know where you hit a note and after the initial attack the note blooms (becomes slightly louder & spreads) then follows into nice controlled feedback, that's what i want to achieve any tips would be greatly appreciated.
 
Try inverting your output phase.

Some presets offer better controlled feedback results when you invert the phase of the output signal.

From the Axe-Fx front panel:
  • Press the I/O button[/*:m:jnvf0ta7]
  • Using the Page buttons to select the Audio page [/*:m:jnvf0ta7]
  • Scroll down to Output1 and Output 2[/*:m:jnvf0ta7]
  • Change the settings to Invert [/*:m:jnvf0ta7]
 
something is wrong if you cannot get controlled, musical singing feedback
from the axe. i use no compressors, noisegate or eq, just the amp. i have used it for 2yrs as w/a poweramp/guitar cabinet setup
& it sounded & felt like the best amps i have played. now i run thru an fbt
verve powered monitor & it is tonal nirvana & the FOH is identical to my stage sound.



you definetly do not need a sustainiac :roll:
 
Also check your gate sensitivity isn't set too low and strangling sustain.

I was checking out an amp the other night through headphones and found it decayed into a strong octave-higher feedback on it's own!!! I can't remember which model, but it might have been the Top Boost.

Normally you need high volume for note bloom, long sustain and feedback, and I have no problems with sustain and feedback from the AxeFX and a powered FRFR monitor. Note bloom is a little more elusive although I can hear some of that bloom/compression effect in the Blackface model.
 
Thanks for the tips guys, i will give the output phase thing a try, but yes i found the gate does strangle the sustain, so i will play with some more settings on that.

I can get feedback out of the unit but it's not nearly as musical or controlled as through my valve amps, it usually goes into a more shrill two octave up sort of feedback that's just not warm & musical like the real thing.

If anyone has any patches where they produce what i am looking for it would be much appreciated, i am more of a high gain lead player, 80's, 90's, guitar hero's sort of stuff i guess.
 
Start by disabling the gate, make sure to push some volume and face the speaker.
Make sure all your levels are correct (input blinking red from time to time)
Also try to turn the master volume up into the 9-10 territory... things start to sing at these settings.

;)
 
The phase reverse can be very important, but it can also be amp model dependent.

Here is an example of what the phase reverse can do to the sustain. You should be able to easily get singing feedback even at low volumes with the axe-fx. Volume is very helpful in coaxing it though.

This is at low volume w/ studio monitors as the only speaker source. I am holding a note and switching the phase reverse on and off. It starts on, then off, etc.

http://www.javajunkiemusic.com/Audio/feedback.mp3
 
Doesn't the distance to the speaker in ralation to the not played have anything to do with it?
Perhaps if you reverse the phase and move forward or backwards a bit it will start to sustain again?
Anyway, one thing I've noticed while playing FRFR is that I don't play nearly as loud to get a good full sound.
Perhaps that can have something to do with it.
I do have good sustain but can't seem to hold notes forever unless I'm in exactly the right spot or play a lot louder.
 
javajunkie said:
The phase reverse can be very important, but it can also be amp model dependent.

Here is an example of what the phase reverse can do to the sustain. You should be able to easily get singing feedback even at low volumes with the axe-fx. Volume is very helpful in coaxing it though.

This is at low volume w/ studio monitors as the only speaker source. I am holding a note and switching the phase reverse on and off. It starts on, then off, etc.

http://www.javajunkiemusic.com/Audio/feedback.mp3
Click to expand...

Wow. That's quite a dramatic difference.
I guess with Phase Rev on the speakers phase is out of sync with the string's phase.
If there are some amp models that are reverse phase to begin with then I guess I'd think of that as a bug that needs to be fixed.
There no phase switch within the Amp Block, is there?
 
Best controlled sustain I have had in years :
Playing direct, FRFR, at places with a few monitors pointing up and into my pickups.
Heavenly.
The days of a full stack blaring behind me are hopefully gone.
I guess I am maturing ....
 
joegold said:
Wow. That's quite a dramatic difference.
I guess with Phase Rev on the speakers phase is out of sync with the string's phase.
Click to expand...
That would depend on whether the rest of the signal chain preserves polarity, which is definitely not a given.

If there are some amp models that are reverse phase to begin with then I guess I'd think of that as a bug that needs to be fixed.
Click to expand...
Cliff has already pointed out that all amp models in the Axe-Fx preserve polarity. However, in physical amps that is not always true. Case in point: in Fender Twin Reverbs and other Fender amps with a reverb and a "normal" channel, the reverb channel has an extra inverting gain stage as compared to the normal channel. The result is that the reverb channel inverts signal polarity, whereas the normal channel preserves it. There are other tube amps with similar anomalies.
 
Jay Mitchell said:
joegold said:
Wow. That's quite a dramatic difference.
I guess with Phase Rev on the speakers phase is out of sync with the string's phase.
Click to expand...
That would depend on whether the rest of the signal chain preserves polarity, which is definitely not a given.
Click to expand...

Well my only concern is that the phase stays intact between the input of the Axe and the output of the Axe.
Apparently it does, so there's no problem.
If there is a phase reversal in your monitoring system you can then use the Axe's global phase reverse I/O switch to correct the problem.

javajunkie hinted that the Axe was inconsistent in this regard on an amp sim by amp sim basis.
Cliff corrected him. The matter appears to be settled, unless java is going to stick to his claim.

Jay Mitchell said:
If there are some amp models that are reverse phase to begin with then I guess I'd think of that as a bug that needs to be fixed.
Click to expand...
Cliff has already pointed out that all amp models in the Axe-Fx preserve polarity. However, in physical amps that is not always true. Case in point: in Fender Twin Reverbs and other Fender amps with a reverb and a "normal" channel, the reverb channel has an extra inverting gain stage as compared to the normal channel. The result is that the reverb channel inverts signal polarity, whereas the normal channel preserves it. There are other tube amps with similar anomalies.[/quote]
 
Wow!! This is massive - such an easily overlooked issue and yet it's the best discovery I have made whilst using the Axe. I must admit that I don't really understand it, but it blxxdy well works. Try inverting only one channel and leave the other set to normal - instant David Gilmour. Unbelievable, I am dead chuffed at this find.

So glad I stumbled across this post. Thanks guys.
 
You can change the phase of any patch by using the enhancer with width set to 0 and phase invert set to both.

MNG- you can do what you want (inverting one channel) with the enhancer as well. Just set the phase invert on the enhancer to left or right.

I will stick by my claim that at the time I made that recording, that depending on the amp model used (no other variations), the behavior above (long sustain, quick cut off) would change depending on the model used. At least at the time I recorded this. It was not me who discovered the variation in amp models. Someone else pointed it out to me when I posted that clip originally. I tried it and found the same thing. I haven't tried it for quite sometime. You can easily test this yourself. I am also not saying that something is wrong with the Axe-Fx. I was not hinting at anything regarding the phase of the amp models, only commenting on what inverting the phase does with different amp models. It is merely an observation.

I can't say whether different amp models have different phase. I have never measured it and never claimed that they were. I have only spoken to what happens through experimentation with amp models and inverting the phase, nothing more.


edit:

Going through some amps now. It still does it, but I don't think it is about the phase of the amp, but how the reversal effects the overtones. In my setup phase invert on some amp models it helps feedback, others it hurts, and others just changes the character of the feedback(different harmonics pop out).
 
I've never had a problem with sustain or feedback. I can get my FX howling when I'm standing in the right place and wringing the note.
 
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