Questioning the flatness of my Frfr Cab

Reet

Reet

Inspired
Hi all, so i've been playing my Matrix fr212 for about 3 months now. I love the way it sounds and im talking loud, quiet and in many different rooms and settings. The issue is whenever i reference my tone through any other monitors, mains or go direct its super bright and sounds crazy scooped and way harsh. What sounds, great in the room sounds awful direct. The issue is really with my high gain patches. I generally use the 5153 red and Friedman HBE with IR's from ML Soundlabs cabpacks 19 and 13. The matrix has a ton of low end, so my bass and depth are generally very low. My mids are generally 7 out of 10ish and the high, presence, and bright knobs are generally never over noon. My low cut is around 7000 and my high cut is around 110 in my cab block. I don't use dephase either. In a band setting the matrix sounds great. But going direct sounds harsh and way bright. I should add that when i eq my tones i move around and see how it sounds in relation with the cab. I try to get it to sound best pointing directly at me. I understand fletcher munson and i have this issue with patches dialed in at low and high volumes. Any one else expierence this with their monitoring situation with higher gain patches?
 
Few thing to say here. First one is I don't recall Matrix ever saying that fr212 was flat. There are lots of speakers we all used to refer to as FRFR such as a qsc k12 for example. It is super popular with DJ's and other applications where you can get away with a few of these instead of having to use a line array ect. It is a great speaker but it is only FR (full range) it is far from flat.

With that in mind I bet your matrix is just FR (along with most of the other systems you have plugged into. I bet there are issues with the systems you are plugging into. Based o mm what you said I would not be shocked if those systems were looking for mic level and you sent them line. I started my axe life with a k12 and all patches I made translated any were from awesome to a little better than passable in every other system I plugged into so if matrix sounds good it might not be the issue (even if it is only FR)
 
You are ahead of the game by understanding by how volume level, room acoustics, listening axis, wedge/standing, etc all play havoc with perceived frequency response. I wrestle with these issues with my CLR and RCF.

Matrix claims the FR212 speaker has a frequency response of 55-20000 Hz. I don't see any specs for how flat the frequency response. Did they ever say it is FRFR? Maybe it just has a lot more low-end.
 
The FR212 is very flat. Probably flatter than a lot of studio monitors which vary considerably in their neutrality. Fletcher Munson will have an effect as will the actual PA you're running into (and the sound guy using it) and also the room itself. Make sure the sound guy knows that he needs to be as neutral as possible on his EQ (just in case he's treating it the same as a mic'd up guitar signal) and that your global EQ is flat. If your onstage sound sits well in the band mix, then generally the soundguy will not be inclined to tweak too much to get it to that stage.
 
Lightningboy said:
The FR212 is very flat. Probably flatter than a lot of studio monitors which vary considerably in their neutrality.
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Thank you for clearing that up, and for all of your responses. I've been going crazy spending all this time making my patches as good as i could just for them to translate awful. So it seems really all i can do is trust the Fr212 and hope for the best with the quality of the sound system im playing through.
 
Reet said:
Thank you for clearing that up, and for all of your responses. I've been going crazy spending all this time making my patches as good as i could just for them to translate awful. So it seems really all i can do is trust the Fr212 and hope for the best with the quality of the sound system im playing through.
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Making sure they know you are sending line level and starting your eq flat is is crucial steps to start off with. I always tell sound guys that my patches are mix ready so they should start with a flat eq then they can adjust if they feel they need to. I have always had great reception when I do that except one time which to date is the worst tone I ever had
 
Welcome to the typical I'm-going-thru-the-PA problem.
Some of it is perception of what is "good" from the player, some of it is due to bad FOH people.
The perception scenario is when the guitarist hears this awesome tone in their rig, sending it to the PA believing that it will sound equally awesome when blended to FOH. Well, err..well maybe not~!.

The FM effect, the fit-in-the-mix challenge that FOH faces, all factor into the end result.
What you hear on stage/practice room as awesome tone may not work for a full FOH mix. Been there, done that. Worked both sides of the stage for years. This wonderful smooth tone you have in your rig when played turns to mush/mud when blended with vocals, keys, bass and drums.
I find that I often have to make my tones (guitar + bass) brighter to make them sit in the mix for gigs.
The FOH position has to take ALL of the feeds they get and blend them for the venue.. some do it well, some do not.
Sending FOH a mix-aware tone, goes a long way in helping them do that.
 
Last night at a band practice i tried doing some eq in a band setting. Really all i did was try a few different IR's and raise my mids, lower the gain and lower the brightness and treble a bit. Maybe im being to critical about how the tone sounds by itself. In a mix it sits and cuts, i only think it sounds bad when i play during silence by myself. Either way i can tell a diffence from PA to PA. My church has an amazing sound system and although i don't really get to use my high gain tones as much there, i do notice when i play them at church practices by myself they sound far superior to my bands practice PA and my studio monitors.
 
Almost always the tones that sound killer alone don't sound killer in a mix. If more guitarist learned that we would all have better relationships with sounds guys and be happier as far as our live tone goes
 
brokenvail said:
Almost always the tones that sound killer alone don't sound killer in a mix. If more guitarist learned that we would all have better relationships with sounds guys and be happier as far as our live tone goes
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Seems i'm learning this slowly with some hardship. In the end its out of our hands i suppose. All we can do is make the sound guys job easier so he has less to worry about or mess up. Lol
 
Reet said:
Seems i'm learning this slowly with some hardship. In the end its out of our hands i suppose. All we can do is make the sound guys job easier so he has less to worry about or mess up. Lol
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If you a learning it then you are on the right path!
 
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