I've watched too many real amp demos lately and been impressed with how rounded the tones are. What I mean by that
is they seem to produce a natural high gain tone without boomy muddy lows and harsh trebly highs, it sounds good everywhere on the neck.
I want my high gain tones to sound like that but most times I end up with quite boomy low end and harsh treble in the mids, and when I adjust for this, it just seems to suck what life there was in the tone, out to the point of ending up with a flat lifeless, sometimes wiry tone. I know, we've discussed the high and low cuts in the cab block to death on here, I've done all that. I've tried a 10 band EQ, which I find if you start reducing low end frequencies, it make the tone very light sounding, lacking thickness. I've tried the parametric EQ, but it all results in the same thing, in that when I start making alterations it does reduce highs and lows but the tone is dull.
I've got my FM 3 on a USB cable in to my laptop, running FM3 edit. FM3 is running 1/4" cables to two HS7 FRFR monitors, so nothing unusual.
I know we've discussed tones fitting in the mix on here a lot, and I understand all of that, isolated guitar tracks not sounding as huge as you perceive them on a record and so forth - but they still sound lively with dynamics whereas mine sound more anaemic.
Have I just hit the limit of digital modelers or is there anything else I can try?
if it's any help, i can also make a real amp sound boomy and harsh through a loadbox and IRs as well =)
haven't read all the comments through here just yet, but somethings to bear in mind if it's any help
-your listening environment, as an example i have a small room and a huge desk where the computer/studio monitors sit, there's a huge resonance in the room around the 128hz mark to be more precise, this makes more a lot of boomy sounds around that level, IF i didn't have some EQ correction on my speakers/setup
by this I mean if you're aware of what the room is doing to sounds that you're hearing you can to some extent EQ things (i'd suggest even the global EQ for this as you can turn this on /off at will)
-'softening' the mids, more often than not it's the mids/treble that are causing that harsh sound to our hears , but any big peaks in those areas will sound harsher , and adding more low cuts/high cuts might ultimately end up further increasing that more than anything else, there are certainly Cabs/IRs that will either further accentuate or not as well, e.g try v30 cab vs a greenback cab etc..
-try one of two things for the low mids , a multiband compressor block works wonders i think for heavier tones setup with the 'andy sneap' trick, or compressing the lower mids , Or otherwise in say the Global EQ lower 125-250 area to hear how that sounds in your setup
-look at cutting before boosting to see how things balance out, the sound will change depending on the volume in the environment
-a low cut before the amp might be something to try, either through a filter block (low cut) or you can also try the Input EQ , to push the cut up to say 120hz to try
i have a feeling it's more a case of EQing to your room than the initial sound being harsh/anaemic, lower mids can make stuff sound boomy very quick
the reason i'm saying to try the global EQ is that if you go out and play, if you have a global EQ that is matched to your setup at home, you don't really want that in a live space that has no resemblance to your home setup
