Struggling with boomy bass and harsh mids

[PSea]

can your speakers accommodate xlr? just for the heck of it, try if so.

 

[GuitarJedi]

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?

One thing to consider is speaker placement. If they are in the corner or up against/close to wall, you’re going to have a hell of a time adjusting the bass alone…..

 

[Greg Ferguson]

One thing to consider is speaker placement. If they are in the corner or up against/close to wall, you’re going to have a hell of a time adjusting the bass alone…..

That's so true on stage or in a studio/bedroom.

 

[m3s-m3r]

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?

Hi,

I used to have the same problem but getting the right irs sorted it out. I use seacow's BB55 blend of two and kick up the proximity for the main one to 1.55 and the second one to 1.11 ( i do prefere odd numbers lol). sounds good through my HS8s.

I use a ec1007 with emgs for that preset.

I have attached a bundle for you to try out.
take care.

 

[stephanfm3]

I'll try.. but it's more the case of I don't like how it sounds after I've done the cuts. Would it sound any different cutting it here against doing it in the cab block?

i do think so.
also, did you try the amp settings from the video with the brit silver?
together with a bass cut in the pre eq to taste, you might get what you want.
just got a tele here, don't know how this will be with humbuckers.

 

[skolacki]

Part of it is just getting used to darker tones. Switching from a bright preset to a darker preset will make it seem like there’s a blanket over your speaker. Play it awhile and your perception may change. Or not. Seems that way to me though. Look at that Brit silver and how the treble is set low.

 

[PSea]

we're all guessing. post a preset. then we can take a look.

 

[unix-guy]

Just listen to the tone coming off this thing, it's not overly trebly but it still barks, he's got low end but it's not boomy. I can't get very close to this, I've tried!

Nowhere I could see in the video where a mic was on the speaker cabinet... I wonder how that was captured?

 

[skolacki]

Nowhere I could see in the video where a mic was on the speaker cabinet... I wonder how that was captured?

Load box? Lately some of the bands I’ve been seeing don’t have any visible mics. I don’t know if they have a cab in back, a box, or what. I’m not too educated in pro sound. They all have pedal boards. Maybe using Ox boxes or something like that.

 

[Paulzx]

can your speakers accommodate xlr? just for the heck of it, try if so.

They can, I've never tried, but I'm going to do a comparison

 

[Paulzx]

One thing to consider is speaker placement. If they are in the corner or up against/close to wall, you’re going to have a hell of a time adjusting the bass alone…..

That is kind of the situation! I'll update you on that in a minute..

 

[Paulzx]

Hi,

I used to have the same problem but getting the right irs sorted it out. I use seacow's BB55 blend of two and kick up the proximity for the main one to 1.55 and the second one to 1.11 ( i do prefere odd numbers lol). sounds good through my HS8s.

I use a ec1007 with emgs for that preset.

I have attached a bundle for you to try out.
take care.

Excellent, thanks very much. Looking forward to trying this later!

 

[Paulzx]

we're all guessing. post a preset. then we can take a look.

I've got a bunch of options to try, but will post a preset if I'm still stuck

 

[Paulzx]

So I'm happy to report that I made quite a good breakthrough on this last night.

Went back to basics, new preset, didn't put any of thus usual crap in there I normally do, just a drive pedal amp and cab - Brit silver amp model.
And then did something I never have done before - but the bullet and set the room control on the speakers to maximum bass cut and maximum high cut.

Back to the preset - did a low cut in the amp input EQ and what do you know, now I'm getting much closer to that raw Marshall tone that I want. Didn't have to hardly touch the amp settings much apart from adding some gain.

Then randomly, cycled through some factory 1 cabs and ended up on some 1x12 and 2x12's that sounded pretty neat. Well that experiment will continue I suspect, but in the main, I now seem to have much warmer deeper mids and treble - It just sounds more like the tone in the video.

My takeaways from this at the moment -
Absolutely cutting on the input EQ of the amp, does make a big difference
The tone characteristic I'm looking for was always in the Fractal, but other settings were ruining it.
The room speakers setup is crucial - a lot of my unwanted highs and lows were coming from the speakers, I'm convinced of that.

Maybe I approached this like I could dial out any unwanted sound, using the edit software, but I think reality is, if you're compromised with poor acoustic setup before you've even switched the unit on, you're pretty much screwed.

 

[a1c]

I used to have this issue, could never get a good tone especially with higher gain. It would always sound very harsh no matter what I tried. It turned out that I was having a USB ground loop issue. A quick test is to unplug your device from the usb and see how it sounds. For me simply playing with the device disconnected from the USB completely resolved my issue. Not saying this is your issue but its a quick thing to try and troubleshoot. If it is the USB causing ground loop issues (the iFi iDefender+ is commonly recommended on these forums) can help resolve the issue.

 

[Paulzx]

I used to have this issue, could never get a good tone especially with higher gain. It would always sound very harsh no matter what I tried. It turned out that I was having a USB ground loop issue. A quick test is to unplug your device from the usb and see how it sounds. For me simply playing with the device disconnected from the USB completely resolved my issue. Not saying this is your issue but its a quick thing to try and troubleshoot. If it is the USB causing ground loop issues (the iFi iDefender+ is commonly recommended on these forums) can help resolve the issue.

Now that is something I've never tried. I am getting a little bit of noise that's noticeable when I play single notes. Always put that down to FM3 being too close to computer and speakers, so had planned to split that up a bit, but will now try the USB as well..

 

[skolacki]

So I'm happy to report that I made quite a good breakthrough on this last night.

Went back to basics, new preset, didn't put any of thus usual crap in there I normally do, just a drive pedal amp and cab - Brit silver amp model.
And then did something I never have done before - but the bullet and set the room control on the speakers to maximum bass cut and maximum high cut.

Back to the preset - did a low cut in the amp input EQ and what do you know, now I'm getting much closer to that raw Marshall tone that I want. Didn't have to hardly touch the amp settings much apart from adding some gain.

Then randomly, cycled through some factory 1 cabs and ended up on some 1x12 and 2x12's that sounded pretty neat. Well that experiment will continue I suspect, but in the main, I now seem to have much warmer deeper mids and treble - It just sounds more like the tone in the video.

My takeaways from this at the moment -
Absolutely cutting on the input EQ of the amp, does make a big difference
The tone characteristic I'm looking for was always in the Fractal, but other settings were ruining it.
The room speakers setup is crucial - a lot of my unwanted highs and lows were coming from the speakers, I'm convinced of that.

Maybe I approached this like I could dial out any unwanted sound, using the edit software, but I think reality is, if you're compromised with poor acoustic setup before you've even switched the unit on, you're pretty much screwed.

Do you ever play with phones? It’s good to have a reference that has a flat response. If you’re making big adjustments to your speakers you won’t know where you’re at frequency wise. If playing only at home it doesn’t matter too much but if you play out on another system or speakers then your presets won’t sound the same. If recorded music sounds normal on your setup then you’re probably ok though. Glad to hear you’re making progress.

 

[RandallSG]

One thing that has helped me remove the characteristic Fractal sound of boominess and blanket over the speaker sound with the FM3 is to turn the Speaker Compliance and Speaker Thump parameters to zero in the Speaker data window of the amp block.

 

[unix-guy]

One thing that has helped me remove the characteristic Fractal sound of boominess and blanker over the speaker sound with the FM3 is to turn the Speaker Compliance and Speaker Thump parameters to zero in the Speaker data window of the amp block.

There is no "characteristic Fractal sound of boominess and blanket over the speaker sound".

 

[RandallSG]

There is no "characteristic Fractal sound of boominess and blanket over the speaker sound".

To each their own, in comparison to other amp modelers have always had to do low frequency cutting on Fractal amp models.