Taming Bassy Palm Mutes?

CactusTone

CactusTone

Inspired
I'm looking for help taming the bass bloom when palm muting on the JS410 Lead Or. This amp in particular seems to emphasize bass when palm muting, and pushed the Output Level significantly.

Side Note: when I use the Friedman HBE V1 the bass pushes the output level way less, and it's an overall boomier tone, too!

The JS410 can push the output level close to 5dB on certain notes (like D on string 5). I'm using very little gain, no EQ (aside from Tone Stack), and am not using extreme settings across the board.

Input Drive is set at 1.5.
MV is at 2.5.
Ruckus Drive set at 0.5 with the level at 10.
Tone stack is Bass at 6, Mid at 6.8, Treble at 4.25, Presence at 1, and Depth at 3.
Bright switch is on.
On the speaker page I lowered the Low Res Freq from 6.5 to 5.
Stereo UltraRes Cab Block: Cab Left is OH_412_MAR-CB_T75-RI_Studio-Vintage, and Cab Right is the same, but Studio-Modern.
Low Cut on Cabs is 100Hz.
High Cut is 6500Hz.

The tone is phenomenal, but when I use a Filter Block to boost +4dB for solos, and play tight palm mutes on lower strings I'm clipping the Output on the XL+. I have my Output settings, for all presets, set to -9dB (set using meters in Logic Pro X) to allow for plenty of headroom. It does the trick for all presets except the JS410, and even on this amp it's only when Palm Muting. Regular chording is right in line with the others at -9dB, even on 4 and 5 string open chords like G5 and Cadd9 (you know, those classic AC/DC type open chords).

Again, I want to stress that the Friedman is way more bass heavy, but palm mutes don't push the level as much as the JS410. I really don't want to dial back what is currently a phenomenal tone, and I don't want to systematical go through every one of my presets to further reduce their output level just to accommodate one problematic preset.

Does anybody have any tricks they use for such instances?

Thanks in advance!
 
Engage (Bass) Cut in the Amp block. Or use a Drive block with minimal drive.
 
I tried this at the advise of another user here, can’t recall who, sorry. This works very well for me:

just put a filter in front of the amp block. set to high pass. attach envelope to the frequency parameter and set the maximum frequency to about 200hz. adjust the curve (mid and end values) so that the ball hits the top of the graph when you hit the bottom strings hard


Edit: this is in addition to using a drive block in front and/ or the “cut” switch engaged.
 
yek said:
Engage (Bass) Cut in the Amp block. Or use a Drive block with minimal drive.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Yek!

As stated above, Drive Block is used with drive barely on, at 0.5. I tried the Bass Cut, but it takes to much away from the overall sound. I'm still baffled at how the Friedman is s much bass-ier, yet doesn't swell nearly as much on PMs.
 
Pettymusic said:
I tried this at the advise of another user here, can’t recall who, sorry. This works very well for me:

just put a filter in front of the amp block. set to high pass. attach envelope to the frequency parameter and set the maximum frequency to about 200hz. adjust the curve (mid and end values) so that the ball hits the top of the graph when you hit the bottom strings hard


Edit: this is in addition to using a drive block in front and/ or the “cut” switch engaged.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Pettymusic! I will give that a try.
 
I sometimes use the multiband compressor to solve this problem.
Set it to compress the low end only, when you hit the palm mutes.
Don't forget to set all band levels to 0
 
You can use a bit of Speaker compression too I think.
I accedently turned the Speaker Drive up earlier and ended up with never ending B notes if I palm muted. It confused the hell out of me.
 
I call this sort of thing "whoomfing". You'll notice it more dominant on A, Bb and B palm mutes. Check your meters in LPX and you'll see those notes jump out more.

Gain is usually partly the blame on your issue here, but that doesn't seem to be the issue seeing your settings.

The cabs I've used in my Fractal experience all seem pumped with lows. You cutting at 100 hz may not be high enough. I've gone as high as 180 on some cabs I've tried.

Now if I were you, I'd not use the filter block to boost your solos. Why? Because you're boosting frequencies too, not just your output.

Here's my fix that has worked wonderfully for me since I've started using Fractal products.

I use two cabs, x and y. X is my rhythm cab tone, which cuts a little more in the high end. Y block is for leads and is warm and chocolatey. I up the mids here a bit as well.

I used two compressors x and y. One for rhythm, one for lead. Rhythm comp is set to tighten the tone. I made a few videos on here describing it somewhere. The Y comp boosts the sustain so I can hold notes longer.

Now, the actual boost for me is set at the output per scene, as I prefer scenes as opposed to patch changes. So my output on my rhythm sound on scene 1 may be -1 but my lead patch on scene 3 will jump to +2.

When I change from a rhythm to a lead, the cab blocks and comp blocks change as well. So I get the eq change from the cab change, (which is not boosting frequencies much. I edit the rhythm cab in axe edit to be a lead cab by removing some highs and add a little mid and save as lead cab) a boost in sustain from the comp, (using the compressors keeps my sound tight with less chance of overs) and my actual volume boost happens in my output stage in axe edit. Instant scene changes and great tone! This is the happiest I've ever been in all my years of being a guitarist. Give it a shot. Best of luck.

-Danny
 
All these complicated things are great but, trust me, turn down the LF Resonance. The reason that A, Bb, etc. exacerbate it is... drum roll... A is 110 Hz. A typical 4x12 speaker resonance is between 100 and 130 Hz. When you play an A you're exciting the resonance. So turn it down. And/or raise the Q.
 
I read this thread then left it a few days then finally thought I’d give the Boogie amp model one last chance.
I can’t believe it but I finally have a Boogie (recto 1 red) tone that sounds heavy and spongy and consistent.
I set the resonance to 2 and did a low cut in the cab block up to 180hz then used the classic mids at 4 treble at 6 but left the bass at 5. Then I added a zen drive with the drive set to 0.10. That zen drive is absolutely magic at giving you pick attack on high gain amps.
It’s almost addictive in its feel and seems very dynamic as to how hard you pick or what your guitar volume is set too.
 
CactusTone said:
The tone is phenomenal, but when I use a Filter Block to boost +4dB for solos, and play tight palm mutes on lower strings I'm clipping the Output on the XL+.
... Again, I want to stress that the Friedman is way more bass heavy, but palm mutes don't push the level as much as the JS410. I really don't want to dial back what is currently a phenomenal tone, and I don't want to systematical go through every one of my presets to further reduce their output level just to accommodate one problematic preset.
Click to expand...

Has anyone mentioned the road-worn technique of opening the GLOBAL OUT 1 EQ and receding the GAIN for all presets at once? This is a "heat of battle" trick for situations where one does not have time to lower every preset to accommodate "that one lead" that's clipping.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom