Taming the Monster - Leveling Presets Video with the Axe-FX II

I will run through this after work, but thanks Scott. I am having issues with my 30 presets, all of which I use, being all at correct relative live volume. I particularly have a problem getting my lead presets loud enough. Annoying as heck to me, but as you say, I don't have a process ... I tweak randomly now.

I program the MFC for the 'universal' boost (about +6db) for leads and use that very successfully. If your leads are not cutting through, I'd suggest looking at your level of boost and then your frequency boost - I love to drop my PEQ (with variable output from +1db-+6db) in FRONT of the amp block to boot. I set the variable output to an expression pedal.
 
The thing I learned, that seemed counter intuitve at first is, the cleans are what makes consistent levels a challenge.

A clean preset will have a huge dynamic range.

In the heat of battle during a gig, the cleans will all appear radically louder because you are playing harder and the preset has way more headroom by the nature of the settings.

The mid gainers and high gainers have a natural compression. So the difference between soundcheck playing and gig playing doesn't make these presets get way louder like a clean preset will.

Richard
 
Great vid Scott. Just to add to that, slight variation, the inc/dec volume commands can really be your friend here. I tend to do as Scott and balance through my amp level by ear using cans or whatever I happen to be using to get it in the ballpark. I then turn up to gig levels and use the inc/dec commands through my midi board to fine tune. Those commands adjust the overall output of the preset from the output mixer in 1db increments and saves them there automatically. If your midi board is capable of it, it saves you ever having to touch the AFX while your balancing levels. It's extremely quick. I have 2 IA's on page 3 of my LF Pro set for inc/dec which can be accessed with a 2sec hold from page 1. It took me all of 30 sec to set up once and is one of the biggest time savers ever for me in balancing levels. You simply click between presets from your midi board as you would at a gig and click inc/dec as needed to fine tune.

On a side note, Scott touched on it, but make sure you balance levels between drive/boost levels and unboosted (if boosts or drives are used within any effect blocks) within each preset before you go balancing levels between different presets. For solos, I use the same trick as a few others on here and have all my presets load with a master volume of CC111 and I have my boost trigger CC127. That means I engage my boost before I check levels to ensure there is no clipping. If I have an effect block (delay, drive, filter, whatever...) that has a boost of any kind programmed in, I make sure it is engaged with the boost as well just to make sure there is no clipping. Scott's unity step should keep you clear in most cases, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Clipping your AFX outputs is a truly horrible sound.

As for your tone cutting though a mix, that has much more to do with your EQ than your levels. If your guitar tone is stepping all over other instruments in the mix, no amount of boost is gonna make you cut through. The most it will do is make one big mess with you at the center of it. If your preset levels are even and your presets are built and EQ'd properly (wether through using the proper IRs or an actual EQ) a good mixer will always have you sitting nicely in the mix. If you control your lead boosts, the same will be true for your solos. In short, if your getting lost in the mix and you've followed Scott's process, it probably ain't the levels.

Sorry to Scott for hopping on his cloud. Hopefully that was helpful. All that is meant to be in addition to Scott's method, not in place of. Again, great post Scott. Always good to see other methods.

All IME, IMHO, YMMV...
 
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The idea is conversation and discourse - thanks for adding to this folks. Very good points above and this isn't my cloud more than it's a community discussion to help each other out.

Keep it flowing!
 
One thing I tend to do when trying to use my ear is compare each preset to the previous preset. Therefore, as I move through the presets each one tends to get a little louder than the previous and after going through 30 or so presets, the 30th will be significantly louder than the 1st.
This is why I really like Scott's method. It prevents me from having to use my ear and match each presets to each previous preset.
Bottom line, I'm accurately leveling my presets.
 
I play/record my patches along with a loop of drums, bass and synth pad and adjust by ear. Works at pretty much any volume.
 
Can you recommend a good one ?

I use Studio Six Digital. Pricey, but probably the best audio tools out there once you calibrate. Although you will need a calibrated SPL meter to calibrate your iPhone mic to the app.


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I wonder how accurate they are. The free one unfortunately only goes up to 110db. I think the iPhone mic only reads up to 110db

With iOS 5 Apple added an 'audio measurement mode'. This removes internal high pass filtering and and allows for SPL's up to 130dB (I think, it may be 120dB)


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Good vid Scott. Thanx for taking the time!!! I have the same SPL meter. I'll go through my presets today. So for the unity gain with the reference clean tone... Do I just use my eyes while adjusting the amp level so the input is the same as the output on the meters page?


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Good vid Scott. Thanx for taking the time!!! I have the same SPL meter. I'll go through my presets today. So for the unity gain with the reference clean tone... Do I just use my eyes while adjusting the amp level so the input is the same as the output on the meters page?


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Yes. Just to set the 'baseline'.
 
Interesting...What would be the downside of recording 30 seconds of each patch direct, and then processing that through frequency analysis tools like they have in Wavelab or Matlab? That should give you a much more precise measurement of RMS power than eyeballing an SPL meter and make the measurement independent of the monitor type.
 
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Interesting...What would be the downside of recording 30 seconds of each patch direct, and then processing that through frequency analysis tools like they have in Wavelab or Matlab? That should give you a much precise measurement of RMS power than eyeballing an SPL meter.

If that works for you then great. Too much time and trouble IMHO. I can do this pretty quick, it's done and I move on.
 
I use Studio Six Digital. Pricey, but probably the best audio tools out there

I concur. This is a great set of tools. The SPL Meter is an obvious choice but the SPL Graph should work very nicely for this process. It will graph the SPL over time and display an average. You can see a screen shot, and get more info, here . . .

SPL Graph | Studio Six Digital

probably the best audio tools out there once you calibrate. Although you will need a calibrated SPL meter to calibrate your iPhone mic to the app.

To clarify, the apps come pre-calibrated for the typical iPhone built-in mic, but you can adjust the calibration if you have a professional, calibrated meter.

Terry.
 
Interesting...What would be the downside of recording 30 seconds of each patch direct, and then processing that through frequency analysis tools like they have in Wavelab or Matlab? That should give you a much more precise measurement of RMS power than eyeballing an SPL meter and make the measurement independent of the monitor type.

I tried to find a level or spectral analysis solution that gave me a visual of recorded clips that let me accurately gauge output power and perceived volume and couldn't find out. There's a back-and-forth with a few people on Scott's other thread where he talks about leveling patches where I was asking if anyone had hit upon a metering or analysis solution that would let you do this.

If you've got a non-gig volume way to do this I'd love to hear it. The time I have to play at gig volumes when I'm not in rehearsal or at a gig is very nearly zero these days.
 
Scott, you probably never touch the factory presets these days but, do you bother levelling more than the handful of main presets this way in case you want to pull from the factory presets out in the field? I've been trying to stick to a "if it's in Bank A, it's levelled" but that's obviously a lot of work as I'm moving things in and out often, shifting around and setting up for different bands.
 
I tried to find a level or spectral analysis solution that gave me a visual of recorded clips that let me accurately gauge output power and perceived volume and couldn't find out. There's a back-and-forth with a few people on Scott's other thread where he talks about leveling patches where I was asking if anyone had hit upon a metering or analysis solution that would let you do this.

If you've got a non-gig volume way to do this I'd love to hear it. The time I have to play at gig volumes when I'm not in rehearsal or at a gig is very nearly zero these days.

Any good RMS plug will work. E.g. Isotope Ozone's metering.

But, without setting up at gig levels, your clean patches will probably end up way louder at the gig than your distortion patches.

The easiest way for me if I don't crank to gig volume is to put a compressor at the end of every clean patch. Set it up like a brick wall limiter. This will prevent your cleans from way over powering your distortions when you get to the gig.

Richard
 
I tried to find a level or spectral analysis solution that gave me a visual of recorded clips that let me accurately gauge output power and perceived volume and couldn't find out. There's a back-and-forth with a few people on Scott's other thread where he talks about leveling patches where I was asking if anyone had hit upon a metering or analysis solution that would let you do this.

If you've got a non-gig volume way to do this I'd love to hear it. The time I have to play at gig volumes when I'm not in rehearsal or at a gig is very nearly zero these days.
I have Steinberg's Wavelab at home in the studio. It has a feature called "analysis," that computes RMS power of the signal with respect to the 0 dB reference on the digital audio inteface among other things. I record 15-30 seconds of the clean reference. Then, I record 15-30 seconds of patch I want to match playing the same thing. Run that through the analyzer and get RMS power for both. Then, I compute the difference of the average RMS powers over the left and right channels between the patch and the reference and that gives me how much to adjust the patch fairly precisely. Of course at the end of the day, you still have to check with your ears at some point because of difference between weighting schemes and perceived loudness which varies from individual to individual, but there is much less ear fatigue eventhough there is more math and time involved. I believe I might also be able to set this up in batch using the "metanormalizer" to push through a bunch of files, but I haven't tried to automate the process yet.

At the acoustic test facility where I work, they have the ability take the time histories(an extremely technical term for recordings) and process SPL's and PSD's pretty much automatically. But, who has a boatload of cash for that kind of set up?
 
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Any good RMS plug will work. E.g. Isotope Ozone's metering.

But, without setting up at gig levels, your clean patches will probably end up way louder at the gig than your distortion patches.
Sure, it'll show you RMS but it won't help you understand the perceived loudness of your patches at gig volumes. There was no substitute for hearing it loud.
 
Scott, you probably never touch the factory presets these days but, do you bother levelling more than the handful of main presets this way in case you want to pull from the factory presets out in the field? I've been trying to stick to a "if it's in Bank A, it's levelled" but that's obviously a lot of work as I'm moving things in and out often, shifting around and setting up for different bands.

I only level what I am using. I keep about 12 presets 'current' for my uses. I don't pull factory presets or use them as reference other than for beta testing purposes (and I have to load them in for that; I don't even have them in my Axe-FX).


I have Steinberg's Wavelab at home in the studio. It has a feature called "analysis," that computes RMS power of the signal with respect to the 0 dB reference on the digital audio inteface among other things. I record 15-30 seconds of the clean reference. Then, I record 15-30 seconds of patch I want to match playing the same thing. Run that through the analyzer and get RMS power for both. Then, I compute the difference of the average RMS powers over the left and right channels between the patch and the reference and that gives me how much to adjust the patch fairly precisely. Of course at the end of the day, you still have to check with your ears at some point, but there is much less ear fatigue eventhough there is more math and time involved. I believe I might also be able to set this up in batch using the "metanormalizer" to push through a bunch of files, but I haven't tried to automate the process yet.

At the acoustic test facility where I work, they have the ability take the time histories(an extremely technical term for recordings) and process SPL's and PSD's pretty much automatically. But, who has a boatload of cash for that kind of set up?

I'd think you'd still need to check it with your ears when done.
 
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