the flubby flub blues

L

Laedan Kiana

Member
Well its been a couple weeks since my ultra arrived and i have been thrilled to death with the clean sound i have achieved. I honestly can't tell the difference between my preset and EJ's ACL clean tone!!! Floopin ridiculous! So it goes without saying i've already got my 2 grand worth [figure in the cost of two vibroluxs' or twins or whatever he's using at this point and your there] and have become an instant fan of the black box.

But on the other hand i have had much less success dialing in dirty tones. It seems that 90% of the amps have so much overextended bass that they just turn to mush on the low strings. It is extremely frustrating because i've heard this problem [and i know you guys have too] from so many others on this forum, but i guess i was hopin that it wouldn't be me..... if you know what i mean.

I've had it plugged into a crate 2x12 via an Alesis pwramp[cabs off]. I've had it in my bedroom for the last week plugged into a yamaha aw16g for direct monitoring so i could audition the cabs [WOW!! what a difference they make on the tone ehh?] all levels are set properly on everything with no audible distortion of any kind on any of the fantastic clean harmonized delayed to shite presets....so i know i'm not the problem.

So i guess my question is............ is this normal?? Am i gonna have to do Cliff's little filter trick on everyone of my dirty sounds?? Or do you guys think i have a problem elsewhere??

Any help is greatly appreciated guys. I love this forum and i love this product. I'm GONNA make it work, i just need to figure out how. I know its not gonna happen overnight, and i am dedicated to staying patient.

Thanx in advance LK
 
bonehead said:
go to the advanced menu and do a lowcut around 150-300 or more. works fine for me
Click to expand...


+1

If the problem persists, add some PEQ after your cab; you shouldn't have flub-related issues afterwards :D
 
Laedan Kiana said:
But on the other hand i have had much less success dialing in dirty tones. It seems that 90% of the amps have so much overextended bass that they just turn to mush on the low strings. It is extremely frustrating because i've heard this problem [and i know you guys have too] from so many others on this forum, but i guess i was hopin that it wouldn't be me..... if you know what i mean.
Click to expand...

A lot of the amps the models are based on have the same characteristic. I recently fell in love with the "Corncob" model, finding it a great multi-purpose patch that cleans up nicely when I switch to a single coil PU and roll back the guitar volume. On a humbucker with the volume WFO, the patch has a lot of gain, which sounded really good on anything above the low C on the A string. Below that, the articulation got mushy. I was working on a tune with a palm muted chromatic riff on the low F, F# and G and was finding the patch unsatisfactory, as the articulation was poor. It was the tone I wanted, however, so I played with the guitar gain and my picking position to see if I could get the desired effect. Reducing the gain helped some, but at the point where the articulation was satisfactory, I lost the high gain tone I wanted. Picking closer to the bridge helped, but I had to pick so close that I couldn't palm mute. It gave me an idea though.

Since the articulation improved when I picked closer to the bridge, I reasoned that by reducing the amplitude of the lowest frequencies going into the amp, I could avoid excessive low frequency distortion. This is in line with Cliff's trick of placing a high pass filter in front of the amp, but I didn't want to lose the lowest frequencies altogether, as there was a definite punch that came with them. Here's what I did:

I placed a parametric eq block both before and immediately after the amp block. The guitar input goes into the first PEQ, which attenuates frequencies from 248.6 Hz down. The signal then goes into the amp block and then to another PEQ block which boosts the same frequencies that I cut with the first PEQ. Since the first PEQ attenuated those frequencies, rather than cutting them out completely, the low frequency information is still present, but attenuated to a threshold that doesn't slam the amp block as hard. The amp block seems to handle those frequencies with less distortion than frequencies above 248.6 Hz, which come in at higher gain. The second PEQ block boosts the low frequencies back to about the same relative levels they would have had before, but there is a little less distortion in those frequencies.

For me, the result was great. I stuck a momentary footswitch on the two PEQ blocks so I can compare the tone with them both in the signal path or bypassed. The tone is very much the same with them on or off, but the lowest notes have much better articulation.

If you want to reproduce what I did, here are the settings:

PEQ1
Freq: 248.6 Hz
Q: 0.707
Gain: -12 dB
Type: Shelving

Amp
Type: Corncob R100
Drive: 8.35
Bass: 5
Mid: 5
Treb: 5 (bright on)
Pres: 3.15
Depth: 5
Damp: 5.43
Sag: 4.49
Mstr: 6.57
Level: -4.50 dB
Warmth: 0
Thump: 0

All other amp block settings are the defaults.

PEQ2
Freq: 248.6 Hz
Q: 0.707
Gain: +5.10 dB
Type: Shelving

If you try this, it would be interesting to know if it helps.
 
I forgot to mention. I also reduce my first 2 global eq sliders down A couple db. To get rid of the sub lows. This seems to help all my patches. Clean or heavy. My sound is very tight and palm muting is thick.Keep tweaking you will find it,and when you do :D :D

Terry
 
Laedan Kiana said:
Well its been a couple weeks since my ultra arrived and i have been thrilled to death with the clean sound i have achieved. I honestly can't tell the difference between my preset and EJ's ACL clean tone!!! Floopin ridiculous! So it goes without saying i've already got my 2 grand worth [figure in the cost of two vibroluxs' or twins or whatever he's using at this point and your there] and have become an instant fan of the black box.

But on the other hand i have had much less success dialing in dirty tones. It seems that 90% of the amps have so much overextended bass that they just turn to mush on the low strings. It is extremely frustrating because i've heard this problem [and i know you guys have too] from so many others on this forum, but i guess i was hopin that it wouldn't be me..... if you know what i mean.

I've had it plugged into a crate 2x12 via an Alesis pwramp[cabs off]. I've had it in my bedroom for the last week plugged into a yamaha aw16g for direct monitoring so i could audition the cabs [WOW!! what a difference they make on the tone ehh?] all levels are set properly on everything with no audible distortion of any kind on any of the fantastic clean harmonized delayed to shite presets....so i know i'm not the problem.

So i guess my question is............ is this normal?? Am i gonna have to do Cliff's little filter trick on everyone of my dirty sounds?? Or do you guys think i have a problem elsewhere??

Any help is greatly appreciated guys. I love this forum and i love this product. I'm GONNA make it work, i just need to figure out how. I know its not gonna happen overnight, and i am dedicated to staying patient.

Thanx in advance LK
Click to expand...



Hallo, what you wrote is very interesting!

I am a new Axe-Fx Ultra user and I have a great problem.
I use my Marshall 8008 and a 2x12 Cab with Celestion Vintage 30-speakers.
In the global parameters i have the power amp ON.
When i switch the Cab-Simulation OFF, so the sound have less bass but to much treble
(extremly with the high gain-settings)

When i switch the Cab-Simulation ON, the sound have to much bass.
What do I wrong?
Can you help me!

Thanks Uwe
 
Hey guys thanx for all the tips. Am working with the PEQ and Cliffs filter tip. I'll let you guys know how my search for incredible high gain is going as i go. I just got my axe talking to my computer and axe edit is extremely floopin cool i must say. I'm gonna try to wrap my head around this today and hopefully by tonight i'll have some kind of acoustic patch loaded up that will work with my electric. I'm aware of java's, just need to find it. Should be fun.

I have succeeded in using the drives in front of the amps to tighten things up, so i know i'm on the right road, just need to be patient. This box is sosooosooooooooo DEEP! Unbelievable product.

In regards to jimi TGH. I'm not sure if the 8008 has tubes or not, if it does you'll need to switch your pwramp sims off. Turn the sag in your amps all the way down. Cabinets should be switched off globally. Next step is jumping inside the box and start tweaking. YOur not going to find the any of the presets to work with your system unless you are extremely lucky. This box is way to sensitive to whats plugged into it for it to be a plug n play experience, also all the presets were designed with FR in mind, so your gonna have to tweak and learn just like i am. YOu definately don't want your cab sims on if your going through your own cabinet. I hope i don't need to explain why that is :) Almost all the presets seem to contain a GEQ or PEQ somewhere in the chain. yOu should be able to use those to tame the highs.
 
Laedan Kiana said:
Hey guys thanx for all the tips. Am working with the PEQ and Cliffs filter tip. I'll let you guys know how my search for incredible high gain is going as i go. I just got my axe talking to my computer and axe edit is extremely floopin cool i must say. I'm gonna try to wrap my head around this today and hopefully by tonight i'll have some kind of acoustic patch loaded up that will work with my electric. I'm aware of java's, just need to find it. Should be fun.

I have succeeded in using the drives in front of the amps to tighten things up, so i know i'm on the right road, just need to be patient. This box is sosooosooooooooo DEEP! Unbelievable product.

In regards to jimi TGH. I'm not sure if the 8008 has tubes or not, if it does you'll need to switch your pwramp sims off. Turn the sag in your amps all the way down. Cabinets should be switched off globally. Next step is jumping inside the box and start tweaking. YOur not going to find the any of the presets to work with your system unless you are extremely lucky. This box is way to sensitive to whats plugged into it for it to be a plug n play experience, also all the presets were designed with FR in mind, so your gonna have to tweak and learn just like i am. YOu definately don't want your cab sims on if your going through your own cabinet. I hope i don't need to explain why that is :) Almost all the presets seem to contain a GEQ or PEQ somewhere in the chain. yOu should be able to use those to tame the highs.
Click to expand...


Hello,
the Marshall have no tubes, but a mode switch for "linear" or "valvestate".
What do you mean with the "BOX" who is sooooooooooooooo deep?
 
Try this: In the amp block, Page2, turn the master down to 9 o'clock and bump the level up to compensate. This cleans up most of the amp models. Some models rely on the master to increase gain (Plexi for example), but with these amps the flub does not seem to be an issue as they were designed to work this way. Also keep the bass below noon and watch your gain. For instance, do you need the gain set at 3 o'clock to achieve your desired tone? If so, try backing the gain down and using a drive pedal in front of the amp to boost the gain as needed instead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom