The Power of Pre-EQ

I wish we had an EQ block that could load any of the existing tone stacks. (Tone Stack block?)

You could put this in front of an amp block and set the amp block's tone stack location to post.
 
I wish we had an EQ block that could load any of the existing tone stacks. (Tone Stack block?)

You could put this in front of an amp block and set the amp block's tone stack location to post.

I asked for tonestack blocks a whilr back for this reason, didnt seem to be any interest.
 
I wish we had an EQ block that could load any of the existing tone stacks. (Tone Stack block?)

You could put this in front of an amp block and set the amp block's tone stack location to post.

Huh? :eek:

I'm not in front of the AXE but I thought we have this now in one of the amp block pages. :)

E.g., I recently changed the "default" tone stack of the Mesa Subway Blues to "active" but also could have selected any number of amp specific tone stacks ... unless I was just dreaming I could do this ... ;)


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I've been using pre and post distortion eq since 83'. I rarely play with out it. Using an eq pre distortion can make a bad amp sound better. I've been also using a dummy load in the speaker ouput of my amps, then a noise reduction> 10 band graphic eq>splitter. From the splitter I split one of the signal directly into a channel of a mixer, then various signals from the splitter to different FX units and the outs of he fx units to other channels of the mixer then to a power amp.
I do the same thing with my Axe Fx with either a PEQ or Graphic eq as the first part of the signal chain. When Cliff put a graphic eq within the amp block, I was very exited! Using pre and post distortion eq can make a big difference in your sound and also it can help you adjust your sound to different rooms.
 
As a new user, I'm just delving into Cliffs notes in an effort to get educated before I really start trying to tweak my sounds. This particular thread taught me some things I never knew. I have owned and played tube amps since the early 90's (JCM 900 was my first), but always struggled to get what I really wanted from them. My Mesa MarkV was the first amp that I felt gave me what I was looking for, and it had a bit to do with John Petrucci's YouTube videos on how to set that amp up. He talked about dialing the bass out with the tone knobs (pre distortion) to get rid of flub in the low end, and then using the 5 band to get your low end back without the flub. (post EQ). I never understood why that worked or what the difference in the EQ's were... but now I do. I just got a little smarter about how amps work and how to get tone. Very cool.
After about a month it is becoming more clear that the AXE-FX is by far the single best music gear purchase of my life.
 
Interesting thread indeed. I've been using a Marshal JMP-1 Preamp rig for I guess about 15 years now (soon to be upgraded once my XL ships) and I've always run it with two additional EQs, a Boss GE7 in the front for general tone tweaking and a slight gain boost (more so when using it with a big pedalboard+long leads) and an old Boss half rack parametric EQ in the effects loop (along with a Marshal JFX processor which does reverb+delay). I use the parametric one to tame the high end of the reverb a little and add a little lower mid to warm it up. What I particularly like about the GE 7 in the front is I can quickly make a tweak to the attack of the guitar to suit the pickups or room etc without having to mess with my presets on the JMP1. It's funny I was just thinking earlier about the GE7 while looking at Axe Edit (with nothing connected!) and whether I'll still use it or just use the one in the XL. Time and some experimenting will tell I guess :)

It's funny - I used to work in a Music store and I'd sometimes get people trying out graphic eq pedals and I noticed they'd sell pretty rarely compared to most other types of pedals. The most common comment I'd get was 'well it doesn't really do that much to the sound' . I guess what they might have meant was that it didn't give a wow factor to the sound like say an overdrive or delay pedal, but it gives you the ability to really fine tune the tone and for me that's really useful.

Cheers,
Brian
 
Thanks for the info. IIRC, the GEQ in the amp block is fixed at post distortion. Would it be possible to program it as user selectable pre/post distortion EQ inside the amp block???

Never received an answer to this question. If it is possible, I think it would be great to have an user selectable pre/post distortion graphic eq (instead of fixed at post) in the amp block.
 
Cliff is right about the Stryper set up. There is an interview with Michael Sweet on Youtube about that notched sound that they get and he held up a Tech 21 Sansamp parametric pedal they used to boost anything between 800-1000Hz. 6db would be a rhythm sound. For some of the lead parts they were boosting up to 20db! Having heard this I went to my mother patch on the Ultra (HBE) and started playing with these settings. The overdrive got more characterful and distinctive without any bumble bee in a jam jar fuzziness. Good to know why it works so well. It is an alternative to the parked wah tone used by Michael Schenker. The video can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMsBQEsvkDw
 
Anyone remember amptone.com? The guy was, well, extreme, but he had the Pre-EQ/Distortion/Post-EQ subject well-covered.

I remember that guy (Cybermonk I think) and that site very well; he did have the pre-EQ/distortion/post-EQ thing down indeed. I found the site interesting since I also found out early in my playing career how pre/post EQ did absolute wonders for getting awesome tones. I used an MXR pedal EQ in front of my amp and would sometimes use a post EQ in the FX loop if the amp had one.

Before I got an AFX I was looking at programmable rack dual EQ's for this purpose. I always found a pre-EQ was the best overdrive pedal/boost ever for solos. I still use EQ's a lot in the AFX.
 
I have a peq programmed into every scene, it varies but always around 800hz +3db, Q about 1 and a peq output level of +9db for high gain boost presets. Also a little dip at around 2.25khz, Sometimes in conjuction with a sd1 or 808 set for the usual boost settings and a hpf, lpf of 120hz-6khz in the cab block from memory. But I think I might try moving this to the amp block to see what happens.

Cheers
Ant
 
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I also use pre-EQ in all my presets. I think that's one of the reasons why most presets out there (without pre-EQ) don't usually work for the rest. My Parker guitar has a built-in RMC PolyDrive Preamp and I find it impossible to attack any mid/hi-gain amp directly with my guitar without pre-EQ in the middle. With my G&L Strato I don't have such a problem.
 
Thread resurrect...

Try this:
Put a Filter block before the amp block set as follows:
Type: Peaking
Freq: 2000 Hz
Q: 0.5
Gain: 8 dB (adjust to taste)
Lowcut: 60 Hz
Hicut: 3500 Hz
Level: Adjust to taste

Works great in front of Plexis and other old non-MV amps to add chime and boost.
 
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