Things I should be doing when tweaking my tones

[BeerMeAgainSam]

Hey, first-timer to the forum here. I signed up to get some advice on setting up my AX8. I've been using it for about a year now, but haven't really dug into tweaking the settings on my patches that much. I primarily play metal with baritone guitars. I'm running my AX8 into a Seymour Duncan Powerstage 170 and into a Mesa 4x12 cabinet. I pretty much found some essential tones I needed for some live shows and have stuck with them, but I'm always trying to get a better sound. I have a couple of questions that I'm hoping someone can help me out with. I'll post pics of my current settings and maybe you can tell me if I'm on the right track or not. I can record some audio tracks with my setup too if you need them.

High gain tone questions:

Instrument Pad - I have it currently set at 12db, but whenever I'm playing power chords on high gain the audio meter peaks up to the red pretty much constantly. I read online that it's ok if it does peak into the red, but it shouldn't be stuck at red all the time. Should I set the pad to 18db?

Input gate settings - Not sure if I should keep them like this or change them to something else.

Noise gate settings - What I've got them set to now. It does suck tone out when I'm playing palm muted single notes.

Amp settings - I have a real Peavey 6505+ amp that was my main rig before the AX8 so I tried to match this 5153 patch off of my tone from that amp.

GEQ - I've never used any type of EQ pedal in my live rig prior to the AX8, so not sure if I'm on the right track here.


Thanks!

 

[chris]

The input gate is a noise gate. You might not need the separate block.

A threshold of -1dB means only the absolute loudest strumming will come through. That’s way too high of a setting. In this position, it only is for the noise from the guitar. It’s typically around -70 to -50 dB at most. Try that as a test. Again, it’s for noise from the guitar only when it’s the first thing in the chain.

 

[BeerMeAgainSam]

The input gate is a noise gate. You might not need the separate block.

A threshold of -1dB means only the absolute loudest strumming will come through. That’s way too high of a setting. In this position, it only is for the noise from the guitar. It’s typically around -70 to -50 dB at most. Try that as a test. Again, it’s for noise from the guitar only when it’s the first thing in the chain.

Thanks, Chris! I ditched the gate block and set the input gate to -30 and it sounds a lot better. I do a lot of start and stop stuff so I want to make sure the gate kicks in fast enough and the -50 seems to handle it pretty well without sucking the tone out.

 

[chris]

Thanks, Chris! I ditched the gate block and set the input gate to -30 and it sounds a lot better. I do a lot of start and stop stuff so I want to make sure the gate kicks in fast enough and the -50 seems to handle it pretty well without sucking the tone out.

For that style, people put a gate after the amp (or cab) to gate the distortion tone. Try putting one there and playing around with it, but threshold not too high again.

You want as much signal getting to the amp first (the input gate) and can choke it up after that.

 

[Smittefar]

Your amp level seems to be set very high - I do not know this amp model, but I would guess that this causes output clipping - You should avoid this. Reduce amp level and turn up the Out 2 knob to compensate, or turn the power stage up higher.

If you see constant red with power chords, you should increase input pad to 18 dB or higher.

 

[BeerMeAgainSam]

Your amp level seems to be set very high - I do not know this amp model, but I would guess that this causes output clipping - You should avoid this. Reduce amp level and turn up the Out 2 knob to compensate, or turn the power stage up higher.

If you see constant red with power chords, you should increase input pad to 18 dB or higher.

Thanks!

 

[Molekiller]

Welcome @BeerMeAgainSam !

Isn’t this place great?!

 

[pauly]

Hi @BeerMeAgainSam,

Also, use the 'Intelligent' gate setting, and experiment. In many circumstances, I can get it to work beautifully without cutting off any music.
Thanks
Pauly

Thanks, Chris! I ditched the gate block and set the input gate to -30 and it sounds a lot better. I do a lot of start and stop stuff so I want to make sure the gate kicks in fast enough and the -50 seems to handle it pretty well without sucking the tone out.