This is why you are not sounding as good live as you sound at home

Yeah full range is normally up to 20k but a guitar will top out at about 5k ish. So for what we need, 10k is more than enough IMO.
Correction—
I have to note that after EQing my Cab, I see that a guitar range appears to go all the way up to 10k. It does start to slope off from about 5k and even at 20k there’s is definately some information present when picking - plectrum scrape I guess. Well that’s what is generated by the AX8 at least.
 
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This concept is near and dear to my heart......I struggle so very much with my live sound (pretty much the reason I got the AX8). The most often complaint is that I just cannot really hear myself play solos above the soundstage of the rest of the band. One observation is that — sometimes — the sound / tone which sounds best in a home practice format might not be the same tone which does the best job at cutting through the band mix. That is just my opinion; I am still learning.......
 
This depends a lot on your studio monitor setup. For example I run a pretty much full range sound with my monitors and a sub that's very low in the mix and I measure everything with measurement mics so that I get a very neutral sound in my control room. I never have problems taking my guitar sounds out live. Sure if you're using small speakers that especially don't give you a realistic representation of the low end and if you're room is not treated properly then you shouldn't trust that sound.
 
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So Cab is finished. Very happy. It does sound killer I have to say!.
But one thing I have to do is pay my respect to the likes of Xitone who create cabs at amazing prices and value. This cab cost me around 600 with the amp speakers , Baltic birch wood, caster wheels , insulation, DuraTex paint, screws, wire, female connectors, and and and . Then the labor involved would cost another 600 at least, as I make everything by hand..lol. Dovetail saws, no.4 plane etc...
Unless you have the time to commit to making a cab that you want and to your own specs, buying a xitone or atomic is IMO value for money.
 
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The latest revelation for me has been getting an older used XiTone active wedge. That's been very enlightening in terms of what a huge difference there really is between a typical PA type FRFR (Alto or QSC in my case) and something like a XiTone. The difference in overall detail is hard to explain, but I love it.

I'm anxiously waiting for my XiTone wedge to come. Could you explain the difference between your FRFR PA and the XiTone? Do you build your tones on the XiTone and then use just the PA for live sound? If so, what kinds of things are you paying attention to during tone design?
 
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So Cab is finished. Very happy. It does sound killer I have to say!.
But one thing I have to do is pay my respect to the likes of Xitone who create cabs at amazing prices and value. This cab cost me around 600 with the amp speakers , Baltic birch wood, caster wheels , insulation, DuraTex paint, screws, wire, female connectors, and and and . Then the labor involved would cost another 600 at least, as I make everything by hand..lol. Dovetail saws, no.4 plane etc...
Unless you have the time to commit to making a cab that you want and to your own specs, buying a xitone or atomic is IMO value for money.

Nice build!

I get the DIY thing and like it a lot but it has to be a labor of love. Unless you have the means to crank out your idea in mass and have the resale licence to buy wholesale you really don't save yourself anything as you have pointed out.

The other thing is in the past 10 years the market has become so saturated at this point with Atomic, Xitone, Mission, Friedman, Line 6, then add all of the prosumer PA monitor cabs out their competing for your dollar, trying to climb on the train would be practically impossible.
 
I'm anxiously waiting for my XiTone wedge to come. Could you explain the difference between your FRFR PA and the XiTone? Do you build your tones on the XiTone and then use just the PA for live sound? If so, what kinds of things are you paying attention to during tone design?

I suspect you're going to love your XiTone once you get it. As I mentioned, it's hard to explain. Trying to describe sonic qualities is like trying to describe how food tastes. Words just come up short in the end, and some things you just have to experience for yourself. The XiTone somehow makes my sounds feel more detailed. As in more accurate, and particularly more amp-like. This term, "GRFR" comes to mind. I think there is something to that concept. Something like a synth benefits considerably more from an actual FRFR box (just due to the frequencies it operates in) than a guitar modeler does.

Most of the sounds I've dialed up were done on an Alto TS-210. Which is just okay IMHO. When I started using the XiTone I thought it helped me hear things the Alto didn't do near as good a job of reproducing. For instance when dialing up sounds you really need to be at or very close to what you anticipate your live volume will be. If not you'll encounter unexpected issues at stage volume. For me, this usually meant to much high end, or too much low end. It was really hard using just the Alto. The XiTone seemed to help me refine how much low & high end content I had dialed in. When I went back to my Altos and heard how things sounded there compared to before it started to make sense where I'd gone wrong. Another thing about the XiTone is, once I've got something dialed in, it seems like I can run that sound at any volume and get much better consistency from it at a greater range of levels.

One of the other things that helped a lot was playing a tune, or jam track through my studio monitors (I use Adam A7's) and playing along, using the tune as an overall frame of reference. I found this helpful when trying to get a better handle on hearing how much low end & high end to dial in relative to the tune, or whatever track I was playing at the time. It's really helpful for me to do a lot of comparative listening when dialing up sounds. The key is to use a familiar tune (I use several) on a familiar system as a reference. This seems to have helped me stay in the ball park with way more consistency, as opposed to being way off in the weeds, and not realizing it until I'm on the gig.

I'm also beginning to wonder if part of the difference I'm hearing is the difference between using something that's in a wood box vs a plastic box. Besides the obvious differences in the quality of the components used in each build, I have to wonder how much of a role that plays in what I'm hearing. All I know is the XiTone has made playing way more fun. It's one of those things where I turn my rig on and start playing and I'm just grinning from ear to ear because I'm inspired by how good things feel & sound. It's really completed my rig very nicely. I think you'll like yours a lot when you get it.
 
Simple reason you don't sound good "live" compared to home is that your playing in a place which 99% of the time was not designed to have good acoustics, and you also typically playing with other musicians who's guitar, bass, keys, vocals etc are competing for 'space' in the mix, so those tones that sound great listening them them solo suddenly get buried.

Put your monitor speakers, your high end CLR or other FRFR out in your garage or unfinished basement and play a little.... suddenly sounds like crap, just like anything will in that acoustic space. Put your monitors in the typical home bedroom/den or whatever, with carpet and other sound dampening materials and boy does it sound better huh ?

Well most venues are a lot closer to your garage than they are your bedroom. Doesn't matter what your playing through, the venue is going to affect the tone. Now add in another musician, who may also have carefully tweaked their tones, and do you two complement each other sonically, or do you compete ?

Sometimes you need to dial in your tone to sound 'bad', 'thin' etc at home, because its leaving room in the spectrum for the bass, for the keys etc. When the band plays together, its a nice full sound, with everything contributing, but solo guitar and band mix guitar are seldom equivalent.
 
One of the other things that helped a lot was playing a tune, or jam track through my studio monitors (I use Adam A7's) and playing along, using the tune as an overall frame of reference....

Thanks for the detailed reply, and especially for this tip. Makes a ton of sense.
 
This depends a lot on your studio monitor setup. For example I run a pretty much full range sound with my monitors and a sub that's very low in the mix and I measure everything with measurement mics so that I get a very neutral sound in my control room. I never have problems taking my guitar sounds out live. Sure if you're using small speakers that especially don't give you a realistic representation of the low end and if you're room is not treated properly then you shouldn't trust that sound.

Hi!
i highly suspect that many people here do not have the tool to mesure a room. and even with a good mic and a Smmart it not only a matter of running your listen position flat.
this is why i suggest them to A/B good mix with good IR (like the stuff you do) and not over EQ in post.

i will do a video of a more in-depth preset build with acoustic in mind.
 
Hi!
i highly suspect that many people here do not have the tool to mesure a room. and even with a good mic and a Smmart it not only a matter of running your listen position flat.
this is why i suggest them to A/B good mix with good IR (like the stuff you do) and not over EQ in post.

i will do a video of a more in-depth preset build with acoustic in mind.

Interesting that you post this now. As I have been listening to my newly built cab and comparing it to the sound I get through my studio monitors - AX7s. The Cab? - sounds killer! The monitors? - sounds killer. Are they different in sound? Well yeah! Very different. So now how do I dial in good sound on the AX8 now? .........dilemma.
I decided to get a couple of good mikes out and set this up about 18 inches from the cab and set up two tracks in studio one. A direct Spdif to one channel and a track for the miked cab. I pulled up pro EQ and compared. You can see from my earlier post that I have bass traps and some decent sound treatment. The difference was visible from around 3k upwards, a slight drop in the cab of about 2db. And a 1.5 dB resonance frequency around 490Hz. Calcs have verified this to be the fs of the cab. I made a few changes in the plate amp eq settings and the general sound is pretty close IMO.
I do believe I have been successful in Tuning the cab to a decent GRFR level.
I would suspect that this is what Mic Farlow would do for his FRFR cabs with the Dayton plate amps he uses.
 
Nice build!

I get the DIY thing and like it a lot but it has to be a labor of love. Unless you have the means to crank out your idea in mass and have the resale licence to buy wholesale you really don't save yourself anything as you have pointed out.

The other thing is in the past 10 years the market has become so saturated at this point with Atomic, Xitone, Mission, Friedman, Line 6, then add all of the prosumer PA monitor cabs out their competing for your dollar, trying to climb on the train would be practically impossible.

Yes. This is not something that I would not want to do commercially. I enjoyed making it and probably saved around $1000 only because I went for a 2x12. (Excluding the Labor of love).
 
I bring one of my band's PA speakers home and set up my sound through it.
We do the same thing. We rehearse with our live rig. Also, if we are using a house rig, we ask that all EQ's are set flat, then ask them to "dial it in" (which is ALWAYS subjective) during sound check.
 
This concept is near and dear to my heart......I struggle so very much with my live sound (pretty much the reason I got the AX8). The most often complaint is that I just cannot really hear myself play solos above the soundstage of the rest of the band. One observation is that — sometimes — the sound / tone which sounds best in a home practice format might not be the same tone which does the best job at cutting through the band mix. That is just my opinion; I am still learning.......

* Tell the other band members to be less loud when soloing, no need to fight soloists and singers on-stage when performing.
* Mid-range boost for solos effect.
 
I just got a gig. I usually use iem but today we did not have time to do the soundcheck, so we used monitor on the floor. my tone was very bad, trebly shrill. I do not know how PA was but my monitors were very bad. I tried not to use too many drives because they were so bad. I left Gig very disappointed, my tone was great at home, but I remember that guitar tone is always a new adventure every day.
 
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