Tips for eliminating ice pick highs

barhrecords said:
Love that plugin too!!!!

Don, I am Ultra-less and in waiting for the II, does your EQ mimick the boost + cut feature of Pultec? I.e. a low shelf cut with a fairly wide Q low boost at the knee? That is my fav use of the Pultec.

Thanks,
Richard
Click to expand...

the setting I posted is just the 16k Att 5 setting, although there is something going on in the low frequencies as well.
If you save your fav Pultec patch as a preset and send it to me I can match it with the PEQ.

pm'ed

:)
 
Jay Mitchell said:
No. Unless you set the "Drive" parameter to a nonzero value the cab block is linear. It doesn't matter whether you place EQ before or after a linear block. It only matters with nonlinear blocks, e.g., amp, drive, compressor.
Click to expand...

Ok great, I kinda should have known that. The reason I asked is that in older with the same topic people have suggested EQing after the cab for the purpose of taming high frequencies, which has led me to the misconception that the CAB is the actual producer of the harshness, and not the amp. Thanks for clearifying!
 
Almost every one of my patches has a PEQ as the first block. Since all of my guitars have an internal Roland GK pickup, which uses a buffer (even on the 'regular' pickup signal) that provides a 1 M ohm load before the cable, the amp block is generally hit with excessive highs. Without PEQ, and some of the techniques Jay mentioned, the ice pick syndrome would be intolerable with many of the amp models (and with my tube amps). The JCM 800 and Plexi are two of the most sensitive to this. It is easier to correct the problem with the Axe than with real amps.
 
Jay Mitchell said:
The issue is there to some extent regardless of pickups, although brighter pickups tend to make it more evident. It is there with my Strat with late '60s vintage replica pickups, as well as with my Epi '56 Gold Top Les Paul with p90s. It is not a digital artifact; I have encountered very similar issues with physical amps. In the Axe-Fx, it takes careful tweaking to get rid of without dulling the sound.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I was trying to record (direct to Logic, monitoring via headphones) some mid-gain sounds this weekend and my '56 Historic LP with P90's was just completely brittle and shrill sounding, I gave up trying to get a good tone and switched to my SG with much, much better results. I don't have any problems with the P90's in real amps though.
 
Jay Mitchell said:
This was for me the greatest challenge in getting good sounds from medium- to high-gain presets in the Axe-Fx. Different firmware revisions have had the syndrome to different degrees, but it has pretty much always been there in the amp sims I use. There are several things you can change that will help you tame them. First, it appears to me that the undesirable overtones originate primarily in the power amp section of the amp block. Beyond the obvious steps of turning down treble and/or presence, some combination of the following changes has always worked for me, in rough order of preference:

1. Reduce MV and increase Drive.

2. Reduce Hi Freq Resonance.

3. Reduce the Hi Cut frequency.

4. Increase Sag.

5. Reduce Transformer Hi Freq.

6. Place a PEQ in front of the amp block, set filter 5 to Blocking, and turn down the frequency until the sound just cleans up.

You're walking a fine line here, so make small changes to one parameter at a time and listen carefully before going further. It's easy to get rid of the harshness at the expense of dulling the edge of your sound.

Also, work with the amp sim first (Drive block bypassed). Once you've got it cleaned up, kick in the Drive. If the harshness returns, tweak the tone controls of the Drive block to get rid of it.
Click to expand...

Great advice. I'm going to revisit a few of the sims I couldn't get along with originally using this as a guide.

I should add though that the ice pick highs I fought before have been much less of a problem with FW 11.

D
 
DonPetersen said:
and then there is the possibility that your pickups contribute to that also.
Click to expand...

This is somewhat the case with one of my main guitars (Parker Fly Deluxe). Jay's suggestion above to place a blocking PEQ in front of the amp sim may be worthwhile, as changing those particular pickups is problematic. There are alternatives, but they're not numerous.
 
Jay, to clarify when i go out to my studio it is 2 4x12 cabs no mics just a lot of volume. I am fully ignorant (so far) as to the IR magic as such i just notice the solo tone has the shrill aspect at high volumes. i am going out right now to tweak per you recommendations! To clarify suggestions 2 and 3 are within the PEQ correct??
 
Sometimes an ice-pick high end is due to lack of mids to support it (disclaimer - I like lots of warm, creamy mids). You might try adding some mids at the note fundamental frequency using a PEQ after the CAB. For reference, I'm pretty sure the high A on the high E string is 880 HZ. If that's the problematic area, try adding just a db or two of boost (along with making sure the upper harmonics (3kHZ or so and above in my mind) are tamed).

Cragginshred, I went back to the start after your comments about the patch I sent you - you were largely right - and I think I've come much closer now to a thick Plexi tone that doesn't muddy up the mix. I'm using a 30W with R121, master volume cranked, gain somewhere in the 3. something range, treble cap at around 3nF I think. I knew I was on to something when our sound guy told me "don't touch that tone!"
 
First off THAAAAANK YOU! The peq with blocking at filter 5 and then going to Freq in that block and backing it down helped with the Plexi and even better with my Marsha Be pre sets! Countless hours of frustration with no fruit has now given me a new tone shaping tool! Much appreciation!
 
Back to suggestions 2 and 3- hi cut and high freq in the amp block, forgive me but where is this? Is it page all the way right? If so I have never messed with that do to not knowing what it is all about.
 
Thanks bro! Ok since we are talking Eqing,... so far it has been in terms of eliminating unwanted ice pick tone -got and psyched about the change, now how about placing the GEQ to fatten tone (bigger with a wider tonal spectrum). I have been placing mine after the amp block in almost every instance. What are others doing for this purpose?
 
Jay has this high frequency issue been reduced in the Axe2?? Do you have to do all the same tricks to reduce it. Thanks
 
andreww said:
Many of the actual amps modelled have the same issue btw.
Click to expand...

+1. I think some of those intense highs are accurate on some amps, in which case, I'd personally prefer to have them there as a side effect of an accurate model and then deal with them like I would in any other rig rather than someone else make the executive decision to improve upon the original too much.

Plus, I LOVE highs. I'm an old school boosted Marshall through G12T-75s high frequencies right between your eyes type dude! :)
 
zenaxe said:
Plus, I LOVE highs. I'm an old school boosted Marshall through G12T-75s high frequencies right between your eyes type dude! :)
Click to expand...

Whew weee been there done that... and it will tear your face off :) It ultimately caused a stage volume war where the drummer and bass player escalated their volume capability until finally the singer quit... such is the life of the weekend warrior.

Nowadays, I go for lowest stage volume possible, and yeah I know I'm an old fart now.

Richard
 
I use a different Jay "tip" - I often use Jay's "Clean 2x12 on axis 6_0" IR in *series* with a nearfield IR. Normally going thru 2 cabs is a really bad idea, but in this case, Jay's IR acts pretty much like a blocking style post PEQ, without much character of it's own. The other cab adds flavour. This will sound quite muddy at low volume, but at high volume through an FRFR it sounds really punchy and well balanced.

fwiw, I had the immense pleasure of seeing Joe Bonamassa live a couple of weeks back, and his tone is even darker than mine using the above technique!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom