Tone being affected

PixelBard

PixelBard

Member
So I got my FX8 on Thursday and this thing is amazing. The effects all sound top notch and I am beyond happy with my purchase. I am running this through the 4CM and using the relay to control my amp's channels. When I switch to my amps dirty channel, the tone gets a tiny bit compressed ( like digital compression you would hear through an MP3) and makes it sound a bit tinny. Is this to be expected or is there a setting I need to tweak? The clean channel sounds unaltered when jumping between on and true bypass. Distortion being provided from the FX8 blocks sound superb, but sadly my amps dirty tone is being killed just a tiny tiny bit.
 
I notice tonal changes in my setup too, very slight, almost negligible. Keep in mind, the FX8 is not true bypass per se, it's a buffered bypass. So, you're probably hearing the reaction of your amp to the FX buffer. Sometimes I like the tone of the buffer. But I got a Radial Bigshot true bypass loop pedal to totally bypass the FX8's pre section buffer if I want to. I don't bypass it much, but sometimes I prefer it. I think my Empress Buffer+ sounds a little better than the FX buffer, but haven't felt compelled to put it back into my rig.
 
PixelBard said:
So I got my FX8 on Thursday and this thing is amazing. The effects all sound top notch and I am beyond happy with my purchase. I am running this through the 4CM and using the relay to control my amp's channels. When I switch to my amps dirty channel, the tone gets a tiny bit compressed ( like digital compression you would hear through an MP3) and makes it sound a bit tinny. Is this to be expected or is there a setting I need to tweak? The clean channel sounds unaltered when jumping between on and true bypass. Distortion being provided from the FX8 blocks sound superb, but sadly my amps dirty tone is being killed just a tiny tiny bit.
Click to expand...
you don't describe your setup. is the fx8 in front of your amp, in the loop, or 4cm?
 
PixelBard said:
So I got my FX8 on Thursday and this thing is amazing. The effects all sound top notch and I am beyond happy with my purchase. I am running this through the 4CM and using the relay to control my amp's channels. When I switch to my amps dirty channel, the tone gets a tiny bit compressed ( like digital compression you would hear through an MP3) and makes it sound a bit tinny. Is this to be expected or is there a setting I need to tweak? The clean channel sounds unaltered when jumping between on and true bypass. Distortion being provided from the FX8 blocks sound superb, but sadly my amps dirty tone is being killed just a tiny tiny bit.
Click to expand...
I can't say that I notice any compression or difference in tone. I do get a slight drop in volume (2-3db) when running through the effects loop but it's apparent on all channels and doesn't affect the tone.
 
Engage True Bypass and check if that sounds less thin.
 
Current preset I have been setting up is 3 pre 5 post. I guess I turned the compressor I use on the clean back on at some point and that was a little bit of it but there is still a little bit of noticeable digitization. As far as testing the true bypass, that's what I was doing. I had the scene I was using only set to trigger the relay. All other blocks/effects disabled. Then I would strum a few chords, engage true bypass, disengage strum a few again. It's only slight, but noticeable enough that I would say it changes the tone a bit. It's definitely something I can live with but was just curious if maybe there was something I could do to maybe help a bit. Thanks for the input folks!
 
So I made a huge breakthrough after reading through some other posts. The source of my tone deterioration is my FX loop. I disengaged it and I could no longer tell a difference in the tone on my dirty channel. I'll have to shoot the guy who made my amp a message and see if we can do some brainstorming. Maybe some alterations are in order.
 
FWIW, I do notice a slight degradation in tone with my Louis Electric Buster, straight in (2CM). I set up a preset with no effects and relay bypass the unit. The tone is a little sweeter on the top end when bypassed. I can pick it out every time (blind test), but it's (almost) negligible. With my PRS and the Friedman Dirty Shirley (4CM) with some crunch on the DS it's much harder to hear the difference.
 
Got a hold of my guy and explained what was going on and what I had discovered. He told me where the send and receive should be set for line level and now were all good in tone land. Now to wait for my board, cables, and expression cable to show up so I can set everything up.
 
paul story said:
FWIW, I do notice a slight degradation in tone with my Louis Electric Buster, straight in (2CM). I set up a preset with no effects and relay bypass the unit. The tone is a little sweeter on the top end when bypassed. I can pick it out every time (blind test), but it's (almost) negligible. With my PRS and the Friedman Dirty Shirley (4CM) with some crunch on the DS it's much harder to hear the difference.
Click to expand...

Sounds exactly like my experience (except I don't have the awesome amps you do ;)). In addition to "sweeter", I would say "punchier" and "fuller" (as in "less thin") in my case. As you said, it's almost negligible, but noticeable enough that I want a buffer-free true-bypass option if I feel (ridiculously) picky. I think the next iteration of the FX8 hardware should offer the option of buffered or non-buffered true bypass, like a lot of true-bypass loopers out there today. Buffers have a "tone" in there own right (or varying degrees of lack thereof?), some better than others.
 
PixelBard said:
So I made a huge breakthrough after reading through some other posts. The source of my tone deterioration is my FX loop. I disengaged it and I could no longer tell a difference in the tone on my dirty channel. I'll have to shoot the guy who made my amp a message and see if we can do some brainstorming. Maybe some alterations are in order.
Click to expand...

I thought the effects loop was engaged in both cases. Isn´t that the whole point. ?
 
I apologize, I did not specify clearly that I disengaged the FX loop on my amp. I have independent volume knobs for the send and receive levels and was running it at what was below line level, thus resulting in the compression. All has been well with is since then, and while I didn't get to play through MY amp, I did take the FX8 out and played a show with it Saturday night. Thing worked wonders!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom