Trouble dialing in tone through FRFR, just a little venting

W

wake911

Experienced
So, I've had my Axe for the whole of 5 days now. It took me less than 20 minutes to get superb clean, classic rock dirty, and classic rock lead tones built up when running through my basic set-up. (cab sims off)

Axe => EHX 44 Magnum power amp => 2 Mesa 1x10" cabs in parallel. (L out copied to R, summed)

Sounds bad ass, and was simple to make it sound so great.

Then I plugged into my MBox (XLR input with Line input selected) and out to my KRK Rockit 5's, turned on cab sims, and OUCH painfully bad tone. Tried just straight into the KRK's and equally bad tone. Haven't been able to dial in a natural sounding dirty tone through them yet. I guess I just need to spend more time with Yek's How-to about using FRFR's and get back to editing tonight after work.

It was just a little frustrating with how easy it was to get kick ass tones through my power amp and guitar cabs, and then expecting that easiness through the FRFR as well.

Not complaining, just venting a little frustration, as I'm sure everyone has experiencing with the Axe at one time or another. Still love the device, despite accidentally deleting all the presets in bank A the first time I hooked it up to Axe-Edit. Ha ha, I liked a few of the tones in that bank a lot too. Oh well, I guess I just have more room to create my own!!

Oh, and I feel better after typing this out, more stoked to nail some good tone tonight through the KRK's!!
 
wake911 said:
turned on cab sims, and OUCH painfully bad tone.
Click to expand...

Global Poweramp sim should be On too.
Then put any amp sim (default settings) and a matching cab sim in an otherwise empty preset and you should have a passable tone rightaway.
 
wake911 said:
It was just a little frustrating with how easy it was to get kick ass tones through my power amp and guitar cabs, and then expecting that easiness through the FRFR as well.
Click to expand...

Its a common problem, i had that feeling for over a year until i realized i was was chasing something "I" couldn't achieve, i would try out all the help and advice you receive and hopefully it come come good for you, but if your still not happy then power amp and cabs is the ways for you to go as it has been for many others!
 
I struggled with this for a bit as well. The problem was my approach to tone.

I was trying to get the sound of a 4x12 cabinet through studio monitors and/or my QSC K12's. That just plain won't work. Those speakers don't move air like a 4x12 cab does...so it won't sound or feel the same as a big cabinet moving the air in a room. So I switched my approach to trying to find the best "recorded" tone I could. I took that approach from this thread: http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/17084-Buying-and-using-full-range-speakers-A-few-basics

I have to keep that in mind as I'm still so used to the "in the room" sound of a tube amp with a cabinet. Maybe this will help.
 
yek said:
Global Poweramp sim should be On too.
Then put any amp sim (default settings) and a matching cab sim in an otherwise empty preset and you should have a passable tone rightaway.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have the poweramp sims on at all times. My EHX is "fairly" transparent, not perfect, but I've not even tried it with Power amp sims off. I knew to turn the cab sims off if using guitar cabs, but had read 50/50 on whether to turn off poweramp sims or not. When it sounded good, I just didn't adjust it from sounding good.

I'm going to try with just a jcm800 sim and one of the cabinets recommended in the wiki (4x12 V30, 4x12 20w or 25w) and see what happens at lunch today. That basic start is where i got a good rhythm tone through my poweramp/cab setup. I really appreciate the ideas. I think I just might have jumped a few steps ahead and assumed that just adding a cab would make it work, when I really need to start from scratch again and not rush myself.

I realize my description of tone was poor word choice. My idea of this being "bad tone" is the brittle, digital (original pod high gain dist type) distortion tone, or a cheap plug-in amp simulator in recording gear. Lots of high end and distortion that isn't smooth and pleasing distortion but harsh, ear aching distortion.
 
Check the stereo settings. Sometimes it sounds great in mono but get phase cancellation and other issues when in stereo. The forum has some helpful hints if you want to run in stereo.
I was trying to record some tones for comparison before I changed my guitar pickups and the sound took a turn for the worse when I plugged the second channel.

Give that a shot. Start simple and make sure the signal makes sense from input all the way to output. Good luck.
 
wake911 said:
I think I just might have jumped a few steps ahead and assumed that just adding a cab would make it work, when I really need to start from scratch again and not rush myself.

I realize my description of tone was poor word choice. My idea of this being "bad tone" is the brittle, digital (original pod high gain dist type) distortion tone, or a cheap plug-in amp simulator in recording gear. Lots of high end and distortion that isn't smooth and pleasing distortion but harsh, ear aching distortion.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that sounds a lot like the poweramp or cabinet sim is Off. Either in the Global settings or in the Amp block (Sag=0) or by forgetting to add a Cab block to the preset.

Let's see what happens if you start from scratch.
 
wake911 said:
So, I've had my Axe for the whole of 5 days now. It took me less than 20 minutes to get superb clean, classic rock dirty, and classic rock lead tones built up when running through my basic set-up. (cab sims off)

Axe => EHX 44 Magnum power amp => 2 Mesa 1x10" cabs in parallel. (L out copied to R, summed)

Sounds bad ass, and was simple to make it sound so great.

Then I plugged into my MBox (XLR input with Line input selected) and out to my KRK Rockit 5's, turned on cab sims, and OUCH painfully bad tone. Tried just straight into the KRK's and equally bad tone. Haven't been able to dial in a natural sounding dirty tone through them yet. I guess I just need to spend more time with Yek's How-to about using FRFR's and get back to editing tonight after work.

It was just a little frustrating with how easy it was to get kick ass tones through my power amp and guitar cabs, and then expecting that easiness through the FRFR as well.

Not complaining, just venting a little frustration, as I'm sure everyone has experiencing with the Axe at one time or another. Still love the device, despite accidentally deleting all the presets in bank A the first time I hooked it up to Axe-Edit. Ha ha, I liked a few of the tones in that bank a lot too. Oh well, I guess I just have more room to create my own!!

Oh, and I feel better after typing this out, more stoked to nail some good tone tonight through the KRK's!!
Click to expand...

1. Double check your I/O settings.
You mentioned something about summing the L&R signals.
If you've connected your Axe to your MBox and your monitors in stereo you'll want to reset this.
2. Check that you're not overloading the inputs of the MBox.
The Axe's XLR outs are line level not mic level, so if you're plugged into the mic inputs on the MBox you may have to pad the signal.
Why are you even using the MBox to test this?
Why not plug the Axe directly into your powered monitors?
3. Remember that FRFR sound that's easiest to get from the Axe is not an in the room sound.
It's the sound of a mic'd amp in the studio.
You might try mic'ing your real cabs (with cab sims off) and comparing it to the Axe's FRFR signal (with cab sims on).
They shouldn't be too far off, or something else is wrong.
4. Lots of folks put a PEQ clock after the Cab Block and use the outer two bands to attenuate the extreme highs and the extreme lows.
 
joegold said:
1. Double check your I/O settings.
2. Check that you're not overloading the inputs of the MBox.
3. Remember that FRFR sound that's easiest to get from the Axe is not an in the room sound.
4. Lots of folks put a PEQ clock after the Cab Block and use the outer two bands to attenuate the extreme highs and the extreme lows.
Click to expand...

1. I/O has been changed. I changed it to Stereo since I'm using both L + R of Output 1.

2. I have line level selected on MBox, no clipping and the levels in protools are peaking at about -6db. I'm a little lazy i guess and didn't want to unhook everything. I'm going to un-hook it all and run direct to KRK's tonight after work.

3. I know the FRFR is a mic'd amp in the studio....that doesn't mean i think like that when messing with it though, and that is probably a very overlooked thought to get my head around. I was thinking about this while fooling around with it today at lunch, and I am going to try mic-ing a preset through my cabs and then add cab sims back in and try recording direct and comparing. Good idea.

4. I did notice today that I was getting a better sound with only the JCM800 sim and the 4x12 25w cabinet sim. I was getting really harsh feedback (almost sounded like a ground loop type sound) on my A note on my low E string when i let it ring out or palm muting it. It was sending a very powerful (not quite clipping but sounded like it was distorting my monitors. Not like any feedback I've heard before. Might try that PEQ block idea, I remember reading a thread talking about using those with FRFR.

So I tried just putting a JCM800 sim and a single Cab sim (4x12 20w, 25w, or v30) as well as a plexi cab sim from the zip file Cliff posted a while back. I didn't put any mic sims in. I'm thinking I'm setting controls not based on my ear as much as "Gain should be at about 4/10 cause that's what I always do, etc", whereas I need to just turn the gain(and other knobs) until it sounds good to my ears.

I think it is coming to one of 2 roads.
1. User Error - Most likely event is I'm just not doing a good job of setting settings.
2. Cable or Monitor issue. Easy to determine this by playing one of my previously recorded, good guitar tone files through my monitors

My money is on #1 User Error. Thanks everyone for the tips here. Tons of feedback, and I think I need to train my ears to listen differently than before. I've always tuned my amp and pedals to a great tone, and then adjusted my recording setup to capture that tone. But probably haven't paid enough attention to what that final tone really ends up at, and how it is different from my "in the room" tone. That's why getting the setup i am using now set-up was so simple since that's how I've gotten tone for 15 years. (pedal, amp, cab)

Cool stuff, very exiting journey.
 
I have output1 hooked to an ART310 (left only) and output2 hooked to KRK ROKIT RP 5's with an RP-10S (left and right). The sound from the KRK's was what I'd describe as very tinny, but after setting output1 to stereo and copy out1 to out2 on, it was much improved.
 
Sadly I think my MBox is screwed up. I plugged straight into my monitors, pulled up a Marshall lead patch I downloaded from Scott Peterson's patches he posted, tweaked a little to my taste and pickups but it was easy and sounded great!! Thanks for the help, I still have to tame my random low E and 6th string A feedback, but that's a little thing right now.
 
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