I’m noticing an awful BOOMY frequency when palm muting on higher gain amps. I cannot seem to dial it out with hi pass or eq. Once I get to the point the frequency is tamed the amp sound hi fi. Not sure if anyone has any pre or post eq tips.
Thanks!
Pre-EQ works wonders. For high-gain amp settings, I set a high-pass filter [Low-High Cut block, HPF slope -12 dB, HPF Freq 99 Hz] as the first thing in the signal chain, even before any noise gate block. It made amp models like Diezel and Mesa much more palatable for me. Really tightened up my palm muting.
Give it a try and play around with different slopes and frequency settings. And of course you can still do post EQ to clean up.
EDIT: I know it seems counterintuitive to cut the low end out of the incoming signal, in a “I shouldn’t HAVE to do this to get the same sound as a real amp” sort of way. But I’ve made peace with it. I turn the pre-EQ off when I’m going for clean and edge-of-breakup tones.
4 Likes
Nice! I’ll give that a shot for sure. The boomy low end oddly enough is only really bad on C notes (standard tuning) palm muted. I thought it could be my monitors but then I tested through headphones and same results.
I found this issue too with low end resonance and I do exactly the same as stated above. Hi-pass filter first thing in the chain before any other blocks and it works a treat. Would be great if this could be built into the input section where the gate option is but it’s not that much of an issue once it’s set up. I just copy and paste it whenever making a new patch.
I noticed the same thing and had this issue with my AX8 as well. I’m guessing it’s proximity effect from close-micing the cab when the IR is created. You’d hear the same thing if you put your ear right next to the grill cloth of a real cabinet (not recommended). Judicious use of pre and post EQ does the trick.
Here’s an old recording engineer’s trick…try the high pass first. If you have to make your tone too thin to get the thump where you want it, try lowering the high-pass to somewhere in the 60hz-120hz range and inserting a low shelving band above it (150hz-200hz) to reduce the low-end you want to keep, without cutting it out completely. You just have to find that sweet spots where they takes out excessive thump but your tone doesn’t sound thin. The sweet spot seems to be different with each amp/cab combination. Getting it right will also keep the bass player and kick drum from becoming muddy or masked so everyone has their sonic space in the mix. It works for me anyway.
1 Like
BTW, forgot to give DiffractionCircuit his due. I totally agree about using pre EQ to clean up your distortion…especially high gain.
1 Like
The low shelving band, is that something available within the more basic EQs on the QC? would you need to add in another EQ block after the Hi-Pass to achieve this? Sorry I’m not particularly well versed with EQ’s but this sounds a great workaround to keep some of that low end without getting the resonance. Interested to try it out
The 3 and 8 band EQs allow you to make any of the bands behave as a high pass (low cut), low pass (high cut), high shelving, low shelving or peaking band. Tapping any of the 3/8 buttons at the bottom of the EQ screen will give you a pop-up window to choose what type of EQ band you want it to be.
I have been using the 8 band EQ for pre and post since none of my presets are very CPU intensive and the 8 band gives me more options. I use band 1 of the pre-EQ (before the amp) for high-pass, band number 2 for low shelving and the rest can be used as peaking for general sculpting. I do the same with the post EQ (after the speaker cabinet) with the addition of using band 8 as a low-pass to tame excessive sizzle in a higher gain preset. You may not even need a pre-EQ with clean presets.
One other tip; if you’re using a compressor block, pre or post, put the EQ block before the compressor so that the comp is not trying to respond to all the low end thumpyness that you’re removing anyway. Low frequencies have a lot more energy and make the compressor work harder and are more likely to cause “pumping and breathing” artifacts. Your compression will sound more natural with the EQ before it.
This is just how I do things, your mileage may vary.
It may be helpful to check out a couple of YouTube how-to videos on using FULL parametric EQs (SEMI-parametric EQs have no “Q” control). The graphic display will give you a good visual of what you are doing but understanding what those virtual knobs do will help
Sorry to ramble on but I hope this helps.
2 Likes
Thank you so much for going to the trouble of putting that message together. Massively helpful!
Glad I could help, John!
1 Like
One other thing I forgot to mention (hard to believe, I know 
), the Distance control in the cab block can also help with reigning in the low end. This function emulates the proximity effect you get from close-micing so turning up the distance (pulling the virtual mic(s) back) for one or both reduces low end mush. Try adjusting each mic separately, by shutting off the opposite mic, so you can audition and adjust each mic by itself, then turn both on and do your final adjustments. Careful about overdoing it as this alters the tone in other ways too, just like in the real world.
Happy tweaking!
3 Likes
Are You using monitors ? It could be room resonance , my son has similar situation , C and its harmonics are amplified
1 Like
Good point. If there is a “room mode” exaggerating a certain range of low frequencies, that could give you perceived troubles. Try moving your speaker(s) and listening position to a new area in the room or even moving to a new room, and see if your low-end woes persist. Try a set of (reasonably) flat response studio headphones (like ATH-M50s), not bass-boosted consumer headphones.