Have any of you experienced that the sound of your presets changes drastically as you go from, say, IE to monitors of headphones? I mean, a lot. :0
I’m using my DT-880 250 ohm beyerdynamics to shape my presets, but when I use my (relatively cheap) Shure IE with my band, my presets sounds extremely mid scooped and harsh. The reverb and modulation effects are also enhanced.
Sure, the importance of different frequency responses on units are important, but this seems beyond that, though I don’t know for sure. Have any of you experienced something similar? Any good tips or a diagnosis to this issue?
I’m relatively new to the QC, but have quickly gotten the hang of it. The base of my preset is a slightly mid boosted Mk 2C+ capture through the 03’ V30 Mesa cab with 57/421 mics. I’m going for a somewhat higher gained Steve Lukather tone. My inputs/outputs are leveled and good!
Hah I feel like this question comes up every few months. So, bud, I hope it’s alright, I’ve just copied and pasted something I said in another thread, addressing the same sorta question.
Heh I feel like this concern comes up quite often with new QC owners. So here’s something I wrote in another thread on the same subject matter, hope it helps in your tone journey:
I was also initially setting up my sounds using the headphone out (Westone X30s) on the QC and later even went ahead to buy a pair of small studio monitors (Eris 3.5) to plug the QC’s XLR outs into.
The point of difference for me, after taking the QC out to a few live situations (and coming home feeling like, wow that felt like playing a shoe string through a megaphone) was turning up an hour earlier than everyone else in the band to adjust every point of EQ (compression, OD, amp, cab, eq), delay feedback, reverb decay and routing to suit the venue/equipment and what I was hearing in my IEMs.
That was the first instance of me feeling good about the QC while playing live and also having the sound dude and people on the ground say nice things about what they were hearing.
The thing about the QC is, I don’t know if it’s made me sound better as a person attempting to play the guitar, but I’ve certainly learned a lot more about sound engineering and the reality of “sound is different in every space”.
I can’t say I completely understand how it works, but I have learnt to realise and accept that what I hear through my dinky studio monitors, or earphones at home cannot and will not be what I hear when I when I plug the QC into a live venue.
That’s just the nature of different speakers, whether they are in IEMs or floor wedges or studio monitors, they do sound very different and will feel different in different spaces (not so much IEMs). In the same way changing speaker/IRs after your amp will change the sound significantly.
I’ve used helix and QC and it’s the same thing.
Make your sounds with the monitoring device you’ll use on stage so you don’t have big surprises.
I run my QC direct (XLR 1&2 out) into a individual channels on a mixer → power amp → some old Bose 301 speakers that fill my “music room” space nicely. I don’t really have much gain, or EQ on the mixer (maybe a little when I change amp captures, which isn’t often). I pan the left channel all the way left, and right channel all the way right. Stereo amp captures, stereo effects (mod → delay → verbs) and it fills the room out nicely and that’s how I set up my presets. It’s essentially the same setup at church on Sundays except larger obviously where the mixer/amps/speakers have been set up for that space/room. My 2 channels are panned like at home, I’ve stood at various locations in the room, and had someone strum and I hear the sounds in that room that I do in my room back home.
I have run my QC into a JBL Eon610 and it’s definitely a different sound coming out of one speaker vs a stereo set up. But the consistency I get when I practice to when I play is what I’m after and I really dont have to tweak very much - which was kind of the point of my purchasing the unit (we also have a silent stage, so IEMs). I use cheap old 3.5mm apple iPhone headphones as my IEMs and they sound pretty awesome (and I get the “tone” I’m after and achieve through the speakers). I guess I’m pretty lucky with my setup. I hope the response is helpful though.
Unfortunately, it’s the nature of the audio beast. Everything in your audio chain influences the sound, including the environment you’re playing in. One tip is to do your final tweaks (at home) at roughly the same volume as you’ll hear them on stage. The Fletcher Munson curve dictates that lows and highs will sound louder (relative to mids) at higher volume. You will notice that pre-recorded music will also sound very different through different signal chains, in different environments and at different volume levels. I have two sets of monitors in my studio and I try to check my presets through both sets regularly. Having somewhat “flat response” studio monitors can provide a rather neutral reference. With the Irises being smaller monitors, be careful not to exagerate your low end. If you are monitoring and/or running your PA in mono, make sure you set up your presets while listening in mono. It’s all about playing the averages to make your QC sound as good as possible in all situations. It took me at least six gigs to get all my presets dialed in and, after a year and a half, I’m still making little tweaks. I hope this helps.
For anyone reading this being in a similar situation, I checked my presets/scenes on my headphones at home first off, and then went to our studio to fine tweak with monitors. I also checked the frequency response on my headphones to have in mind when dialing in. I did not use my IEM as a reference because they have absolutely no room for the sound to move in. Generally, I found that the more room your sound can move in, the more “true to character” it will be, so use that as your main reference.
