Community: Message List - Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 08:34:57 GMT

As a subscript:have invested in an MXR Ten band EQ now, as a global EQ for the POD and general fun tone-shapery with my real amp. Went fo the Kerry King version which has a useful second 1/4" output (output to monitor and PA perhaps) and a tattoo graphic that makes me feel more manly.

Will experiment with this and report back (eventually, limited gigging at the moment).

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:16:41 GMT

Yes sir, I agree with you on that...A real parametric would be better...Personally, I wish they would model a pultec as UAD has me spoiled on that one...

My mistake on the mid-focus, I was thinking outloud on that one...I have done some expression eq parms for morphing a lead boost...The mid focus is the one I use for that...more complicated with the low end and high end rolling off with the gain going up...very cool with tones that are low enough gain where it works in front of the amp model to push it harder in tandem...

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 23:58:15 GMT

I don't think the gain on the mid-focus eq affects the level of filtering only the output level of the effect. Even at 0% the effect still affects the tone. So I would think you'd need to use the parametric to obtain the expression pedal effect you mentioned.

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:39:19 GMT

Most of my tones I make using Sennheiser HD 280 Pro's - not exactly expensive or studio-quality headphones. But they have enough range and a flat enough response to get me sounding where I know the sound is good.

Dialing in patches on monitors or a PA is much worse in my opinion IF you aren't using a treated room. My room has all kinds of bass nodes, so I have to walk all around the room as I'm playing to get even a mildly decent impression of what the actual tone is.

Most of my success comes from making sure my tone is good both in the cans and all around the room using the monitors.

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:35:16 GMT

"when you do your tone building are you shooting mainly for a good tone for recordings or for live"

I don't think there should necessarily be a difference. Most of my tones are matching an artist. So there I'm going for trying to get the recorded sound, even if I have some ideas on how I could improve the tone. But in general, I think a tone should sound great both on a recording and live, without any different tweaking. If anything there might be some additional EQ'ing done on a recording to improve how a mix sounds, so each instrument stands out a bit more. I also think this is good practice for a live situation, but you have much more control in the studio. But that's using studio software. Using the Pod, I shoot for the same tone live vs. studio.

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:31:36 GMT

One of the best features I think Line 6 ever had to combat this was the global EQ on the AX2...I never had any trouble going room to room with that amp....just tinker with the global EQ and I was set....

In terms of the crunch thing vs volume, I did have a little solution for it that worked really nicely on my old Flextone IIIXL rig....Basically, I have an ADA MP-1 (GTR->MP1->Flexy GTR Input)...midi from the Flexy control patch changes on the ADA...however the usage of the ADA was not for the tube preamp as much as it was for the programable EQ tonestack...It supplemented the Flextone tone stack quite nicely where I could keep it closer to flat which always made XT hardware sound better to me...anyway, a patch could also push the amp model a bit with clean voltage....Anyway, what I found was that between the master volume of the ADA and the master volume of the Flexy, I could make a small adjustment to how hard the amp model was getting hit in global way...This actually worked pretty darn well...If I turned the Flexy master down, I could crank up the master on the ADA a little bit and get just a bit more sustain....If I was cranking the Flexy master, I could back off my crunchy tone using the ADA master to clean it up a skosh...Probably one of the best cover rigs I have ever had...Just a little too big with the 10 space rack....I had a parallel loop as I had a sub mixer in the rack to pickup some other FX I needed...fun while it lasted...but it made my back hurt too much...

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:24:46 GMT

jimsreynolds wrote:

I think there is a growing weight of evidence that my next big purchase should be a decent set of cans!

The worst idea possible to make patches using headphones....they don't translate correctly, you might as well plug into your stereo system (even a small boombox (from a mixer) and that will translate much better for Patches to use into PA or any FRFR, than the most expensive headphone that money can buy.

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 09:44:54 GMT

@Space ... yeah, I totally hear you on that clean/crunch balancing act. Nails me quite badly on my JVM also. Figured it had something to do with the decreased dynamics in a more distorted sound. Once you hit full overdrive it gets a bit easier but that transitional thing is a real pain to get right ... often I end up tweaking mid performance and that makes me few friends.

@Meambobbo. Thanks. I think there is a growing weight of evidence that my next big purchase should be a decent set of cans! Out of interest: when you do your tone building are you shooting mainly for a good tone for recordings or for live ... or both?

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 21:39:57 GMT

@jimsreynolds - thanks...I really enjoy chatting about this one...very interesting subject to me...So many ways to peel this onion.,..

+1 meambobbo...However, high gain patches are where things can get a little wierd I think..."relatively" speaking that is...

I don't think this is so much the Loudness:SPL phenom as it is the Saturation:SPL phenom...I don't have anything scientific to cite at the moment, but I know humans tend to equate loudness with a certain ratio of distortion. And I mean literal saturation. When I started mixing on extremely high power EAW-850 systems and EV Manifolds over some 20 years ago, I became very aware of this...With systems like that, you actually have to be very careful about the SPL...You really can hurt yourself (and others) because those systems can be so clean that you just don't realize that your ears are bleeding... :-) For someone like me that came up on underpowered JBL systems with a Soundcraft consoles it was a real eye opener...The more touring I did and the more systems I mixed on, this became even more obvious...I think this is a similar thing with guitar tone, but can be even more exagerrated...

Anyway, the one that always confounds me is leveling clean patches to very crunchy patches...What works on your own is very different that what works with the band...The crunchy patches will seem so much louder...So when the amp is cranked with the band, less distortion generally helps cut through...This becomes very important in two guitar situations...But then that relative level difference between the clean tone and the mega crunch tone in the alone situation vs with the band...

So you have the loudness response that changes with Sound Pressure and a distortion ratio that alters perception of loudness depending on the situation...It can get complicated...Add in how the room is playing into it and then things get really fun...

Re: Fletcher Munson Compensation - EQ curve suggestions?

support@line6.com — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:30:45 GMT

My advice is to dial in your patches as loud as possible in a good pair of headphones and monitors/PA. It will sound fine at lower volumes as well, even if it doesn't sound like someone's a$$ is being kicked. Trying to accurately recreate a FM curve is a challenge. Even if you did so, you still wouldn't be able to dial in tones at low volume that are magically perfect at high volume. But the reverse is not true - a tone dialed in at higher volume generally sounds good at lower volumes.