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Translating Tones From Cab To Headphones


GRLidstone
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I've crafted a tone on my hd500x while running it through a power amp and cab. The tone sounds really crisp, tight and nearly devoid of noise.

 

However when I run the same preset through my headphones it sounds really high in treble and isn't as clear as when I run it through my PA and Cab combo.

 

What I'm asking is how to fix the problem as it translates to when I'm recording as well and why it's happening as I'm utterly clueless on this.

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it's normal... the perception of sound at different volume vs different monitoring etc...

there is no absolute translation... you just need to tweak the tone for it's ultimate purpose... meaning you may have a setlist for live vs recording vs practice etc....

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Several things are going on. The cabs own frequency response colors the sound. Another is known as the Fletcher-Munson curve. Your own ears have a frequency response curve that changes as things get louder. That's why when making a patch at bedroom levels sounds different when play it at gig levels. And its not an absolute change and differs slightly with different people. Also the room, the type of cab, your proximity to the cab, the angle your are to the cab the height of the cab, your height, , the mic you're using for the headphones, the brand of headphones, etc., etc. There's so many things I often wonder how I even get a patch to sound good. Let alone in more than one situation.  The main thing is to know it will be there, not let it frustrate you (too much) and just do the best you can. Going from a power amp/cab to a pair of headphones next to your ears is bound to cause some differences. Getting something to sound the same from your power amp/cap to your headphones/PA will be difficult at best and just requires some old fashioned tweaking. I use the Fletcher Munson curve and the frequency response of my cab to help but it's not definitive. It's even sometimes better to start from scratch again.

 

One HUGE guess in your particular situation is that many guitar speakers frequency response drops off significanlty toward the higher frequencies. For example the much used Celestion GT-75 has a major drop off at about 8K or so. Since you created the patch with the cab, when you use a relatively Full/Range Response thing like the headphones or PA, those high frequencies that had been attenuated by the speaker, will be boosted quite a bit.This sounds like part of your problem.  I hope this makes sense. I'm not in a position to get too in depth about it.

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I've crafted a tone on my hd500x while running it through a power amp and cab. The tone sounds really crisp, tight and nearly devoid of noise.

 

However when I run the same preset through my headphones it sounds really high in treble and isn't as clear as when I run it through my PA and Cab combo.

 

What I'm asking is how to fix the problem as it translates to when I'm recording as well and why it's happening as I'm utterly clueless on this.

The short answer is that there is no fix for this. If you were to run that same patch through a different amp and cab it won't sound the same that way either. Ditto for tweaking a patch with headphones then switching to a different pair of cans. Its gonna sound different in every case, even if you touch nothing in the patch itself...just the nature of the beast. You'll find that you'll be creating different patches for different purposes...even the same amp/cab at bedroom vs. gig volumes is gonna result in a very different final product. Tweak, tweak, and tweak some more...no way around it, unfortunately.

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A fairly simple thing to experiment with is the HD500 Output mode in conjunction with the selected amp, mic, and cab models.

 

When using a power amp/cab, the HD500 typically sounds best in one of the Live output modes. In this situation users will often use the PRE-version of the selected amp model (i.e. no mic/cab simulation; you have the physical power amp/cab handling that aspect of the sound).

 

However, when using headphones you typically want to use Studio output mode with the FULL-version of the modeled amp, along with mic and cab model selections (which your headphones do not provide/simulate).

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