Amp sounds muffled with CAB on

[Rossco02]

So I only got the Pod Go on Friday but been having fun with it so far. Very easy to dial things in (I've got a bit of experience using MFX) but came across an interesting issue the other day and wondered if anyone could explain it. Most of my patches sound great but I notice the other day that on basic with nothing else on that I'd accidentally turned the CAB off, so thought okay it should obviously be turned on. Turned it on and oh my the sound became extremely muffled...turned it off and very crisp and clear. As I said my other patches are fine but this one seems odd...I've got quite a lot of gain on it (around the 6 mark) as that's what I want. I did try adjusting the Low and High pass filter on the CAB as seen other comments that that can cause the issue. Tried different CABs and different mics/positions but can't get the same clarity that I get without the CAB on. Any others come across this?

 

It's going out to monitors and I've got it connected correctly in the Left Mono output. 

[jcnesbitt]

Welcome to the club!

 

 I’m a little confused.  Your title says your amp sounds muffled but your last sentence says you’re playing out of studio monitors.  If you were playing out of an amp, then cabs are supposed to be turned off as your real amp/cab serves that purpose.  
 

If you’re playing out of something that is supposed to be FRFR, like studio monitors, then the cab sims are meant to be turned on.  If that’s the case and the sound is muffled, make sure the high cut on the cab or an eq block isn’t turned way down.

[grdGo33]

Quote

Tried different CABs and different mics/positions but can't get the same clarity that I get without the CAB on. Any others come across this?

 

Think that's just the nature of cabs.  Without a cab, your signal is basically 'clean', all that the cab does is take the signal, and alter it so that it sounds like it's coming from a real guitar cab; and since they aren't perfect, they all just skew/distort/muffle the sound.

 

My experience is that with no cab, it sounds horrible through studio monitors; as it really doesn't sound like the typical electric guitar sound that we're used to ... But if you're using high gain, it might be what you're looking for; just pure gain sound.  Also; while  your studio monitors aren't guitar cabs, they have the same effect; the 'perfect' signal gets altered when converted from an electric current to sound waves, so your speakers (also called transducers; convert electric signal to sound) will add a sound of their own; which is what the L6 cabs do.  They'll distort/change the signal.

 

The better the speakers, the more accurate; or in the case of L6 cabs, the more they'll sound like if you did not have a L6 PGO cab on.  But the worse the monitors, the more they'll add their own sound to what you're hearing, and that might actually end up being the exact same thing as having a L6 cab on.  To the point where if you have L6 PGO cab on + your low performing 'cabs', you're getting a double dose of cabs, which will sound bad.

 

Did you try with clean also?

[voxman55]

I partly concur with the responses from @jcnesbittand @grdGo33 but Im struggling to see how a cab model would muffle your tone esp with e.g. a 57 mic at 1 inch, with other stock frequency settings unchanged, as that should be pretty much 'in your face' regardless of what real amp you're going through. Cabs colour the sound but shouldn't muffle it.  

 

So I think that there could be something weird happening within the patch itself.  Try setting up a new patch from scratch with the same parameters (Set it manually, don't copy blocks across) and see if it's the same.  If that solves the problem, delete your other patch. If not and you can export the patch via Pod Go Edit and post the patch, here, on the patch site, or email it, I'd be interested to have a look at it. 

[Rossco02]

Yes I should have said it's a high gain tone and the clarity is significantly better with the CAB off. Probably sounds a bit too harsh, jangly with a clean signal. I did do quite a lot of messing about with it this morning adjusting the CAB Low and High pass filters and also the BIAS and it's cleaned up a lot. 

 

@voxman55 I'll export a copy of the "unaltered" patch and see if it sounds the same for you. 

 

Thanks guys for the initial feedback. Really really love the overall tone I'm getting from the Pod....paired with my also new PRS SE Custom it sounds so sweet.

[grdGo33]

You can also post an mp3 sound clip, if your go is connected by USB it's pretty straightforward using Audacity or the such.

 

Also, you can use the PGO looper to loop a short clip, and then change the settings with PGEdit; that way you don't have to fiddle with both the software and guitar.

 

You can also try IRs, I made a thread about them not so long ago, should be on page 1 of this forum; just search for 'IR', the 'best' IR from it is quite good; very well balanced, should not sound muffled..

[Rossco02]

@grdGo33No problem I've been playing/recording for a while so pretty clued up on using the interface for recording and using a DAW.

 

Interestingly I haven't checked to see if the "muffle" is also through the headphones. Will be interesting to check.

 

Good suggestion on the looper I hadn't really thought about that as I have a digitech trio which I use when I want a looper. 

 

Yes I started to take a look at IR this morning as well. Some really nice ones available for Free and they do sound very good. I'll check your thread out.

 

The "music room" is currently out of bounds as my son is having a lesson. Will be back in shortly.

 

Thanks for the help.

[Rossco02]

Okay so I'm back in the room... and attached you'll see an audio sample with the CAB on and then off for playing Clean first and then with a Timmy enabled. The volume/sound difference carries through on USB as well.

 

I've also attached the patch the only thing I've turned on and off is the CAB block (and of the course the Timmy).

 

Sample_CAB_ONOFF_Audio.mp3 Simple.pgp

[grdGo33]

I think you just have a volume issue. 

 

From your clip:

0:00 to 0:15 sounded perfect, albeit not extremely loud, and must have been a dark sounding amp/mic combo

0:15 to 0:30    likely cab off, much louder, brighter

0:45       likely with a cab + mic, sounds fine to me

1:13      That sounds like an horrendous transistor clipped signal.  Likely your PGO or software are clipping the signal because it's just too loud.  That is NOT the sound you want lol

 

So yeah strangely you seem to prefer the last sound segment, what monitors are you using?  If you equalized the volume of cab on/off (your clips without the cab are MUCH louder) you'll very likely prefer your clips with cabs.  But yeah if you just turn off the cab, you'll likely get a huge volume boost, and generally people like what sounds louder, so maybe that's why it sounds better to you...

 

But I think you just want more gain.  Keep it simple.  Start a new patch, just change the amp and cab to these:

L6 Badong amp + 4x12 Uber 30

 

What do you think?  If it's not loud enough, increase the amp's Channel volume up.  Or Master, if you want more gain/drive.  Don't add any distortion pedal yet.

 

And actually, try the different L6 amps, even with their default settings they're all pretty good for high gain.  Try with cabs; Uber, the  4x12 XXL, Cali, defaults also not bad.   Lead 80 112.

 

But yeah, IMHO, you 100% should be using the cabs for studio monitors.  Just increase the volume or gain if you want more.

 

Description of what the L6s are:

Quote

Line 6 Elektrik
This high-voltage, face-melting original has interactive presence & mid-range controls, with more gain than you can shake a stick at. It has something from the first Bomber Uber.

 

Line 6 Doom

Here's a hybrid to fill a void for doom/sludge players. It's a JCM800 preamp going into a Hiwatt® power amp with some additional tweaks, to give you large amounts of gain and a rich, sag-induced reaction with a whole lot of bass.

 

Line 6 Epic
A metal-friendly beast that provides sustain for days at virtually any playing dynamic, giving up gobs of distortion with ease.

 

Line 6 2204 Mod
Hot rodding would usually entail internal modifications to the amplifier. This could just be changing the odd resistor/pot/cap value to change drive levels, tone etc… Or it could actually be a change to the signal path itself, such as adding and extra gain stage or wiring two different inputs in parallel on older Marshall amps. Marshall with extra gain mod. The original intent of the term "modded Marshall' was to achieve the added gain without resorting to a pedal. For instance GnR album Appetite for Destruction, was recorded with a Hot Rodded JCM 800.

 

Line 6 Fatality
It's a heavily modified Mesa Rectifier. It sounds a bit like a Mark V Extreme setting.

 

Line 6 Litigator
Based on a heavily modded Fender and then hammered on and tweaked. It wouldn't be impossible to make in the physical world, but it might get a little messy. removing a lot of the noise and irregularities that people find unpleasant, but adding just enough of the wrong things so they enhance without being a distraction. It's like a vintage amp with movie magic color correction and hyped depth of field. Like a dirty Vintage Deluxe, dumble-esqe, very smooth, mid-gain, edge-of-breakup model. In the same general neighborhood as the Pete Anderson Deluxe model that was in the HD model packs, but with more gain on tap.

 

Line 6 Badonk
To create the Line 6 Badonk, the Big Bottom model from the XT code was rebuilt using new tools so that the overall EQ and pre-post distortion filtering matched. The previous tone stack was a little limited, so it was tuned up to have more range and provide a realistic, interactive response. To make this model feel more like a full amp, the power amp from the Fatality model (mesa rectifier mod) was added then tweaked slightly to reinforce the overall EQ curve of the Big Bottom. Tone Secret: The Big Bottom does not have a crap-load of low frequency. Instead, it is an amp with a slightly more than average amount of low end that can really hold together while being fed a lot of low frequency. It holds together well with heavily detuned guitars.

 

And here's a link for the IRs,  with 3 links/packages, you'll have more than 50 IRs, so it's actually a much simpler to switch between 'cabs' than wrapping your head around the PGO's cab+mic+distance!

 

 

 

[Rossco02]

thanks @grdGo33 for taking a listen I agree it's just volume which increases (and gets nasty)... I've done lots of playing this afternoon (including downloading those recommended IRs). Got a very nice tone now. The overdrive and amp settings are really responsive. Compared to my cheap Boss MFX it's like night and day (but probably 4 times as expensive). 

 

Will check out those suggestions of yours on Line 6 amps as well. I'm not a metal man purely rock. I do like a nice overdrive though.

[grdGo33]

Nice!  Yeah lots of good amps to chose from lol  I really like the Archetype (PRS Archon), Placater Dirty (Friedman BE-100), Revv and Derailed Ingrid for lead/dirty tones.  The IRs keep things simple cab side.