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  #1  
Old 03-11-2015, 08:52 PM
caleb.kallander caleb.kallander is offline
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Default Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Just got my Eleven Rack todat. First tried plugging it in to my powered Mackie speakers. all patches sucked. Bad. Then tried it with an Alesis reference power amp through my Marshall JCM800 lead cab. Tone still isn't that great. What are you guys playing your 11r's through? help.
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  #2  
Old 03-11-2015, 09:03 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

What Mackie speakers? Low power monitors are going to seem to totally suck if you are comparing to a live loud guitar amp in a room.

What guitar and exact pickups? Going straight into the Eleven Rack guitar input? Or via any pedals?

What type of tone/emulation are you going after?

With the Marshall cab, be sure to try turning off the cab emulation.

If you are outputting into a single cab check you are sending out mono, no stereo effects in the rig.

Start simple, get rid of any effects, find an amp sim and cab sim combination close to what you want and play with that by itself for a while and see if you can get a decent basic tone. If not try some different different am/cab sims. But also be willing to sick an EQ or parametric EQ at the end of the rig chain and tweek that.

Be careful of diming the guitar sim and thinking it does not sound like an equally dimed actual amp... it likely does (lots of folks, or the artists they are trying to copy, maybe don't dime the actual valve amps like they think they do).
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  #3  
Old 03-11-2015, 09:11 PM
caleb.kallander caleb.kallander is offline
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
What Mackie speakers? Low power monitors are going to seem to totally suck if you are comparing to a live loud guitar amp in a room.

What guitar and exact pickups? Going straight into the Eleven Rack guitar input? Or via any pedals?

What type of tone/emulation are you going after?

With the Marshall cab, be sure to try turning off the cab emulation.

If you are outputting into a single cab check you are sending out mono, no stereo effects in the rig.

Start simple, get rid of any effects, find an amp sim and cab sim combination close to what you want and play with that by itself for a while and see if you can get a decent basic tone. If not try some different different am/cab sims. But also be willing to sick an EQ or parametric EQ at the end of the rig chain and tweek that.

Be careful of diming the guitar sim and thinking it does not sound like an equally dimed actual amp... it likely does (lots of folks, or the artists they are trying to copy, maybe don't dime the actual valve amps like they think they do).
Currently tonight was playing a 2008 Gibson Les Paul studio with stock pickups. Straight into the 11r. Usually play my 1998 Parker Fly Deluxe with stock DiMarzios, but I have to restring it.
I want, mainly, some John Petrucci tones. And Angus Young tones and Mike McCready tones and Steve Vai tones and Satriani tones. But even the Satch presets don't sound all that great. When I roll off the volume, it doesn't clean up. It just poops out. I am so frustrated. I just spent $1400 on Sweetwater for all this and I'm so unhappy with it. and the effects in it suck so it wouldn't even be worth using it through the effects loops of my Blackstar/Mesa cab set up, which always sounds great.
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  #4  
Old 03-11-2015, 09:16 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Look forget the stupid presets for a while and just learn how to work the box.

Maybe start trying to pick an amps sim close to your Blackstar/mesa setup (I have no idea exactly models of either you have) and gettign as close as you can. Maybe driving the mesa cab with your power amp.

The eleven rack can certainly show great volume sensitivity. But like with a real amp you need to play with the amp input gain(s), guitar volume etc. If it's not working with one amp sim try others that are similar to what you are after. And I would start without pedals sims in front of the amp sim while you are first exploring the amp sensitivity and interaction with the guitar.

The worse thing you can probalby do is just flip though presets hoping to hit gold.

Folks here are not going to help you with a wish list like that, you need to focus on a specific tone, maybe one song. And if you are tryign to sort all this out the first time you use the Eleven Rack or anything else like that it will end in tears. You have to slow down.

Angus is maybe a good one to start with. Pretty simple older Marshall style amp, start with no pedals, and often not as dimed as people thing. And he plays with a SG/humbucker... look at all Marshall amps, or even a SLO or DC Modern for some songs. As Angus has in the past I'd give the JTM45 or plexi sims a serious go. See http://www.avid.com/US/products/eleven-rack/features You might find adding an OD pedal sim helps, maybe not. Did I say already I think far too many folks approach AC/DC with the amp gain too high, oh yes I did.

No amp sim preset is just going to sound like some performer and their rig without significant work.

And if your Blackstar/mesa sounds great compared to an eleven rack through other speakers, that may be partially just he "amp in the room" effect. You certainly won't get close to that though small mixing monitors. Try the same cab with the Eleven Rack and try to get it at the same volume.

For monitors on the Eleven Rack, I've already recommended to you in your past thread somethign like a pair of ESC K-10s, on stands , and maybe deliberately bouncing off walls etc. to boost the indirect sound if you are after the feel of an open-back speaker. In general I'd recommend going with full range speakers for their tonal flexibility with the Eleven Rack. But you need the ability to output significant SPL if you want to sound like a real amp in a room. Small mixing monitors won't get you close. But if you have a speaker cab you like and are after it's tone use that...
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  #5  
Old 03-11-2015, 09:21 PM
caleb.kallander caleb.kallander is offline
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Look forget the stupid presets for a while and just learn how to work the box.

Start trying to pick an amps sim close to your Blackstar/mesa setup (I have no idea exactly models of either you have), maybe driving the mesa cab with your power amp.

The elven rack can certainly show great volume sensitivity. But like whit a real amp you need to play with the amp input gain(s), guitar volume etc. If it's not working with one amp sim try others that are simmilar to what you are after.

The worse thing you can do is flip though presets...
The power amp isn't even a guitar power amp. It's a Blackstar HT100 head and a Mesa Stiletto 4x12 stereo cab. What if I wanted to use JUST the power amp of the Blackstar and the 'pre amp' of the Eleven Rack? Would that yield a truer tone?
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  #6  
Old 03-11-2015, 10:09 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb.kallander View Post
The power amp isn't even a guitar power amp. It's a Blackstar HT100 head and a Mesa Stiletto 4x12 stereo cab. What if I wanted to use JUST the power amp of the Blackstar and the 'pre amp' of the Eleven Rack? Would that yield a truer tone?
Truer to what? Maybe not the place for a platonic philosophy discussion but I am not sure there is such thing as "truth". If you are looking for the truth you may fail, You need to look for what *you* like, what other people like is probalby different... why presets can be a bad idea. Or maybe they are a good idea if you are willing to play with the to get what you like.

You can't actually separate out the preamp in an Eleven Rack amp sim from the power amp. The amp sim block does both preamp and power amp all in one. But you can still often get great tone by plugging the Eleven Rack output into the power amp stage of a real guitar amp. I would normally do that by connecting the amp1 or amp2 outputs on the Eleven Rack to the FX loop return of the amp. You *have* to play with the amp1 or amp2 levels inside he eleven rack settings and maybe your amp FX loop levels if that affects the return stage gain. You *have* to read the eleven Rack user guide to learn about things like the amp1/amp2 level settings an all the other things like many different level/volume settings inside the Eleven Rack, how stereo/mono components work, etc. You also normally would start by turning off the cab sim block inside the Eleven Rack when doing this (but liek everything just play and see, in some cases you may want it on, and maybe on a very unusual cabinet).
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  #7  
Old 03-11-2015, 10:14 PM
caleb.kallander caleb.kallander is offline
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Truer to what? Maybe not the place for a platonic philosophy discussion but I am not sure there is such thing as "truth". If you are looking for the truth you may fail, You need to look for what *you* like, what other people like is probalby different... why presets can be a bad idea. Or maybe they are a good idea if you are willing to play with the to get what you like.

You can't actually separate out the preamp in an Eleven Rack amp sim from the power amp. The amp sim block does both preamp and power amp all in one. But you can still often get great tone by plugging the Eleven Rack output into the power amp stage of a real guitar amp. I would normally do that by connecting the amp1 or amp2 outputs on the Eleven Rack to the FX loop return of the amp. You *have* to play with the amp1 or amp2 levels inside he eleven rack settings and maybe your amp FX loop levels if that affects the return stage gain. You *have* to read the eleven Rack user guide to learn about things like the amp1/amp2 level settings an all the other things like many different level/volume settings inside the Eleven Rack, how stereo/mono components work, etc. You also normally would start by turning off the cab sim block inside the Eleven Rack when doing this (but liek everything just play and see, in some cases you may want it on, and maybe on a very unusual cabinet).
Gotcha. I was just down playing with it a little more and I'm not really liking what I'm hearing. i tried making my own patch but it all just sounds really too digital. Ill definitely spend more time on it tomorrow.
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  #8  
Old 03-11-2015, 10:25 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Oh and be sure to read about the amp1/amp2 outputs and how to position where in the rig they are tapping their signal from, it can be guitar input, amp output, rig output, etc. so critically important.

The Eleven Rack is unfortunately complex enough that you have to work through the user guide, but it is pretty well written. I would just pick it up and read from cover to cover to get started.
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  #9  
Old 03-11-2015, 10:27 PM
caleb.kallander caleb.kallander is offline
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
Oh and be sure to read about the amp1/amp2 outputs and how to position where in the rig they are tapping their signal from, it can be guitar input, amp output, rig output, etc. so critically important.

The Eleven Rack is unfortunately complex enough that you have to work through the user guide, but it is pretty well written. I would just pick it up and read from cover to cover to get started.
I don't even think sweetwater sent me one! Uh oh.
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  #10  
Old 03-11-2015, 11:04 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Eleven Rack help. Dislike tones!

Quote:
Originally Posted by caleb.kallander View Post
I don't even think sweetwater sent me one! Uh oh.
Avid wisely stopped shopping dead tree manuals, besides searching the PDF is a lot easier than using a table of contents on paper.

Google is your friend...

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/e...Guide/en358799

And it may already be installed on your system when you installed Pro Tools, but I'm not sure.
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