Eleven MK-II amp sim plugin, guitar tone help.

[Gosintary_]

Hey! I'm a guitarist getting into guitar. I've been playing on an acoustic forever, and I finally made the decision to purchase an electric guitar and amp. Shortly after that, I purchased a Focusrite Scarlet Solo and subscribed to the Avid Pro Tools complete plugin pack thing. I've been messing around with the MK-II plugin, but I can't get a good sound, likely due to the fact that I have 0 clue what I'm doing. I'm looking for a distorted tone similar to that of Badflower, and maybe a cleaner tone also. If anyone could give me some pointers, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm experimenting with rock stuff, and playing some rock stuff I wrote while playing only acoustic.

Thanks!
Ethan

[amagras]

Welcome. YouTube is your friend. Plenty of 11R owners sharing great tones there. There are lots of users here too that I'm sure will help you better than I can.

[Darryl Ramm]

More clues needed.

What guitar and exact pickups?

What monitors are you listening to playback on. Lack of SPL from smaller monitors can make a huge difference to how you perceive this, especially while playing.

Get any pedals out of the signal Path to start with.

Are you recording through a DI/Instrument input and what is the gain knob set to? (Don’t crank that all the way up hoping for improved distortion).

What Eleven amp sims are you trying?

What are you hearing and how does it not sound like what you are after?

My main advice is: this takes time to learn, start with a simple as possible setup, using a simulated amp close to what you are after and spend time tweaking the amp sim settings as you would if playing aroubd with a new real amp.

(And yes Amagras advice about YouTube)

[Gosintary_]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

More clues needed.

What guitar and exact pickups?

What monitors are you listening to playback on. Lack of SPL from smaller monitors can make a huge difference to how you perceive this, especially while playing.

Get any pedals out of the signal Path to start with.

Are you recording through a DI/Instrument input and what is the gain knob set to? (Don’t crank that all the way up hoping for improved distortion).

What Eleven amp sims are you trying?

What are you hearing and how does it not sound like what you are after?

My main advice is: this takes time to learn, start with a simple as possible setup, using a simulated amp close to what you are after and spend time tweaking the amp sim settings as you would if playing atlroubdveuth a new real amp.

(And yes Amagras advice about YouTube)

What guitar and exact pickups?
I'm using a 2018 Gibson Les Paul standard hp
I'm not sure what pickups, they are whatever comes with the guitar.
There isn't any branding but I would assume they are Gibson pickups (If they make any)

What monitors are you listening to playback on. Lack of SPL from smaller monitors can make a huge difference to how you perceive this, especially while playing. I don't have any studio monitors, I use my gaming headset which probably isn't the best for the task. (Turtle Beach Stealth 450 gaming headset) Should I invest in studio speakers? Suggestions?

Get any pedals out of the signal Path to start with.
I don't have any pedals so that's not a problem.

Are you recording through a DI/Instrument input and what is the gain knob set to? (Don’t crank that all the way up hoping for improved distortion).

I'm recording through the instrument input on the Focusrite Scarlet solo, plug in the guitar straight into it.

What Eleven amp sims are you trying?

I can't remember which ones, I tried a few presets, and I tried setting my own amp settings on it.

What are you hearing and how does it not sound like what you are after?

In the recordings I've done, the distortion sounds really grainy almost like there is static over the guitar part. It sounds like maybe there is too much gain but when I turn it down it makes it sound not crunchy enough.

My main advice is: this takes time to learn, start with a simple as possible setup, using a simulated amp close to what you are after and spend time tweaking the amp sim settings as you would if playing atlroubdveuth a new real amp.

[Darryl Ramm]

OK pickup is a humbucker but not active. That helps.

Start with the DI input gain set half way up.

What real amp do you have? (To compare the live “feel” you will experience, and think about other options like line out from that amp).

Your headphones are likely an issue here. You will miss much of the feeling of wonderful noise and power you get with a live amp, and room reflections can be a factor as well. For mixing it might be better to have a pair of quality studio monitors with very flat response (but may not give you high SPL at reasonable price). For tracking a distorted guitar you might prefer something more like a stage monitor like a QSC K-10 (starting with one, no need for stereo) able to put out more SPL.

Recorded guitar you listen to on headphones on other people’s music may sound wonderful, have beautiful depth and power, but that is often heavily processed, multi-tracked, reinforced by accompanying instruments etc. it can be hard to judge a solo track against that. There are interesting recordings online you should be able to find where people pull out solo guitar tracks from killer songs, and often it’s interesting that the distortion level on the guitar is less than it seems.

Looks like Badflower (https://www.premierguitar.com/articl...nd-sxsw?page=6) are using Fender Deluxe amps with overdrive pedals in front of them. You can try that, you have multiple Deluxe sims to play with and a RAT sim and pedals close to an OCD (start with the white boost). But try to start by getting close to their cleaner tones and adding in the pedal to get dirty, as they would live.

[Gosintary_]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

OK pickup is a humbucker but not active. That helps.

Start with the DI input gain set half way up.

What real amp do you have? (To compare the live “feel” you will experience, and think about other options like line out from that amp).

Your headphones are likely an issue here. You will miss much of the feeling of wonderful noise and power you get with a live amp, and room reflections can be a factor as well. For mixing it might be better to have a pair of quality studio monitors with very flat response (but may not give you high SPL at reasonable price). For tracking a distorted guitar you might prefer something more like a stage monitor like a QSC K-10 (starting with one, no need for stereo) able to put out more SPL.

Recorded guitar you listen to on headphones on other people’s music may sound wonderful, have beautiful depth and power, but that is often heavily processed, multi-tracked, reinforced by accompanying instruments etc. it can be hard to judge a solo track against that. There are interesting recordings online you should be able to find where people pull out solo guitar tracks from killer songs, and often it’s interesting that the distortion level on the guitar is less than it seems.

Looks like Badflower (https://www.premierguitar.com/articl...nd-sxsw?page=6) are using Fender Deluxe amps with overdrive pedals in front of them. You can try that, you have multiple Deluxe sims to play with and a RAT sim and pedals close to an OCD (start with the white boost). But try to start by getting close to their cleaner tones and adding in the pedal to get dirty, as they would live.

Messed around with it some, got this: https://soundcloud.com/ethanpszanowski/jam1

It sounds too distorted. Is there something I can do to the tone to make it sound more studio quality, or this more of part of the mixing process. If so, what can be messed with to clean this up?

[junkgear]

Too much distortion can come from a few areas.
First of all, make sure your level coming into your audio interface are not clipping. Generally you do this turning the gain on the interface up and playing some chords at the loudest you normally play. If the LED ring turns red, then you have too much signal and need to turn down the gain. Repeat this until you no longer see it turn red.

Now in the Eleven plugin, Just like a real amp, the gain knob is going to set the overall distortion of the amp. If you think you have more than you need, then dial it back a bit.

If you plan to use a pedal, like the Rat in front of the amp, use the volume or output to control how hard you are hitting the front of the amp. If you want the distortion to come from the pedal, then turn the gain of the pedal down and dial the volume (output) back so that there isn't really a difference in perceived volume when the pedal is either off or on. Then with the pedal on, increase the gain until you get the desired result.

Lastly, make sure the output of the eleven plugin isn't clipping. You do this by playing your guitar and making sure the track meter never shows the red clipping indicator. If it does, you need to decrease the output volume of the eleven plugin.

[Gosintary_]

Originally Posted by junkgear

Too much distortion can come from a few areas.
First of all, make sure your level coming into your audio interface are not clipping. Generally you do this turning the gain on the interface up and playing some chords at the loudest you normally play. If the LED ring turns red, then you have too much signal and need to turn down the gain. Repeat this until you no longer see it turn red.

Now in the Eleven plugin, Just like a real amp, the gain knob is going to set the overall distortion of the amp. If you think you have more than you need, then dial it back a bit.

If you plan to use a pedal, like the Rat in front of the amp, use the volume or output to control how hard you are hitting the front of the amp. If you want the distortion to come from the pedal, then turn the gain of the pedal down and dial the volume (output) back so that there isn't really a difference in perceived volume when the pedal is either off or on. Then with the pedal on, increase the gain until you get the desired result.

Lastly, make sure the output of the eleven plugin isn't clipping. You do this by playing your guitar and making sure the track meter never shows the red clipping indicator. If it does, you need to decrease the output volume of the eleven plugin.

Alright, Ill follow these steps and see where it gets me! Thanks!

[Gosintary_]

I just noticed there is an MK-11 cabs thing, should I be using a cab aswell?

[junkgear]

When you load up a preset, you can see there are drop downs for both amp and cab type. If your plug-in window looks like below, then you are already using a cab and do not need to do anything else. You can choose different cabs from the cab section. Each one will have it's own sound character and you may find one that works better for you than what is paired with the amp by default. In the lower cab section you can also change the mic type. This can also have a drastic effect on the overall sound of the amp.