New here...gear, background, tech question, etc

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Just got on the forum...looks interesting and informative.
Anyway, I'll rattle off what I'm using but I have a question for our amp plugin users as well, which I ma post in a different section of the forum once I figure out where it goes.


Background

- Guitar playing for 35 years....yeah, I'm freakin old and was playing prog metal in the bars in the late 80s, when people were snorting cocaine in the open on bar tables, and women ambushed you when you walked out of the bathroom. Can't believe I survived. ;-)
- Played metal in the 80s, prog metal in the 90s, traditional jazz, fusion, and free jazz after that for 15 years...taught guitar, dabbled in EDM production, directed a festival for 7 years, etc, etc...now back to metal.

Live Setup
- Mesa Boogie Triaxis preamp
- Mesa Boogie Simul Class 2:90 power amp
- Lexicon PCM 81
- Boss VF1
- Samson line mixer
- Dbx 266xs compressor gate
- Two Mesa Boogie 4x12 rectifier (oversized) cabs

Virtual/Recording Setup
- Ableton Live (as DAW)
- Various amp plugins: Mercurriall Reaxis (Triaxis clone), Mercuriall U530 (Engle clone), Fortin Nameless suit
- Various effect VSTs

Guitars
- 7 string Schechter Hellraiser (drop B)
- 6 string Schecter Hellraiser (Drop D)
- 6 String PRS singlecut (standard)

Technical Question

I am working with an electronic music producer on an EDM/Djent fusion collaboration. He is telling me that I have a lot of white or brown noise in my recorded tracks. This isn't the sound when I am not playing (as I take care of that with a noise gate), but when I am playing...when the noise gate is not active. Upon listening to all of these amp plugins, they seem to generate A LOT of noise or hiss...a tremendous more noise than my live rig. If I turn off my gate, it's obvious, with my guitar volume to zero. Turning the guitar up adds just a bit more noise (from the active EMG pickups I presume), but most of it is the plugin. I'm listening to some other guys out there posting their guitar tracks using plugins and I am not hearing the same noise. What gives? Do I just have to deal with it? I'm not using a shit load of gain either, although increasing the gain certainly increases the volume of the hiss.

Thanks in advance!

K-
 
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... Question about your recording attitude, given the gear you actually have, why are you going for amp emulation plugins? grab yourself a Torpedo, Captor or any other load box and record with your own stuff, then use whatever IR you'll have around and be done with it?

From what my ears tell me, many of the youtube metal players using plugins will have their guitars super gated, also the reason why they may opt for also super hot pickups...?

I've been doing my home recordings with the record out of my Triaxis directly into the LINE IN of my audio interface. I've read all sorts of trashing about these compensated outputs, I've also heard a friend's Triaxis this way and it was not as I hear mine. I kind of like these outputs as sound source to play at night with headphones...

Question, how do you like the Boss VF1 and how do you use it? I had one a few years back and don't miss it at all, although it had some cool FXs...

BTW, welcome to the forum... :D
 
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I think you may be right about using my live rig, minus the power amp. Years ago, I used to run my rig into an ADA Microcab, and it sounded pretty effing good! And that was old, pre-VST plugin technology! So I may, as you suggest, run out of my rack, or just directly out of the recording outputs of my Triaxis, then in Ableton, just use a cab emulator and my usual effects.

On the VF1, I've been a fan of that unit for years...it's an amazing little red box and very versatile, and only half space!. I use it rather unusually in my rack. I don't use my Triaxis for my clean sounds (it's not clean enough or my taste), nor my PMC81 for clean effects either. I have two entirely separate signal chains for dirty and clean. I run out of the Triaxis effects loop out, directly into the VF1, and then into the line mixer, for all my clean sounds. I just like the lush sound of the VF1 chorus and delays for clean. In addition, to avoid the Triaxis clean sound from mixing in there, I have a separate Triaxis preset with the Master Level all the way up (note, as you know, when using the effects loop on the Triaxis, the Master is no longer a master of the overall preamp sound, but the output of the effects loop). And then the gains and levels and all the tone levels are at zero. So it's basically a "dummy" preamp preset to send signal to my VF1.

K-

... Question about your recording attitude, given the gear you actually have, why are you going for amp emulation plugins? grab yourself a Torpedo, Captor or any other load box and record with your own stuff, then use whatever IR you'll have around and be done with it?

From what my ears tell me, many of the youtube metal players using plugins will have their guitars super gated, also the reason why they may opt for also super hot pickups...?

I've been doing my home recordings with the record out of my Triaxis directly into the LINE IN of my audio interface. I've read all sorts of trashing about these compensated outputs, I've also heard a friend's Triaxis this way and it was not as I hear mine. I kind of like these outputs as sound source to play at night with headphones...

Question, how do you like the Boss VF1 and how do you use it? I had one a few years back and don't miss it at all, although it had some cool FXs...

BTW, welcome to the forum... :D
 

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... you don't like the cleans on the Triaxis? Not even the Rhythm modes? I get My cleans from the Lead2 modes: drive at zero, mids, bass, presence and DV at taste, treble more or less at 5/7, Gain at 7 (LD2), and master probably at 10 or something near. This gives me a breaking up clean, depending on the pickup used. If I want REAL clean, I'll use the rhythm modes, but the LEAD modes can provide interesting clean tones with a careful management of the GAIN, DRIVE and TREBLE parameters. I use expression pedals to swell in the DRIVE, TREBLE levels and lower the MASTER at the same time (in order to keep the same overall volume). This way I can get all the tones I'll need, from super heavy distortion to crystal cleans. This is obviously dependent on the tubes and pickups used: JJ tubes and Alnico 5 pickups for the moment. I could get cleaner tones with a lower GAIN, but I like the compression and body it adds to the tone at these levels (on all Mark modes...)...
 
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... you don't like the cleans on the Triaxis? Not even the Rhythm modes? I get My cleans from the Lead2 modes: drive at zero, mids, bass, presence and DV at taste, treble more or less at 5/7, Gain at 7 (LD2), and master probably at 10 or something near. This gives me a breaking up clean, depending on the pickup used. If I want REAL clean, I'll use the rhythm modes, but the LEAD modes can provide interesting clean tones with a careful management of the GAIN, DRIVE and TREBLE parameters. I use expression pedals to swell in the DRIVE, TREBLE levels and lower the MASTER at the same time (in order to keep the same overall volume). This way I can get all the tones I'll need, from super heavy distortion to crystal cleans. This is obviously dependent on the tubes and pickups used: JJ tubes and Alnico 5 pickups for the moment. I could get cleaner tones with a lower GAIN, but I like the compression and body it adds to the tone at these levels (on all Mark modes...)...

Yeah, it's not clean enough. I prefer absolutely no breakup in my clean tone and no tone character molded by tubes, and the clean tones on the Triaxis remind me too much of the Mesa Boogie combo amps I used to use. So I defer to solid state for clean. Crystal clear, relentlessly consistent -- as in Roland JC120 or Polytone clean...just a clean and sterile substratum to begin the signal chain. Everything else is just effects.
 
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Update! So I ran from my Traxis recording outs to my D/A box and into Ableton Live. I used the Triaxis VST plugin, but removed the preamp and kept the tube power amp, cab, and mic simulations. Sounds awesome! Still noisy, but I think this is just the nature of things. The only guitar amp, in 35 years, I have plugged into at high gain/distortion that didn't make hiss, was a purely solid state preamp/power amp system. I am going try my Amplitube 3 Mesa Boogie cab simulations as well, and see how close that gets to my live rig sound.

... Question about your recording attitude, given the gear you actually have, why are you going for amp emulation plugins? grab yourself a Torpedo, Captor or any other load box and record with your own stuff, then use whatever IR you'll have around and be done with it?

From what my ears tell me, many of the youtube metal players using plugins will have their guitars super gated, also the reason why they may opt for also super hot pickups...?

I've been doing my home recordings with the record out of my Triaxis directly into the LINE IN of my audio interface. I've read all sorts of trashing about these compensated outputs, I've also heard a friend's Triaxis this way and it was not as I hear mine. I kind of like these outputs as sound source to play at night with headphones...

Question, how do you like the Boss VF1 and how do you use it? I had one a few years back and don't miss it at all, although it had some cool FXs...

BTW, welcome to the forum... :D
 
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Yeah, it's not clean enough. I prefer absolutely no breakup in my clean tone and no tone character molded by tubes, and the clean tones on the Triaxis remind me too much of the Mesa Boogie combo amps I used to use. So I defer to solid state for clean. Crystal clear, relentlessly consistent -- as in Roland JC120 or Polytone clean...just a clean and sterile substratum to begin the signal chain. Everything else is just effects.

Hey, if that's your thing and you like that way, cool, one less problem to solve, right?

Update! So I ran from my Traxis recording outs to my D/A box and into Ableton Live. I used the Triaxis VST plugin, but removed the preamp and kept the tube power amp, cab, and mic simulations. Sounds awesome! Still noisy, but I think this is just the nature of things. The only guitar amp, in 35 years, I have plugged into at high gain/distortion that didn't make hiss, was a purely solid state preamp/power amp system. I am going try my Amplitube 3 Mesa Boogie cab simulations as well, and see how close that gets to my live rig sound.

Amplitube 3? That's way behind on quality for a fair emulation against the real thing comparison... the real thing wins by far... I've tested the Amplitube 4 with its Mark4 model and got close to the tones I get with the Triaxis, but behind. I guess that the Amplitube emulations are about 80 to 90% of the real thing, depending on the settings, monitoring setup and original rig setup..., IMO, obviously
 
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Hey, if that's your thing and you like that way, cool, one less problem to solve, right?



Amplitube 3? That's way behind on quality for a fair emulation against the real thing comparison... the real thing wins by far... I've tested the Amplitube 4 with its Mark4 model and got close to the tones I get with the Triaxis, but behind. I guess that the Amplitube emulations are about 80 to 90% of the real thing, depending on the settings, monitoring setup and original rig setup..., IMO, obviously

Yup, agreed. However, the real thing shakes the plaster off my ceiling and leads to the police knocking on my door ;-)
 
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... and that's why I suggested a Load Box instead of cabs... directed into an audio interface and IRs at the DAW... Best of both worlds, no pissed neighbors, no police at the dor...
 
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I've spent the last 2 week researching this problem, and it has been popping up its ugly head since the inception of amp sim plugins. It appears it's the norm with amp sim plugins - the constant hiss in the background, despite all other solutions implemented in the signal chain. I emailed Fortin and they appear to be in denial and just site the rest of the simple-minded solutions to the problem that don't resolve it. My conclusion is that you basically get what you pay for. It's unreasonable to buy a $120 plugin and expect it to sound like a $3000 audiophile, high fidelity product. And older, tube technology is not much quieter. It's the nature of the beast.

My next purchase: Fractal Audio Axe-FX III. :)
 
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