Line 6 UX2...
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Posted on Jul 27, 2009 05:52 pm
Billy L.
BIlly L.
Member Since: Dec 03, 2008
I have been trying like crazy to get better quality tone out of this thing and I am not the best at it.
So any pointers or ideas would be great!
Thanks.
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pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
Jul 27, 2009 09:21 pm Sing better?
Play better?
ha, i kid, but we don't know what's wrong, if you don't give any details. Others have gotten great results (Noize2U comes to mind) so I know that the devices can create some good results.
If you're recording with a mic in a room, the room could be killing your sound. If you're singing, it could be vocal talent.
All this is speculative, so don't be upset if i'm wrong. I'm just guessing.
A detailed list of how things are set up, your workflow / processes, and what's not working as planned, etc. would help us get to the bottom of things.
Oh yeah, a snippet of the offending un-tone-ness would be good too.
Billy L.BIlly L. Member
Since: Dec 03, 2008
Jul 27, 2009 10:10 pm Haha thanks man.
Alright, for a list of the wrongness..
I have not had a problem with vocals yet (not my own I'm not much of a singer) but those are coming through just fine.
I am just going in direct with my guitar from the line 6 to Nuendo. I have to EQ the crap out of the guitars in Nuendo to get them sounding "okay". The effects are where I'm having trouble. I'm just not experienced enough with shaping the effects the way they need to be. *Hints why I'm here*
The distortion is not cutting through with the crispness and clarity I am searching for, its still to muddy and not giving me the edge I need. I have tried cutting the drive, bass, and treble back and boosting the mids.
The style of music I play is around that of Children of Bodom, Kill Switch Engage, and Tommy Emmanuel. So of course I've been trying to emulate some of that tone. Even then I cant seem to get remotley close to the tone I'm looking for.
Jul 28, 2009 12:15 pm From personal expirience with the UX2, it can be somewhat a pain to get good tones. I have gotten pretty good distortion for hardcore and metal tones. Bass tones for heavier stuff didn't go so well. Noise2You had to help me with those.
Are you using the Gearbox or Pod Farm set up with the UX2? A lot of the times you really need to play around with the different cab and amp samples from those two setups to really get what your going for.
If you go to www.lighttheshadow.com with a flash enabled browser, a flash music player will play some of the work I used on my last band. I quit that band, but the entoire recording was done here in my home/project studio. All the guitar work was done using the UX2.
Jul 28, 2009 12:20 pm I like the UX2, I have the KB37, which is the same modelling. I like the greenback speakers, a close SM57, compressed and doubletracked, it comes out pretty thick and nice.
Billy L.BIlly L. Member
Since: Dec 03, 2008
Jul 28, 2009 05:46 pm Rockwood - Im using POD Farm. and I havent really fiddled with the amp and mic combos yet so ill try that.
DB - never heard of the greenback speakers, but i have been double tracking most of my guitar work to try and get it a little fatter and fuller.
The hardest thing is trying to get around that cheap sound its preset with..
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Jul 28, 2009 08:15 pm Hey Billy, I've been using Line 6 since the very first version of the POD. AS stated above it takes a little bit of tweaking to get it right. As Rockwood stated you can get some killer tone with it, but its a bit of a time investment.
I'll ask a couple question's of you. What guitar or guitar's and type and placement of pickup's are you using to record with? If you can, upload a couple of samples of the guitar tracks to your profile here and we can get a better idea of what your getting.
Quote:
The hardest thing is trying to get around that cheap sound its preset with..
That is the key right there as well. You don't want to use the presets and think your going to get a killer sound. first off, your guitar isn't the guitar they built those presets with so it won't have the same thing going on. I've never left a preset alone. I save them to a file and then start from scratch building patches to suite what I want.
You can by all means though start with a pre made patch and then tweak away to get it were you need. I have to say it honestly takes some time invested to learn what your guitar can and can't do with it. And for the most part it can do just about anything.
Kill Switch Engage, yep that is a bit tougher to do. But you can do it. It just might take a more then only two layers of guitar to do it.
Let me know what patches you are starting with and what you are using in their effects set up and we'll see if we can't get you going.
cruxTypo SzarMember
Since: Jul 04, 2002
Jul 28, 2009 08:40 pm Even for heavy tones, i dont find myself reaching for the mesa emulations on Line 6, I usually use their Fender emulations plus the Rat pedal (Classic Distortion). For stuff like killswitch i think it gives a good amount of grit without making it all mushy and incoherent. Do a few tracks of that with dfferent EQ settings on the amp and mic distances, should be thick as hell
Billy L.BIlly L. Member
Since: Dec 03, 2008
Jul 30, 2009 10:56 am Thanks Noize
The one guitar I have been using so far is just my SG and I usually toggle between the pick ups. Ill Try to upload a sample of the tone I have so far.
The patches I have been using are (I think) Where ever I may roam, Blue powder, and a couple others I tried making myself.
The first I tried making myself has the solo 100 head, a boost, a medium hall reverb, and an EQ.
The second was attempted for "lead" So again I used the solo 100 head, a brite room reverb, a bubble delay, and a chorus.
Crux - I just realized I never combined a distortion pedal with any of the combinations I tried. I have been laying multiple tracks to get a thicker sound, but I have been panning them left and right to get a stereo effect, should I over lay another one and leave it centered?
TadpuiI am not a crook's headMember
Since: Mar 14, 2003
Jul 30, 2009 11:21 am Layered and panned guitars are going to be the thickest way to track. So you're doing it right as far as convention goes for heavy guitars.
So you're playing an SG? You should have no problems getting good, heavy sounds out of a double humbucker setup. Keep your strings in good shape, your intonation accurate, and your playing tight. That'll make your double-tracked guitars sound better.
I'd recommend getting rid of the reverb on your guitars for right now. Add a little back after you've got everything tracked. You might even want to add all of the rhythm guitars to a group track and add a single instance of a light reverb to all of the rhythm guitars instead of letting a hall-type reverb build up on multiple tracks. Too much reverb will push the guitars back into the background quite a bit, which goes against what you're wanting to do. Reverb is a great thing, but it's not a necessity for everything. Try getting rid of it and see how your layers of guitars sound.
Same goes for the delay and chorus. Get rid of them for now and see how it sounds. Then add it back in small amounts either only on 1 or 2 of the layers, or as an effect on all guitars grouped together.
Well, there's a couple of ideas anyways. No guarantees these will help your situation, but I've found that the drier I record the guitars, the thicker they tend to sound.
The beef I've always had with the emulators and modelers is that they tend to convince the user that they need more effects than they actually do. Keep the signal simple unless you're going for a special effect of some sort (like chorus and hall reverb on a clean guitar, or delay and reverb on a lead guitar, or flange and multi-tap delay on some guitar fill, etc.).
CptTrippsCzar of Turd PolishMember
Since: Jun 20, 2006
Jul 30, 2009 12:11 pm I recroded a band recently who is in love with killswitch. There amps weren't all that hot so I recorded exclusively with the UX8 and gearbox/podfarm.
The tone (amp, speaker emulation) they picked was the JCM800 with the V30's for one and the JCM800 with 75's for the other. On mic emulation one used the 57 off axis and another used a condensor spaced back a tad.
Once we had amp/speakers setup I had them play while telling me what to adjust.
cruxTypo SzarMember
Since: Jul 04, 2002
Jul 30, 2009 12:12 pm Don't forget that just becoz ur emulating doesnt mean u cant reamp. Do a clean one and mic up an amp, it doesnt have to be a beast, it can even be a small practice amp or even just normal stereo speakers, the point is u want some air and real life movement for ur trax, this might not be part of the "heavy" equaiton but it is part of the "pleasing to the ear" equation i believe. No matter how good the technology gets ive never been able to live wihtout getting some real life micing into my trax
Jul 30, 2009 01:00 pm Another tip for ya dude. When we recorded our demo (the website I pointed you to above in my last post), We overdubbed to get a thicker tone as well.
I am not sure if you have looked through all of the Line 6 gearbox/pod farm faetures, but there is a feature that lets you look up bands, song titles, guitar players, ect and emulate the guitar tone from certain songs.
Now of course, not every artists you wanna emulate is going to be there, and the pre-sets sure as hell won't be perfect/exact when you open them, but its a good start.
the website link I posted above for the music I recorded with my last band, we did some extensive searching on the Line 6 search, and found some bands we could work with. We ended up using a Deftones preset and a Damage Plan/Dimebag preset.
We then tweaked them to our liking, and tracked with them. Now, we didn't play solos, and we only had one guitar player. But either tone by itself wasn't so awesome. So to fatten them up, what we did was, we tracked the main guitar track with one, and then played a simular but slightly different arrangment with the 2nd tone. Did some panning, mixed them together, and got a pretty bad *** sound with it. It could of gotten better of course, but we felt it was fine the way it was. Don't be afraid to expiriement, and let your ears play a big roll. Don't doubt yourself much, cause then you end up like me when I first started recording, and you end up overthinking everything.
Also, if you had a tad bit of cash, Noise2U turned me onto the PSP Vintage Warmer plugin. Its a plugin that you can slap on those guitar tracks and really warm them up. I have not gotten a chance to play with it much, but I do have it myself. It does wonders when used correctly.
