Higher Notes Cancel Power from Lower Notes

RT9930

RT9930

New member
Maybe a stupid question, but, when playing higher notes (G string and up) and letting them ring out, if I try to then move to my E string, for instance, the notes have no power/bass and sound dead. After the higher note dies, the life comes back into my low string.

The best way to describe the sound is that it feels like the speaker is fighting for frequencies and the low end just evaporates while that higher note is being sustained. Essentially, if I play a little palm-muted chug on the open low E, it sounds like a floppy clean guitar, being played through a cheap practice amp.

Only lasts about a second but if I play a harmonic, it lasts maybe 2-3 seconds.

Is this due to playing through studio monitors as opposed to a guitar cab? I've used several of the major amp sims and it seems to happen on every one.
 
How do the recording sound? Headphones?

I purchased Amplitube Max and initially was pretty disappointed in how it sounded live for just practice through my monitors. I got the AxeIO with the bundle which has a re-amp out and decided to make use of it. I had picked up a Vox Cambridge50 on a stupid deal of the day sale, which has a line in mode without any modeling or color. I routed my sim output to the re-amp output into the amp and it just became every amp I ever wanted along with having the dynamics of the interaction of the speaker and guitar.

There are plenty of speakers and a number of amps now designed to be used as a monitor for this sort of emulation.
 
That's pretty interesting. Unfortunately, I'm getting the same issue through headphones and even when played back.
 
rob aylestone said:
I can't quite imagine what this sounds like? Can you post a clip?
Click to expand...
My initial thought is perhaps he is mixing the direct with the DAW through the monitors and the latency is causing some phase cancellation, but the high frequencies is a twist on that theory.
 
Folkcafe said:
What is the signal chain? Monitor settings on the interface, DAW, Mix or Direct?
Click to expand...
Signal chain is simply guitar to SSL2 interface, into PC, played through Adam Audio T7v's.

Monitors are set to USB on interface, and level is around 8
 
Folkcafe said:
My initial thought is perhaps he is mixing the direct with the DAW through the monitors and the latency is causing some phase cancellation, but the high frequencies is a twist on that theory.
Click to expand...
Any delay on lower frequencies will leave signals still in phase, but at high frequencies those will not be in phase.
 
Bird Garden Audio said:
When I heard the clip my initial thought is that the palm mutes sound like the strings are touching the pickups. Could it be a combination of the drop tuning and having to adjust the way you palm mute when you let the open string ring at the same time?
Two ways to test this. One is physically looking at the string and pickup when you palm mute. The other is to tune the guitar to standard pitch to see if it makes a difference.
Click to expand...
So, that clip was recorded on my 7 string but the dropout seems to occur with my 6 strings in standard tuning, as well.

When I was trying to diagnose, I had the same idea as you about the pickups and I tried all kinds of pickup heights, to no avail. Even had them flush with the body and still could feel the loss of bass, albeit much more subtly.

Also, despite that sloppy recording, I was really trying to focus on the connection of my hand to the strings when palm muting, to see if that might be the issue. Unfortunately, it didn't matter how intricate I was.

I feel like it has to be some kind of compression/limiting issue, somewhere in my chain but I have absolutely no idea where.
 
No clipping that I can see. Usually tops out around -10 db.

The DI signal seems to be clear of the problem. I turned up the input gain and played some harmonics and didn't seem to lose any bass when played simultaneously.

No gain pedal, currently. Just the amp gain. Turned off the 4K button but no help there.

I also just updated the SSL's firmware and drivers and that did not seem to help, either.
 
Agree with @Bird Garden Audio
It sounds to me like some stage is maxed out.
If there's any compression or limiting following your amp try taking that out of the loop or pull the amp output down a fair bit.
Failing that I'd try reducing the gain of the amp. If it has a separate input level then the same applies to that.

If the amp sim has any built in compression/limiting disable that for now too.

Basically anything you can turn down, try turning it down.
You may end up solving the problem but not being able to get the gain you want. 🤷‍♂️
 
That is the Amp Sim doing that.

Back off the gain until it doesn't do that anymore. If it does it without amp gain, it is the plugin that runs the Sim.
 
@Steenamaroo @Farview

I turned the gain down and recorded another track. This time in Neural DSP's Gojira plugin, recorded in Reaper. (Note: Same issue in the standalone program)

Neural DSP TEST Low Gain

Another note, I'm in contact with the tech team from STLTones, which was the first recording I posted, and they said it definitely wasn't normal. Waiting to hear back further.
 
Does it still do it if you turn off the Amp Sims? Just trying to nail down what part of the chain is causing the problem.
 
For sure. I just tried it directly into my DAW, with no amp plugin, and turned up the gain, and it doesn't seem to be happening with that workflow.

So, it appears to be the way my PC is handling the sim software. The tech I'm chatting with thought it might be an overloaded CPU but I'm barely hitting 1% usage.
 
If anyone is still interested, I tried another PC with a different audio interface (M-Audio 2x2) and still encountered the problem.

The last thing to check is the guitar cable, itself. Waiting for a new one to arrive. If that doesn't work, I have no idea.

Update: Found two other guitar cables that I had and tried both. Still having the same problem. I give up...
 
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But it happens on multiple brands of simulator. I've tried three different pieces of software and they all do it.

Maybe it's just a compromise with the software and I've become hypersensitive to it.
 
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