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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 6:15 am
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strings10927 wrote:
The audio sample sounds like oscillation to me
frondizi wrote:
Hi,
sorry but i have to disagree

You have to disagree with what? That it sounds like oscillation to my ears? :| Only I know what things sound like to my ears frondizi.

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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 9:12 am
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If you listen to the sound sample carefully between 10 and 14 seconds (click your mouse at 10 seconds and let it play to 14 and click at 10 again and repeat several times so you can get a good listen) you can distinctively hear two different sounds. You can hear the the sound of the note ringing and wavering (oscillating) as can be expected. If you unplug your guitar and play an open bass string you will hear the same sort of effect. The second thing you can hear on the sample is a buzzing noise that also wavers in unison with the underlying note wavering. This buzzing noise I believe is a digital artifact. I don't think it sounds exactly like fizz. And it probably is, as already speculated, due to the way the software handles the high gain input on particular amp models.

frondizi wrote:
when you listen to a Santana sustained tone , even though can be helped by feedback with amp, you hear a "straight note" with no modulations and the oscillation of the string is a frequency too fast to hear its undulation.. did you hear an 80 hz wave sine or even triangle , square wave which is more similar to a distorted tone? are you able to hear its ondulation? or instead seems to hear a straight note that seems not modulated ?
our phenomenon has a beat you can hear clearly...

I understand where you are coming from. But to that I would say, if you could isolate Santana's guitar and un-process it, you would likely be able to hear some raw string dynamics. And Santana is using his own tried and true gear and playing in a musical context in such a way that only Santana can play. It might not be fair to compare our experimental testing to the playing of a guitar god, even if it is just one note.


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 10:13 am
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Scorpaeon wrote:
This buzzing noise I believe is a digital artifact. I don't think it sounds exactly like fizz. And it probably is, as already speculated, due to the way the software handles the high gain input on particular amp models.


I agree on your point of view. My guessing so far is that the ingress to the amp model gets chopped, and that's why in this scenario a bassman starts to sound like a Metal2000!
What I would like Fender to review is the fact that, in real-tube amps, ingress signal is never really chopped that harshly. The limiting factor on a tube amp is more like very heavy compression, which sounds different.
In case I'm right, it would be cool if Fender can correct their amp models to account for this factor and provide for compression instead of choping of the ingress signal.
This will also help all the guys using pedals in front of the Mustangs that find that if they boost too much the signal, it sounds just bad. With this improvement the Mustangs would be much more pedal friendly and will sound closer than ever to real tube amps.


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 10:53 am
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jedi2b wrote:
The limiting factor on a tube amp is more like very heavy compression, which sounds different.
In case I'm right, it would be cool if Fender can correct their amp models to account for this factor and provide for compression instead of choping of the ingress signal.
This will also help all the guys using pedals in front of the Mustangs that find that if they boost too much the signal, it sounds just bad. With this improvement the Mustangs would be much more pedal friendly and will sound closer than ever to real tube amps.


Yes ,
the heavy compression as in saturated tubes amps is welcome and desiderable.
.. in the case you do not want it, just lower the input level to the preamplifier stage.

Everything else, buzz, undulations, various modulations, you must find a way to get rid of them. As being in substance are unnecessary and unrelated. And also hinder sustained notes.

Dimitri


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 11:31 am
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Scorpaeon wrote:

I understand where you are coming from. But to that I would say, if you could isolate Santana's guitar and un-process it, you would likely be able to hear some raw string dynamics. And Santana is using his own tried and true gear and playing in a musical context in such a way that only Santana can play. It might not be fair to compare our experimental testing to the playing of a guitar god, even if it is just one note.


Hi,
i don't want compare our gears with those of Santana.. the point is the usually is possible to get sustained notes without additional ondulations and modulations..
when i had the combo Laney World series 60 (solid state) i could obtain from a simple Ibanez guitar (2 humbuckers , 1 single coil) and the overdrive embedded in amp , sustained notes without no modulations..
and also using the emulations of Roland VG88 (for example mesa boogie emulation + compressor or overdrive) connected to the Return input of amp (used just like power amp) i could get long notes without modulations.. similar to Santana way..
of course Roland emulations wasn't so good and had an other kind of digital aliasing phenomenon (for example on bendings on high notes .. and return to pitch)

i am just telling that now i'm not able anymore to keep that sustained notes in the way i would like and it annoys me somewhat. And would be good and right thing resolve it.

Dimitri


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 1:18 pm
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Hi All,

Thank you so much for your feedback. We have followed the suggested reproduction steps and we don’t suspect anything to be broken. A question for "frondizi" would be:

- Does the oscillation go away if you play into the Studio Preamp model with a Orange/Black/Greenbox stomp? or what about going directly (no stomps) into high gain amps?

Please let us know and we can take it from there.

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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 3:02 pm
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Hi Fender,

I just did a quick test, again Fender HSS strat, using bridge HB, volume 10, tone 10

1-using studio preamp only, with gain=10
-perfect, no saturation or modulation

2-using same setup as 1, but adding in front a Greenbox with level=10 and gain=10
-perfect, no saturation or modulation

3-using same setup as 1, but adding in front a Blackbox with level=10 and dist=10
-saturated and modulated sound, similar to the soundclip I shared in this same thread


So definitelly is not something related to the electronics, but something related to some models themselves, I have found that the models more affected by it are:
-Champ
-57 Deluxe
-65 Deluxe
-Bassman
-57 Twin
-70 British

The rest are fine or the modulation level is almost indetectable


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Fri May 03, 2013 4:37 pm
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In setup 3 above, the Blackbox is likely clipping the digital audio path. Turn the Blackbox level down to remedy this.

Here are some general thoughts on these topics:

“Buzz” – assuming you aren’t clipping the analog front end, or somewhere else in the digital audio path, most of the distortion you hear when you turn up the low to mid gain amps comes from the amp model’s poweramp distortion. In general, the transition from clean to dirty in poweramp distortion is less gradual than in the high gain / preamp distortion case. During this transition (as a note is decaying) you hear harmonics quickly disappear reappear in succession which may be perceived as a “buzzy” sound. Maybe this is what you are referring to. It is a desired effect, the targeted tube amps do this too (more or less) when you crank them all the way up (which is what we are emulating when you turn the gain to 10). All of the tweeds exhibit this behavior. In particular, listen to a hard picked low E decay on the ’57 Deluxe with the GAIN at 10. Sounds buzzy, but many players like it (and I suggest trying the real thing for a truly religious experience). If you don’t like this behavior, try reducing the GAIN or switch to a different amp model.

That being said… if you are overdriving the front end by using an external stompbox with the level cranked up, or if you are clipping the digital path before the amp model by adding internal effects (especially stomp distortions) without appropriately trimming the levels, you may get digital/hard clipping (which is obviously *really* buzzy). In digital case you might also observe aliasing which might be perceived as a ring-modulator-like effect (i.e. generation of tones not harmonically related to the source). The remedy is to turn the (internal or external) stompbox’s level down. The system has been designed so that the typical player doesn’t need to care about these sorts of things, but nonetheless the capability is there to make the amp sound “bad” if that’s what you’re after.

If you notice “buzzy-ness” and you don’t like it, try the following:
1) Reduce internal and external stompbox/effect levels
2) Reduce the GAIN (maybe you don’t like how the amp model distorts at the current setting?)
3) Reduce the Preset Volume (maybe you are clipping the cab emulations due to the post effects increasing the signal level?)
4) Reduce guitar volume (maybe you have a guitar with uber-hot pickups? (not that likely))

“Oscillation/Modulation” – this is at least partly due to natural undulation of a decaying guitar signal. It is likely exacerbated by driving this undulating signal into a saturated virtual poweramp (or worse a clipped front end or digital signal path). There are also a number of likely contributors from within the amp modeling (done on purpose), and each amp model has unique characteristics in this regard. The remedy for avoiding this effect is the same as the list above, with the addition of suggesting to switch to a different amp model. High gain amp models should exhibit less of this behavior (assuming you don’t have the virtual poweramp’s master control turned up significantly).

Hope this helps!


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 8:33 am
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Hi Ben,
thanks for your detailed explanations.


beyond experimenting unusual combinations, staying on practical and real settings, so .. Can it be used a setting like Gilmour, Hiwatt with Big Muff or Fuzz Face (i don't know.. in Mustang could be the Fuzz stompbox or a tweeked Muff) with stomp gain to 10 and level 7, the settings that are closest and get that powerful sound, without undulations or additional modulations or at least reducing them to levels not annoying ? i am referring to Live at Pompei setup mainly..

and with regard to the sustained sound of Santana Europa type or other, you can not get a sound like a Mesa Boogie Mark series from American high gain '90s that should Be as close .. is metallic compared to mesa boogie mark ..
(by the way .. i suggested at the times of Mustang V.1 to include Mark channels models like Amplitude does)
the same goes for the sounds of Santana since the 90s onwards ..
even in these cases, how to get a sound right without the use of only high gain amplifier? and preventing the most possiibile the undulations and modulations?

these are the two main categories of sounds that interest me,
also the saturated sound of Eric Clapton when he uses the mid 25 db booster on his guitar .. he uses relatively small Fender tweed amps but despite the high level of the pickups (when boosted by active circuit) does not seem to get additional modulations or undulations from his setup .. the tone in the solos is rather smooth ..

Let us assume that there is nothing to be corrected in the various models Mustang, then there should be a way to use certain combinations and settings of famous od / fuzz and amplifiers without incurring the digital modulations or undulations that we discussed or at least reduce them to a minimum .

If it is not possible and one must reduce the levels somewhere at the point of change in practice, the typical sound .. then it means to me that these digital technologies have yet to be improved to cope well with all real situations.

Dimitri


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 11:15 am
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Fender TSL wrote:
Hi All,

Thank you so much for your feedback. We have followed the suggested reproduction steps and we don’t suspect anything to be broken. A question for "frondizi" would be:

- Does the oscillation go away if you play into the Studio Preamp model with a Orange/Black/Greenbox stomp? or what about going directly (no stomps) into high gain amps?

Please let us know and we can take it from there.


Hi Fender,
if you play into Studio Preamp with some distorsions stomps and their default settings the oscillation seems to be very reduced.. but if you raise the gain of the effect all the way up it occours the same...
in high gain amps without stomps seems to disappears too..
but it depends on what kind of tones you want to get.. you can't use some kind of amplifier..

i never thought something was wrong or broken in the hardware of the amp, i was thinking that something in the software or mathematical algorithms should be improved to manage some real settings of very high input level like early Gilmour one (with fuzz face or Big Muff and their gain all the way up) , some Santana sustained tones and probably Jimi Hendrix saturated tone too..
as you can see i have already wrote my considerations in the precedent post as answer to Ben Rathke..

Thanks
Dimitri


Last edited by frondizi on Sat May 04, 2013 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 1:38 pm
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Ben Rathke - Fender wrote:
In setup 3 above, the Blackbox is likely clipping the digital audio path. Turn the Blackbox level down to remedy this.


Hi Ben,

thank you for the detailed response. I was under the suspicion that most of the unwanted effects I get are from what you mention several times: clipping in the digital audio path and I'm glad the discussion is getting more specific.

Giving that we are talking about the digital domain here, detecting the equivalent of clipping or overloading should be easy to detect and correct shouldnt it? I mean if at any stage in the digital transformation of the signal, it goes out of boundaries, wouldn't it be nice if the software reduced the signal level to anything acceptable to the next effect in the chain.
Like some sort of AGC (automatic gain control) or automatic scaling down of the signal. This will avoid any digital clipping at any stage, that I'm pretty sure is undesirable to everybody.


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 3:59 pm
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jedi2b wrote:
Giving that we are talking about the digital domain here, detecting the equivalent of clipping or overloading should be easy to detect and correct shouldnt it? I mean if at any stage in the digital transformation of the signal, it goes out of boundaries, wouldn't it be nice if the software reduced the signal level to anything acceptable to the next effect in the chain.
Like some sort of AGC (automatic gain control) or automatic scaling down of the signal. This will avoid any digital clipping at any stage, that I'm pretty sure is undesirable to everybody.


Hi Jedi,
well said! i agree with you.

Let also be the behavior of some vintage Fender amps when the gain is high (6-7) or 10 .. you get the buzzing effect even in the real thing caused by let's say dancing harmonics .. and that's fine, we can accept it as it is because reflects the reality.

But for the rest of other types of amps is not possible that all behave the same way if the input level is raised by a distortion effect, not only as regards the buzzing effect but especially for the effect of undulation of the signal ..
to continue with an earlier example, a Marshall vintage with very high gain and volume overdriven by a fuzz face can shows high compression, flattening of the dynamic changes in timbre, but there should not be the undulation .. and probably not a buzzing effect than that given by the fuzz to timbre of the sound of course.

The same applies to the setup of Gilmour with the Fuzz Face or Big Muff. Those should serve to create distortion themselves even before the preamp stage .. and it is a clean channel in this case.

update:
in these last days i tried several combinations of amp models and stompboxes and i tried also to lower the gain in the basic presets or other default presets to use overdrive-fuzz effects in combination with them but it is very difficult to be able to use stompboxes (or find an effective and right combination) with most models without get the additional modulation - phaser-like - and at higher level the ondulation of signal in bass notes ..
therefore feasible combinations distortion + amp are considerably reduced.

you may incur in the undulation and/or modulation with a british 70s, british watt, british 60s, most Fender models... as already stated ..
then the utility of having various distortions available is reduced in practice to a very limited circle of applications .. and should not be the case at all.
I tried to experiment even increase the distance between pickup and strings (bridge pickup because the neck pickup was already low) thinking that in part could also be due too much magnetism of coils on strings but it's just dropped the level and a little sustain too, but it has not solved. My pickup however, are of Alnico V 70s .. very common humbuckers on a Yamaha SG, which i also split to single coil.

There is a digital basic issue that allow the hard clipping in virtually all digital models as already said and if not resolved by programmers, everything is much more difficult for always having to go to find the few right combinations that can reduce a bit the problem but certainly does not eliminate it unless that you are not relying on sounds very different from those that really wanted to get. And this does not seem fair at all.

Dimitri


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Mon May 06, 2013 8:46 am
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Not all distortion pedals are going to sound good with all amp types. I think it is safe to generalize that distortion on distortion isn’t pleasing to most players. You need to see what combinations sound good to you, save those as presets, and use them as building blocks for future presets. For me (on the Mustang and in “real life”), the high gain amps, when set for significant amounts of distortion, don’t sound good with any distortion pedals in front of them. Amps with medium-to-high-ish distortion (think Brit 70s) sound better with lower gain pedals like the Ranger or the Greenbox. Lower gain amps sound good with a wider variety of pedals. The Brit Watts is a nice “base” for adding distortion pedals. Try 07-Pigs Can Fly, and switch out Big Fuzz to try other stomps. And yes, if you turn the gain on the amp up, at some point it will likely not sound good to you. Don’t do that if you don’t like it! I also like to use the ’59 Bassman with the gain set low, like 2 or 3, as a base for pedals. Brit Colour is nice too. Start by setting the amp model’s master to 10, gain to 1. Add/ adjust your distortion pedal, then increase the amp gain until it no longer sounds good to you. Try this procedure with other amp models and cab combinations.

I understand that it can be frustrating and sometimes complicated to dial in “that tone”. My advice is to create building blocks that sound good to you, with your guitar, your playing style. Build up and out from there.

AGC / limiting etc are interesting ideas, but come with their own set of drawbacks. Additionally, there are processing power limitations that prevent us from doing everything we’d like to do on this platform, but I’ll keep this in mind for future development. Thanks for the suggestions, as always.


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Mon May 06, 2013 11:06 am
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Hello,
then we can not expect in the short to medium term, a firmware update that will solve or at least considerably reduce the problems of hard clipping?

If so, this is the last digital product from Fender as far as I'm concerned. I bought a product because it had to be versatile and usable in almost any combination that offers .. and not that I have to "go with the lantern" to look for the few right combinations .. because the amp model type Jimi Hendrix you can not saturate it with a fuzz at high level , the other amp of Gilmour the same.. then , if you need to do the saturated sound of Eric Clapton you may run into the usual modulation because tweeds amps .. etc..
in short: all that is saturated or distorted sound above a certain level, can not be done without incurring in those side effects.
It seems to me that the tolerance of these amp models at high input levels is very low , too low.
Fender has waited two years to release new series of amplifiers and everything that has been able to improved was the addition of balanced sockets, a few new model, and some nuance of improvement in the tone of some models ..
unfortunate that the basic problem remained as such ...
really compliments.

It is the second Mustang .. but there will not be a third one.


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Post subject: Re: Unwanted modulation on drive tones on Mustang 3 V2
Posted: Mon May 06, 2013 3:47 pm
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Hi frondizi,

We value your feedback and input regarding the described behavior on the Fender® Mustang™ (V.2) amplifiers. It has been decided that we will not be making any changes to the Mustang™ (V.2) firmware based upon the behavior described in this forum post. We will add your comments in the form of a feature request for consideration for a future update. Please keep in mind that we can not guarantee inclusion of this feature request. Please let us know if we can assist further.

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