The Nuances of Guitar Rig 3 Amps

I'm kind of embarrassed to say it, but despite the fact that I've been a player for several years, my knowledge in getting great amp tones is merely based on tweaking knobs with no knowledge until something magic happens. I was wondering if any of you highly knowledgeable people out there might be able to help me improve my aural knowledge when it comes to the expert controls (found by clicking the '+' symbol on each amp).

For example, is there a way to set up a patch in GR to clearly hear the difference between a 50hz and 60 hz power supply? I think being able to A/B drastic sound differences between each expert control might help me understand what to listen for.

Or do you hear it by playing a certain way? For instance, I know that with the Sag control, you'd only hear what it does if you were bashing out power chords or picking hard, letting the "voltage" smack into the "tubes", giving that spongy type feel to it.

Does anyone know what I am talking about? Can you help?

 

Wow. Serious post death. Is my question confusing? Too hard to answer with a post? Does anyone have any insight to this? Help, please!

BUMP!

 

Since your query is not very specific, it is hard to answer shortly, and I am sorry I have other things to do like work, actually playing my guitar etc., than writing 'the book' A-Z on amplifiers. Perhaps that goes for others here too. Such a book may exist already; do a search. To my knowledge there is no such thing as the definitive amp setting, since the sound you get is a delicate relationship between guitar (volume, pickups), amp and speakers/mic, and not the least your playing technique.
The GuitarRig manual already have some passages on what the 'variac' and 'sag' settings do and how they may affect your sound. I would emphasize may here. To get any effect from a 'sagging' amp, you'd need to find a 'sweet spot' with your guitar volume, and also probably play loud; i.e. it's not an effect you'd hear very well in headphones, since you need to have some feedback from actual speakers to the guitar. (some feedback, not howling feedback). I may be off, but anyway: It's a response, not a sound, and the way the amp responds may affect how you play, but not all of us have a style where that kind of thing matters. These effects are subtle anyway, that's why they're hidden I guess...

 

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For example, is there a way to set up a patch in GR to clearly hear the difference between a 50hz and 60 hz power supply? I think being able to A/B drastic sound differences between each expert control might help me understand what to listen for.
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you can easily do this for yourself. use the split function to set up two amps that are identical and then change one of the expert controls and set a footswitch to a/b between them

like this...

 

So do you hear a difference? I don't.

 

Please note that RIG 3 and I think also RIG 2 have a “COMPARE” button next to the “Save As” and “Save” buttons (Top Right of the RIG screen). Use that to make you comparison within the same “Rig” setup before “Saving”.

You do, however, have to play the rig through a decent sound reinforcement system to hear the subtleties.

I have experimented some with the features with the + engaged, but find it too cumbersome to continue to tweak, let alone, will it make a BIG difference from your central tone setup?

My approach is proper EG’ing, cab choice, amp choice and effects choice and tweaking first the proper amp/speaker combination (get your sound center first). Then add your effects.

HZ, Sag, bias, etc. are VERY, VERY subtle, that it will only be apparent at higher volumes.

RIG 3 has so many decent pre-sets one can tweak to achieve “THAT TONE”!

Good Luck!

Klaus

 

Thanks, Klaus. I'm sure I'm not playing loud enough (using headphones) to hear the subtleties and that my sound card, I'm pretty sure, is low end (M-Audio 1010LT), so I'll just chock it up to something to play with if I ever play loud.

You are right about the presets, and I have also found it fun to try and get new tones/presets by reading band interviews in guitar magazines. A lot of times they'll talk about what amps they are using, and if I can hear a track or two of their music, it's easy to get close to their tone! Try it, it's fun!

This one band (a 'viking' metal band) uses Orange amps, Marshall cabs and an Electroharmonix Metal Muff to get their sound, so I dialed up Citrus, with a UK 80's 4x12, and a Cat distortion, and it sounds very close! I love GR3!

 

by definition something that is subtle is not going to be obvious. I have found that the bias and variac controls are pretty useful with dirty tones but outside of that I have little use for these (expert) controls.

 

Sorry for weighin in late. But certain boutique amp builders say European versions 220v/50 Hz of their amps sounds better. They just don't know why. It may very well be discarded as mumbo jumbo and fairy dust. Just to be able to mimick that true hum. If you get it strong enough it would always be a backdrop drone tone to all of your sounds. Like a ring modulator tone set very low, always present. The difference is VERY VERY subtle, although it does exists and can be heard on real amps, and is different on 50 and 60 hz.

You should, really try it on the AMPEG bass modellers inside GR3. And play a bass through it. You will notice the low open A-string is very very close to 50 Hz. And has a special ring to it.
Changing to 60 hz, will just move it up a bit, but will render the open A-string "uncluttered". It is very noticeable when using a bass tuner to tune your low A-string on bass. The tuner MIGHT go bonkers and not track properly due to it's too sensitive to the low A-note that is in the vincinty of 50 Hz.

 

Another late weigh-in....

Or you can come at the issue from the other direction! Try some presets that you particularly like, and then expand the expert features to try and pick out some relationships. Obviously, presets need to be tweaked, sometimes extensively, for one's individual physical rig.

That said, I think it is important to try to understand the effects these expert features have on tone. NI went to a great deal of trouble to model this ****. I like to think of it as a learning tool.

I think it is one of the great benefits of this sort of sound production. There is no way most of us would have access to such a huge variety of tone.

For me, it's like any other aspect of music--there it is, now it's up to you to learn about it. Become the electron!

 

I was messing around with one of the amp models a while back and was tweaking the variac setting pretty heavily and happened upon a pretty darn good Van Halen tone. The Van-Halen-ness of it disappeared once it was out of the "sweet spot" with the variac control.

I failed to save the tone, of course... bleh.

 

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised by that fact that you guys all seem to agree that the variac and sag controls have a subtle effect on your tone. My experience is exactly the opposite, even though I use headphones exclusively... Weird. On the other hand, I can see your point concerning the voltage settings. Mats' comment about the A string on the bass is very interesting...

 

That A string thing is quite interesting

I've been having fun using my Zoom8080's fx with cab off and running the sound through GR3's cabs and bits of eq (works with my bass too). This right now is the best set-up for me.

Not the most noiseless set-up possible, but, this VTB1 that I modded with an ax7 groove tube just ain't cutting it and I can't be bothered to leave the AW1600 on all the time.

I like the slightly coloured tone of the zoom, my guitar just sounds so much fuller. Also notice I get more sustain this way and GR3 helps complete the sound.

If you've got Audigy 2 plat pro; the inputs are fine, just sort out a proper line-out to the box

As for tone, I usually have my guitar's tone knob nearly all the way down if I'm going through high-gain lead sounds. That helps get rid of a lot of the piercing highs although I find the bass has to be eq'ed much more carefully. For clean sounds I bring it back in a bit more.

Monitoring through Seinheisser 555's and Cambridge Soundworks DTT2200. More than loud enough for bedroom shredding!

Sorry, ranted on a bit

 

"the low open A-string is very very close to 50 Hz"

Let's see. Low A on the guitar is 440Hz. On the bass its an octave lower so it would be 220Hz. Even If you tuned down 2 octaves it would be Hz 110.
I take that you talk about subharmonics, 55Hz would be part of the A note.
For me 55 is just as close to 60 as it is to 50. I don't get the theory.

 

You are absolutely right MrLevi. The note that lies closest to 50 Hz is the low G on the bass, at 49 Hz. Actually, if you have a noisy pedal or amp that picks up mains hum you can use that as a G-drone to jam over (Yes, I have done that several times - the original Pitch Shifter pedal from Boss was especially 'nice' for this ).
In the US that would be 60 Hz, and the closest note then is B, although not spot on.

 

Low A on guitar is 440 hz !

Since when? ;-)

 

Low A on the guitar is 110. 5th fret high E string is 440.

 

You are right! Thanks for the correction.

So the A on the bass is 55Hz. Its still just as far from 50 as it is from 60.

 

Well, since guitar rig amps and nuances allow you to produce a virtual 50 or 60 Hz hum, there's still the REAL humming from the REAL pickups, wire, that creeps in no matter how slight. I mean, before any converting chain. It depends on whether you live in states (60 hz 110v) or mainland Europe (50 Hz 220v). Say you live in the states, then you have the ever present 60 Hz regardless of trying to set the rig amp to emulate 50 Hz. It does not disappear! That one you can't change or get rid of. Especially when using passive single coil pickups. If you live in Europe, it's still 50 Hz 220v (ca) BEFORE anything happens inside guitar rig, and then if you try to "mimick" a 60 Hz 110v setting on an amp, you're still putting in a 50 Hz hum from your single coil pickups. Or wires, or whatever that picks up surrounding interference.

On top of this, it's most noticeable when playing bass. On guitar, there's pretty not much happening below 80 Hz anyway, since that is about where the low E is.

And as if this shouldn't be enough, current and alternate current ALTERNATES SLIGHTLY from country to country. In Sweden, here's almost 240 v instead of 220v, and the 50 Hz hum is not dead on 50 Hz always all of the time. It does not waver by much say up to 55 Hz, but anyway. That's why people are buying power conditioners, and "current cleaners".

55 Hz may be in the middle of 50-60 Hz but anyway. How close is close? How far is too far? Do the experiment for yourself and see why the tuner JUMPS most of the time when going down to low A. On bass. Producing a harmonic at the twelfth fret, will make it stable.

Verdict: I think when tweaking rig amps and their voltage, I think you should stay to 50 Hz 220v if that's your countrys current. And 60 Hz 110v if that's your countrys thing. It will only clutter up things even more to start dabbling with that.

Adding a virtual hum to the real one that's already present -regardless if it's 50 or 60 - is really...quite silly if you'd ask me. But that's only IMHO.
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Here's the answer from STROBE TUNER stalwarts PETERSON, whose support once came with the following explanation why the tuner jumps, and does not lock in properly:
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At first glance, it sounds like a mains hum issue that can be introducing noise. Your 50Hz mains hum is close to A1 (55Hz). If there is some low input noise, it can cause problems all thru the scale on all guitars.

Please make sure the noise filter is off when tuning electrics. It could be inadvertently causing Soft to ignore certain frequencies giving you a tuning problem.

Alternately, if the filter is off, plug-in and run the filter but do not make any sound during the process. This could be a quick way to isolate any mains hum that may not be audible.

The software does not care what string you are tuning as all it is doing is measuring an input signal, therefore, it is not likely that it can be "broken" when it comes the A string but perfect on the rest.
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Now, this seems to be a little OT but if you have issues with 55 HZ NOT BEING CLOSE TO 50, or just as well 60 HZ, just mail Marshall Johns over at Peterson and tell him he's wrong... not me...

The tone at 60 hz may very well wreak havoc on tuners too, but I don't know many people who doesn't tune to open strings on a bass.

 

"if you have issues with 55 HZ NOT BEING CLOSE TO 50".

I never had problem with that. I Only said it was just as close to 60 as well.
I only argued with this: when you switched from 60 to 50 it made a difference in the sound BECAUSE the low A (55) is very very close to 50. I only said it is very very close to 60, so where is the point being very very close?

Mr. Peterson was talking about the hum frequencies being close to A1 (55Hz). Doesn't matter if was 50hz or 60hz. They still going to interfere with the A1.

btw the ratio 55/50 is 1.1 and 60/55 is 1.09 so actually 55 is closer to 60 jk