Not liking my krankenstein anymore...clips

[Glenn Fricker]

You can try two mics on different speakers. One on the center or slightly off center over or beside the dustcap joint, the other on second speaker's outer rim.

Mic both to the same level & play with the faders. You'll get some canellations in the fizz region.

-0z-

 

[Gnash]

Does your rig sound fizzy before going into the mic? You should Krank it louder, REAL LOUD, when the neigbors are gone, roll off the top, and push record. Then thank Dime!

 

[Jackal_Strain]

THD Hotplate.

 

[Where She Wept]

I'm probably the only one in the world...but I didn't like the Krank

I spent a whole day traveling around Melbourne checking out

JSX, 6506+, Mesa, Marshal, Engl, Laney, Line6

and ended up with the 6505+ which is the best thing I've bought, to the point I'm now selling my original JCM800.....

I don't like'em either, i just got to mix one live last night. I'm really unimpressed. That clip sounded better than i expected though, i actually liked it. I wouldn't judge the tone by itself. wait till you have the drums an vocals in there too. I don't worry about the guitar eq till i have all the instruments present.

 

[smy1]

Dude, I love your prog-rock-sig so much, I have to laugh everytime I read it because especially the last sentence is incredibly true!

 

[cobhc]

The "bc rich warlock Jb duncan krank 57" is the best sounding clip imo, crank those mids man, the Kranks always come up more scooped than most other amps.

 

[mmetalmilitiaa]

It's deff. gonna sound fizzy if you can't get the volume up enough, don't most tube amps?

My krankstien sounds fuckin amazing when I have the volume sreaming

 

[nwright]

remember, too, that this is Dime's ig. amp, so fizz is going to be part of it. When the artist actually asks the designer of the amp to make it fizzy, you know you're in trouble, lol. The Krankenstein has a solid state driver in it (essentially another gain stage) that gives it that "bacon frying" sound (told to me per Krank), so...That's why I prefer the Rev1. The Krank dudes told me you can dial it out simply by turning the presence to 0, but I've never tried to do this on a Krankenstein, so YMMV.

 

[Radd]

Thank you everyone. There is alot of good advice given. I will take it and use it and continue to experiment. I will not give up....yet. I'll have to see how it goes.

I'm having a rough time with the lowpass. The only lowpass I have is Apple's
AULowpass which has a cutoff frequency slide that deals with Hz & a resonance slide that deals with dB. It gets rid of some fizz but makes the tracks sound worse, dull and lifeless compared to the original raw tracks.

Questions:

1. Should this lowpass filter be good enough or are their better ones I should use?

2. Would an attenuater make a very noticeable difference and help alot?

3. How about a tubescreamer? (I would probably get the keely modded)

4. I'm now thinking that instead of getting rid of the cab, I may want to get 2 celestion v30's and put them in the cab as an X pattern. Ok, it's not a question. I guess I'm just looking for some verification that this would be a good idea. After all I only need 1 v30 to mic for tracking, right?

 

[stringy_]

Thank you everyone. There is alot of good advice given. I will take it and use it and continue to experiment. I will not give up....yet. I'll have to see how it goes.



Questions:

1. Should this lowpass filter be good enough or are their better ones I should use?

2. Would an attenuater make a very noticeable difference and help alot?

3. How about a tubescreamer? (I would probably get the keely modded)

4. I'm now thinking that instead of getting rid of the cab, I may want to get 2 celestion v30's and put them in the cab as an X pattern. Ok, it's not a question. I guess I'm just looking for some verification that this would be a good idea. After all I only need 1 v30 to mic for tracking, right?

1. I've never used that lowpass, so I can't help you there. But it should be fine.

2. It'll help a touch. Not much though. Attenuators are meant for achieving powertube break-up at a reasonable volume. This means they work well for your Plexis, JCMs, JMPs, etc. These amps really, REALLY shine when that power section is working. Modern high gain amps (VHTs, Kranks, Engls, Mesas) rely on preamp gain for their tone. Actually, the power sections in these amps are specifically designed NOT to break up. The VHT UL's powersection is all 6550/KT88s, tubes that don't break up. The Recto's poweramp is among the cleanest out there. Etc., etc.

A little bit of powertube sag is nice, it feels nice to play, if that makes sense. But in the world of modern metal, try to keep it at a minimum.

3. A Tubescreamer won't really help your fizz problem. They are usually used to bring out mids and tighten up the lows. I've never used a TS to cut down on fizz.

4. I don't think it's a matter of changing your speakers/cab. I really think it's mic position. V30s can be horribly fizzy, along with G12T75s and every other speaker if you don't mic them correctly.

 

[Radd]

Thanks for sharing that very interesting info stringy.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah, V30's are great IMO, but take just as much work to sound the way you want as any other decent speaker.
I'd also recommend that you play with your mic placement. if those clips were recorded with the mic directly on the dust cap, then id start moving it like 0.5-1.0cm at a time and making a new clip with each movement. It gives you a great idea as to how big a difference the mic placement makes, and you'll eventually dial out the fizz (somewhat).
Good luck.

 

[Radd]

More clips up again. They are the first 6. Had half the day to experiment some more. All clips have 0 presence, 0 treble, bass on 1, sweep on 1, gain maxed, mid on 8 for some clips. sm57>4 tracks. on axis 1/2" from grill. Some clips may be slightly off axis and/or 1" from grill. Raw. No lowpaass or highpass.

I've tried more than what I have posted but these sound the best to me even though most of everything sounds basicaly alike. I seem to have gotten rid of the bassy boomy-ness and added much more mids but with the presence and treble on 0, it still sounds like way to much high end.

As a matter of fact, I have to say that my first clips smoke these new ones.
These new clips sound very lifeless.
I think I really like the mic on grill in your face sound and am starting to feel like I won't get much better than that at the low volume that I'm playing.

A problem that I'm having though is I'll have the headphone volume on the Motu 2408 mk3 maxed and the gain on the vintech maxed and yet i can barely hear the signal but playback is normal and fine. This is making it rather difficult to mic the amp.

I still have to try 2 mics and go less gain again and just keep trying.
I'm thinking I should get an overdrive pedal...

 

[RootBoundApollo]

Hey man, I've been having similar issues with my Revolution head (those clips sound VERY similar to what I had a while back) and I've got all day tomorrow to go nuts on it with various mics and placements, so I'll post clips and let's see if we can't pool our resources to figure this thing out.

 

[RootBoundApollo]

Oh, btw, you said you're recording at low volume. I'm curious what setting you have it on. I've had it on 5 so as not to piss off the neighbors and it's not cutting it at all... sounds very cold. I'm gonna try it at different levels tomorrow and see how huge of a difference it really makes in the tone.

 

[GuitarHack]

Radd and RBA, I will jump in here and hopefully we can help each other. I am not satisfied with my Krank's recorded Distorted tone either (reasonably happy with clean tone).

Here is a sample and a text file describing gear and settings. RBA, it might be an idea to try these settings in the text file for comparison.

One Track recording, no post anything (raw track and playing ) except level is raised. My Rev is getting repaired at the moment so I can't do any clips at this time, but when it comes back I will try and do some better quality ones (in terms of recording and playing )

http://www.keepmyfile.com/download/73bf701144953

 

[stringy_]

Aye. Get that amp up to a decent volume. That means that those cones on those speakers need to be moving hard to push some air past that mic. If you can't crank it up, then you should really buy a POD, because tube amps are next to worthless at TV/conversation volumes.

Then get the mic off the center of the speaker. That is a no-no as far as I'm concerned, with the only exception of dual mic'ing...where phasing between the two mics actually cancels out the fizz. Other than that, the crap coming directly off the dust cap is absolutely useless.

You want the mic right in the sweet spot, where it's catching the lows and thick mids rolling off the cones, with a little bit of the highs from the dust cap blended in.

This isn't a matter of a low quality amp, or a bad cabinet, or tweaking the amp. This is mic position and volume.

No amount of EQing or fancy studio tricks will fix a guitar track that isn't properly recorded. I know that once you get the mic off the center it will sound horribly dull and bland, but believe me...once in a mix those tracks will totally, COMPLETELY transform. They will sound alive, dynamic, aggressive, etc. even if they sound like utter and complete poop solo'd.

 

[Kenny Lee]

I have a Krank rev 1 and I have it in my walk-in closet (moving van blankets line the walls) I track with the master on 5. Here's a page, you can hi-fi stream the last two tunes (Hell hath ...and We March). It's incomplete, but you can hear my Rev 1 head. LPF around 12.5 HPF at 120. SM57 > Summit Audio 2BA-221 mic pre.





GORILLA

 

[cobhc]

Not too keen on that tone really Kenny dude. Still the only Krank tone I've liked was Andy's clip for the Krank website.

 

[RootBoundApollo]

okay, here's the best I've been able to come up with today.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=618219

shitty 2X12 with eminence V12s>single SM57 on edge of dustcap>Digi 002

settings are Presence- 5, Sweep- 2, bass- 7.5, mids- 2, treble- 6, master- 5

I tried turning the master up to 7, but the 57 started screaming in agony so i backed off again

I'm not satisfied. It's close, but there's something missing. If anyone has any suggestions I'll wash your car