Relative loudness between clean and distorted tone

[lhrocker]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for this, so if it isn't, please let me know where to move it to.

Now, I currently use a PodXT as my main "sound source" and during live shows, it goes straight into the board. When I create patches for the Pod, I create them at bedroom levels or slightly higher. I always find that my clean tones are overpowered by the distorted tones at such levels. When I play out at gig levels, I find that my distorted tones can be much lower than my clean tones, even though it was the opposite when they were created.

Does this have anything to do with the volume at which the tones were created? Just curious.

Thanx,
Peter

[jgcable]

Re: Relative loudness between clean and distorted tone

Yes, you have to create your patches at the approximate volume that you are going to use them live. It is the curse of all modeling amps. If you set them at bedroom levels, the cleans are always too loud when you play live. Usually there are other mixing issues too. The level of effect increases a bit as the volume increases and usually the bass does too.

[jazzman]

Re: Relative loudness between clean and distorted tone

I had a similar problem back when I used an ADA MP1. I would set sounds at a lower level then in a band context, the levels between clean, dist & lead were all different from what I thought they would be. My fix was to torture my bandmates by making them jam along with me while I set my tones. They hated it. But, I got my tones so what do I care. Right? lol

[Dreamland_Rebel]

Re: Relative loudness between clean and distorted tone

same problem with tube and ss amps as well, not just modelling.

cleans are just louder period cause they don't have all the noise washing them out. i.e. distortion.

[jazzman]

Re: Relative loudness between clean and distorted tone

I've found over the years that too much gain can cause problems with the distortion sounds. I try to keep it back a little more to retain defenition. That helped me to keep the two sounds more similar. (Don't worry. I still use plenty of gain. lol) But I think too much makes it muddy and can make the clean seem too loud. I've never really used any modeling amps in a live situation although I do have a POD for home recording. I did bring it down to practice once and ran it into the fx return of my SLO and it sounded like poop! I do like it for playing at home though.