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whole tone or more and hold it allowing it to decay. Give it
a good strike with the pick to start with and once held you
can strike again to hear some more. Listen for the noise in
the lower register and it will make a kind of whiiirrrr-wooo-
warrr type sound. It is fairly quiet but once you have heard
it once you will be able to identify it again and again. If you
can't get it with the 2nd string try the same thing with the
first and/or third strings. I should say that the aliasing is far,
far easier to hear through a speaker powered by a loud amp
than it is on headphones which loose so much low volume
definition it is hard to make out the sound; still possible but
harder.
Clean Preamps:
Patch 'YUK Noise 1'
You probably would have put these under any high gain
category. However, basing this on 'Clean', choose the JC-
120, set Volume=100, bass=50,middle=50 treble=50,
gain=High and master volume = 100. Bring down the
master level to about 20. Now play as described above to
hear the aliasing—listen carefully, try the bend two or three
times if necessary. This patch is one of the clearest showing
this fault and it was the one I recorded in the file I described
above.
OD/DS:
Patch 'YUK Noise 2'
This time use 'Clean' as a base patch for this. Turn the
OD/DS on. Set the Drive = 100, Bass=0, Treble=0, and
Level = 100. Turn down the master to about 40. Now play
as described above to hear the aliasing—listen carefully, try
the bend two or three times if necessary. Personally I cannot
detect anything even with the amp up loud.
Dirty Preamps:
Patch 'YUK Noise 3'
OK. This time use 'YUK Noise 1' as a base, and the preamp
Metal 5150. Once again play as described above to hear the
aliasing—listen carefully, and again try the bend two or
three times if necessary.
Avoiding Audible Aliasing
OK. So now we know it's there what is the best way to
avoid it? Well. Let's take a look at each scenario one by
one.
Clean Preamps
The main problem appears to be associated with higher
signal levels. My GT-3 meters are showing the preamp
output up to TWICE that of my target effects chain level,
and it is herein I believe the problem lies. If you level match
the effects chain properly you should avoid aliasing. I found
I had to reduce the gain to middle, volume to 70 and master
volume to 90 to really get rid of it noticeably, but this was
© Copyright 2000-2002 Barry S. Pearce et al.
Section 13
still way above the target effects chain level. If I use volume
100, and my normal master level, I find that to level match,
I must come back to around 65 on the preamp master
volume and the problem is certainly not discernible if not
completely vanished. However, with master volume at 58
and set to high gain then the noise has returned, albeit low
level but enough to muddy the sound.
OD/DS
Well. Not much remedial action required here—it does not
appear to be affected by audible aliasing issues.
Dirty Preamps
Um...I'm afraid to say even with volume set to 10, master
volume at 61 and gain=middle I can STILL hear the
problem. Whilst I really would like to tell you how to avoid
the aliasing, I can't get rid of it from Metal 5150 and I have
now given up. Other preamps may not be so bad. Sorry!
Summary
In summary I would say—keep your patches level matched
throughout the effects chain, avoid the setting gain=High
and keep the volume/master volume settings as low as you
can. This will help avoid problems. However, kick the gain
all the way up and you will find life getting tougher and you
will start getting a crap sound out of your GT-3/5.
Personally I prefer to use the Clean TWIN, and JC-120 with
the OD/DS distortions and as you can see this combination
does not produce the sound as the preamp volumes are kept
fairly low. This is why I like 'Metal Dist*' so much and I am
not so keen on [GT-3]'47-2 METAL 5150' or [GT-5]'PG1-
1-3 EDDIES 5150'. With this patch I can hear the problem
and the preamp is set well below the target effects chain
level..glug..glug..glug!
What you need to do is determine whether or not you are
prepared to accept the audibility of the aliasing. Be wary
that whilst it might not be present at bedroom levels, when
you go and do that gig you may find things getting ugly.
The GT-6 apparently (according to Roland) has the aliasing
problem fixed – but I am a little sceptical not having had
access to assess a GT-6 yet.
Note that I have highlighted a section of the text in the first
paragraph in the SoS magazine article at the start of this
section. This particular part of the piece sums up why I
dislike the COSM preamps so much. Maybe it's that my
ears pick it up and I notice more so than other people.
Whatever the reason you must determine whether or not the
level of the aliasing is acceptable to you, and whether or not
you can live with it.
YUK Noise
83
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