Axe III dyna-cabs VS Helix VS NeuralDSP

[Orvillain]

The riff isn't particularly exciting, but I go through a bunch of on the dust cap tone comparison here, and then I do some sweeps around each cab section, to hopefully give some idea of the tones available.

 

[Orvillain]

So what I would say is, to me the Fractal seems more realistic.


When you sweep a microphone around the front of a speaker, you get huge changes in frequency response. Even a centimetre difference can drastically alter the sound. You'll notice with Helix and Neural, the tonal changes require bigger movements of the microphone, whereas with Fractal the changes occur at a much faster rate.

Equally, the far edge of the speaker tones on Helix don't quite sound right to me. Not enough low-end, and still retaining too much high-end. Whereas with Neural, the far edge tones are nearly always super hyped in the low-end, almost like they're applying additional EQ to the signal.

 

[laxu]

So what I would say is, to me the Fractal seems more realistic.


When you sweep a microphone around the front of a speaker, you get huge changes in frequency response. Even a centimetre difference can drastically alter the sound. You'll notice with Helix and Neural, the tonal changes require bigger movements of the microphone, whereas with Fractal the changes occur at a much faster rate.

Equally, the far edge of the speaker tones on Helix don't quite sound right to me. Not enough low-end, and still retaining too much high-end. Whereas with Neural, the far edge tones are nearly always super hyped in the low-end, almost like they're applying additional EQ to the signal.

This of course gets us into the "accuracy and realism" vs "guitar gear as artwork" argument where either could be preferable depending on the person. Fractal aims for accuracy whereas NeuralDSP seems to often have some hyped up frequencies because most users will perceive that as better sounding - kind of like say a TV having colors accurate to the source material vs having vivid colors that make them more impactful to the viewer.

 

[DLC86]

This of course gets us into the "accuracy and realism" vs "guitar gear as artwork" argument where either could be preferable depending on the person. Fractal aims for accuracy whereas NeuralDSP seems to often have some hyped up frequencies because most users will perceive that as better sounding - kind of like say a TV having colors accurate to the source material vs having vivid colors that make them more impactful to the viewer.

So..
Fractal=Sony
Neural=Samsung
Line6=LG
Boss=Telefunken

 

[Jarick]

Nice comparison!

Agreed, the Fractal sounds more impressive here. I don't know if they have some secret sauce in the cab block or what.

 

[James Freeman]

Thank you.
If you ever do another comparison I think the difference will be much clearer with open power chords, basically noise.

the far edge tones are nearly always super hyped in the low-end

From what I hear, all the above have "uniform fakeness", Edge sounds way too loud an bassy on all of them, maybe they all normalize the samples.
When moving a real SM57 on a real speaker 1 Inch away from grille, bass frequencies stay roughly the same level and only the high frequencies increase in volume towards the center by up to 15dB.

Good, Bad?
Probably good, people would have complained about the loudness difference, real or not, people complain about everything.


Below is a 100% real clip, captured with a real SM57 and a real cab with a real Vintage 30 inside, no bullshit.

 

[the swede]

So..
Fractal=Sony
Neural=Samsung
Line6=LG
Boss=Telefunken

I would preferably move LG to the more accurate camp (at least for color/image calibration). Thats just imo (2019, things might have changed)

 

[DLC86]

When moving a real SM57 on a real speaker 1 Inch away from grille, bass frequencies stay roughly the same level and only the high frequencies increase in volume towards the center by up to 10dB.

Yeah, I guess that's just the effect of normalization

 

[FractalAudio]

It's just volume normalization. As you move the mic away the volume changes quite a bit and people would complain that they have to constantly adjust the level.

 

[DLC86]

I would preferably move LG to the more accurate camp (at least for color/image calibration). Thats just imo (2019, things might have changed)

Don't know, I based that off what I could gather when I bought a new TV last year and at the time pretty much all reviews said Sonys were the most accurate out of the box (at least mid-high end LCD models)

 

[Orvillain]

It's just volume normalization. As you move the mic away the volume changes quite a bit and people would complain that they have to constantly adjust the level.

I'm not such a huge fan of this kind of thing. I'd rather make idiot guitarists work harder, than chad audio engineers work harder.

 

[Jarick]

It's just volume normalization. As you move the mic away the volume changes quite a bit and people would complain that they have to constantly adjust the level.

I love the cab block normalization in the Fractal units. Makes it so much easier to blend cabs and mics.

 

[James Freeman]

I'm not such a huge fan of this kind of thing. I'd rather make idiot guitarists work harder, than chad audio engineers work harder.

I personally would also have preferred the realistic behavior along with the inconvenience, but the current solution is for the greater good.

 

[DrewJD82]

I'm not such a huge fan of this kind of thing. I'd rather make idiot guitarists work harder, than chad audio engineers work harder.

You could always move a fleshlight to and from your ear while adjusting the cab mic to simulate a volume loss?

 

[laxu]

I personally would also have preferred the realistic behavior along with the inconvenience, but the current solution is for the greater good.

Maybe you just attach a modifiers to the cab sim controls and then attach those to a MIDI controller so as you send a MIDI CC it turns down the volume down as the mic moves away...

But seriously, modern tech is made to reduce inconveniences in our life. I'd honestly love if Fractal's amp block could also automatically compensate for volume as you turn up the gain and/or master.

Maybe we need a Normalizer block?

 

[Orvillain]

modern tech is made to reduce inconveniences in our life

The real world interactions between phase, volume, energy, frequency response, contained within a system like a guitar rig, are not inconveniences. They are opportunities for art.

 

[BenIfin]

The riff isn't particularly exciting, but I go through a bunch of on the dust cap tone comparison here, and then I do some sweeps around each cab section, to hopefully give some idea of the tones available.

Hey Orillain !

This is just a fantastic demo ... many thanks for taking the time to do and post it :)

As someone who doesn't have a "dog in the race" - I've been/am a GT1000 and now GT1000 + Tonex User "convert" - I kept oscillating between the Fractal and Line 6 demo's ... and honestly, as I flicked between them, I would prefer the Fractal, then the Helix, then the Fractal, then the Helix etc...... they are both brilliant ..... for some reason the NDSP demos just didn't sound anywhere near as "natural" to my ears at least (?)

My overriding thought was ... just imagine if both Fractal L6 shot the same cabs, with the same speakers, in the same cabs, made of the same materials, the same porting, the same internal filling, the same mic in the same acoustic environment etc... ... and were then played back with the same amp block ... I would imagine the differences would be so close to nil as to be irrelevant :)

Either way, if you cant get a great Cab tone with either of these approaches ..... then the hardware isn't the problem !

Great Stuff and thanks again !! :)

All the best,
Ben

 

[TSJMajesty]

with Helix and Neural, the tonal changes require bigger movements of the microphone, whereas with Fractal the changes occur at a much faster rate.

Well Cliff did say something about interpolation, the implication that I understood being that he went for a much larger amount of actual positions, vs. others using interpolation (I'm paraphrasing.)

Everything I can gather from the way Cliff does what he does, he's all about accuracy above everything else, and it seems to me that it does set his brand apart from others. How much...? I don't know personally, since I've only used Fractal gear.

 

[Piing]

FAS uses a robot that automatically moves the microphone. That allows to take a huge number of captures while you can use one hand, or both hands, to do other things.

I imagine it like this:

 

[Foxmeister]

FAS uses a robot that automatically moves the microphone.

I believe Line 6 used a robot too, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it came from Dynamount.

https://dynamount.com/

FAS may have used something more "bespoke", given they are offering to rent out their robot.