Fractal Talk

[Stone]

In all seriousness, the Cygnus X-3 update is wonderful. I'm not one of the "you ruined my preset" complainers.

I'm super grateful that Cliff is still relentlessly measuring and finding areas which can be improved.

I only have a handful of presets, so a couple of minor tweaks to amp output level and gain was no big deal.

Only using 1 preset at the Moment and I made Note of all my settings in case i need to revert back
so no big deal, I am however anxious to see the Toanz improvement in Cygnus III
these are the kind of updates i love, not just more gear that ill probably never use

 

[Whizzinby]

Got around to playing the Rockerverb model last night. Really nice. Thick and nasty. (Yo mama)

I did stumble on the Tape Distortion drive which is cool. Cool to be able to replicate the Deco with it and the Tape Chorus. (My personal fave)

Rockerverb likes the 808 but it’s kinda fun in a silly way to turn the Tape Distortion up with it, it feels like walking in quicksand. Gummy.

I need to mess around with the other Oranges.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Got around to playing the Rockerverb model last night. Really nice. Thick and nasty. (Yo mama)

I did stumble on the Tape Distortion drive which is cool. Cool to be able to replicate the Deco with it and the Tape Chorus. (My personal fave)

Rockerverb likes the 808 but it’s kinda fun in a silly way to turn the Tape Distortion up with it, it feels like walking in quicksand. Gummy.

I need to mess around with the other Oranges.

The Rockerverb model is

 

[laxu]

The Rockerverb model is

I really liked the real amp too, though I've played only the first version. I liked how the gain control was useful all the way to 10, when so many high gain amps are "oh you've got gain on 2, well, enjoy your ridiculous gain levels on this channel!"

 

[Stone]

Been experimenting with Tubes, this combo is getting me really close to that elusive VH1 tone

Preamp Tubes = EF86
Power Amp tubes = 6CA7

God the Amp Block is soooo powerful

 

[Whizzinby]

I really liked the real amp too, though I've played only the first version. I liked how the gain control was useful all the way to 10, when so many high gain amps are "oh you've got gain on 2, well, enjoy your ridiculous gain levels on this channel!"

Yeah, I’m normally a chughead, but the RV has a lot of really good midgain tones if you resist the urge to crank the gain knob.

 

[0XI0]

I really like how you can turn level down a lot more into a model and it doesn't high pass like crazy anymore, before it did this weird behavior where as you reduce level into a model from a previous block the amp frequency response did this ungodly tilt behavior

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Out of Saturday boredom, I hooked up my Axe-Fx 3 to my BluGuitar Amp 1 ME's poweramp, which is then connected to my BluGuitar Nanocab + Fatcab 1x12 pyramid.

Trying the different amp models on the Axe-Fx just really shows how big a deal the cab sims are. Only the most extremely different amp models sounded noticeably different from the BluGuitar's Fender/Marshall preamps. Vox, Tweed Fender style amps, Recto...everything else kind of turned into a "Marshallish thing into Greenbacks" because the cabs stay the same.

I was running the full amp models into this rig, but I also tried a bunch of them with preamp only. JTM45 was probably the most drastic, it became a straight up clean amp with poweramp sim disabled. The more interesting ones were the Marshall JVM and Friedman BE models. Turning the poweramp sim off on those made an absolutely minimal difference, just showing how much of their sound is from the preamp.

Obviously when going into cab sims that poweramp sim is still important because it's doing all the stuff the real poweramp is handling in my setup.

But this little test just puts me even further into "it's all about the cabs and speakers" camp where a Vox isn't the classic Vox tone without Celestion Alnico Blue/Gold and so on. Which was pretty much my expectation as you can easily try the same thing in the digital realm by swapping amp models into the same Dyna-Cab, then swapping Dyna-Cabs with the same amp.

In terms of frequency response, the cab is absolutely the most important link.

In terms of response to dynamics, character of breakup, etc, however, the cab plays zero role.

A whole lot of stuff run through an IR a player loves will be totally usable and enjoyable.

My guess is that folks spending >$1k on a modeler are doing so because they are looking for a bit more than just “yeah, that’ll do”.

 

[Achilles]

GAPLESS SWITCHING

1. What is it.
2. Where has it been all these years?
3. Why is it such a big deal to get it?

I see it mentioned all the time around here but am not exactly sure what it exactly relates to.
We talking simply switching from one preset to another or is there something else?

 

[jellodog]

I see it mentioned all the time around here but am not exactly sure what it exactly relates to.
We talking simply switching from one preset to another or is there something else?

Yes, that's all there is to it.

There used to be a 30 ms gap in the audio, during which the new model would be loaded into memory. That issue has now been solved such that no audible gap can be detected when switching between presets.

 

[Achilles]

There used to be a 30 ms gap in the audio.

Got it, thanks.

 

[GTR37]

I don’t think it’s a bug (in that I think the models are working as intended), but also that the real amps do go complete silence when all tone controls are set to 0. I don’t think a bug report or preset would really help because this would be the same for all users.

IIRC from another company (so this might not be true for Fractal), rather than setting the values to 0 (which would cause a 1/0=infinity), they tend to use a really small value as 0 instead - like 0.000000000001.


all he did was ask why it behaves differently, comments like this don’t help anyone, especially those who want to learn. Why get so defensive over someone asking a question about something they want to understand more about?

I don’t think it’s a bug (in that I think the models are working as intended), but also that the real amps do go complete silence when all tone controls are set to 0. I don’t think a bug report or preset would really help because this would be the same for all users.

IIRC from another company (so this might not be true for Fractal), rather than setting the values to 0 (which would cause a 1/0=infinity), they tend to use a really small value as 0 instead - like 0.000000000001.


all he did was ask why it behaves differently, comments like this don’t help anyone, especially those who want to learn. Why get so defensive over someone asking a question about something they want to understand more about?

I am not defensive at all
And if he is truly interested in learning more about this stuff than that’s great

 

[duzie]

GAPLESS SWITCHING

1. What is it.
2. Where has it been all these years?
3. Why is it such a big deal to get it?

I see it mentioned all the time around here but am not exactly sure what it exactly relates to.
We talking simply switching from one preset to another or is there something else?

I’m happy that people who use this function will have it
For my simplistic purposes I most likely will never use it.
Or will I

 

[JiveTurkey]

I’m happy that people who use this function will have it
For my simplistic purposes I most likely will never use it.
Or will I

Pinocchio'd

 

[Aleksi]

Yes, that's all there is to it.

There used to be a 30 ms gap in the audio, during which the new model would be loaded into memory. That issue has now been solved such that no audible gap can be detected when switching between presets.

A preset change on the FM3 is around 300 ms. Amp channel switching is much shorter, can't remember the exact values I measured. Gapless will be YUGE for the FM3, even a GAME CHANGER, if you will.

 

[duzie]

Pinocchio'd

 

[Achilles]

A preset change on the FM3 is around 300 ms.

OK, now it makes sense. Was wondering why 3/10ths of 1/10th of a second (30 ms) was such a big deal.
1/3rd of a second is a big gap!

 

[iaresee]

But this little test just puts me even further into "it's all about the cabs and speakers" camp where a Vox isn't the classic Vox tone without Celestion Alnico Blue/Gold and so on.

I don't completely agree with this conclusion, but I do agree the CAB block makes a MASSIVE difference on the sound.

For clean tones I find most amps sound the same. There'll be a difference in how the GTMB controls behave, but for clean sounds you can pretty much match tones with any amp model given some patience with the control. I believe this is why you don't see a lot of the clean channels modeled for amps in the Fractal world -- there's just nothing interesting and unique happening from clean channel to clean channel on the various amps, electrically-speaking.

For overdriven tones, the differences manifest in the overtones and clipping behavior. Push the different amp blocks very hard and you'll start to see differences in how they clip and distort. I acutally think this behavior is what sets the Fractal apart from others (or at least it had for quite a long time...I don't know if others have caught up). And this is where the attention to detail in modeling the circuits really shines through.

In the middle range of overdrive, where most people run amp blocks, I tend to agree you can make any amp sound pretty much like any other amp.

The models that use the poweramp for their distortion the most are the ones where Fractal's work shines through.

Didn't someone do a video on that once? Pete Thorn maybe? Where he took a bunch of really distinct amps and got "his tone" on each one.

 

[Aleksi]

OK, now it makes sense. Was wondering why 3/10ths of 1/10th of a second (30 ms) was such a big deal.
1/3rd of a second is a big gap!

It's nothing compared to the huge and variable gap in the Quad Cortex for example, but it is definitely noticeable. But it'll be a moot point soon enough

 

[unix-guy]

Yes, that's all there is to it.

There used to be a 30 ms gap in the audio, during which the new model would be loaded into memory. That issue has now been solved such that no audible gap can be detected when switching between presets.

Actually, that's not all

Gapless changes between presets.

Gapless changes when changing block channels within a preset.