IK Multimedia TONEX

[Sascha Franck]

FWIW I’d love to see a legit boost or even a slim collection of 3-4 drive pedals in its own fx block. That would be a great addition to Tonex. I’m not holding my breath.

I'm sure everybody would love that. And I'd bet IK knows it, too. As said before, I think they crammed a plenty into what was a rather rudimentary equipped device at the start, so I think they're now at least pretty close to the CPU limits.
If that's the case and if it was after me, the modulation FX block could turn into a multi FX block, so you could chose a boost, a drive or an EQ in that block as well. Would be even better if they ported some of the fuzzes from Amplitube to that block, because IMO they are the best software fuzzes (at least out of those I tried).

 

[AlbertA]

 

[Chocol8]

I like their approach to move beyond accuracy of the amp and add their post tone shaping.

 

[Dimiguitar]

FWIW I’d love to see a legit boost or even a slim collection of 3-4 drive pedals in its own fx block. That would be a great addition to Tonex. I’m not holding my breath.

Agreed, that would make things more porta me for me, if talking about the hardware. But I imagine they'd need too much processing power for that. I imagine drives will be part of a more "all in one" unit if they release one.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Agreed, that would make things more porta me for me, if talking about the hardware. But I imagine they'd need too much processing power for that. I imagine drives will be part of a more "all in one" unit if they release one.

As said, I'd be absolutely fine with an expanded FX slot where you could as well choose a drive/boost instead of the modulations. Should be well within the CPU limits, especially given that the modulations are even stereo.
But then, unless I'd purchase one of the dedicated controllers from Pirate MIDI or Airstep, I likely couldn't make decent use of it anyway.

 

[Dimiguitar]

Back to say the brown packs are amazing. This is what happens when the guy making the captures truly, truly knows what they're doing to reach a certain end goal. I don't even intent to play a lot of van Halen riffs and such, but the tones are incredible.

 

[Byrdman]

FWIW I’d love to see a legit boost or even a slim collection of 3-4 drive pedals in its own fx block. That would be a great addition to Tonex. I’m not holding my breath.

Agreed, that would make things more porta me for me, if talking about the hardware. But I imagine they'd need too much processing power for that. I imagine drives will be part of a more "all in one" unit if they release one.

I agree until if/when Tonex has it available, I'm using my Stomp XL

I just got mine, but I have mine pared with my Stomp XL and just started using a TS & Muff with it. Does require some dialing in and it's not the best yet but still working ont it and getting closer. what works for some captures are not the best for others, so I think (don't know yet) figuring out which OD/Dist pedal works best for each capture I'm using and have 2-4 on the stomp is going to be the way it has to work.

I also want to try maybe adding a preamp as a boost to see how that works. Being able to run delay & reverb on the Tonex should help leave room for enough OD/Dist for half a dozen captures or so.

 

[Richard_G]

I made a Tonex capture of my Synergy Soldano OG SLO module tonight, if anyone is interested. It's a DI capture made with the V2 modeler, using a 14.8 dBu send level during capturing, and using the extended training setting.

Edit: uploaded two more, with different EQ settings.

 

[riffy]

I made a Tonex capture of my Synergy Soldano OG SLO module tonight, if anyone is interested. It's a DI capture made with the V2 modeler, using a 14.8 dBu send level during capturing, and using the extended training setting.

I would love to try it!

 

[Richard_G]

I would love to try it!

Well, it's a completely free capture uploaded to tone.net, so just download it to try it.

 

[riffy]

For some reason when I was looking earlier, it wasn’t showing up as a hyperlink for me. When I get back home, I will pull it up and give it a shot. Thank you!

 

[Byrdman]

I made a Tonex capture of my Synergy Soldano OG SLO module tonight, if anyone is interested. It's a DI capture made with the V2 modeler, using a 14.8 dBu send level during capturing, and using the extended training setting.

Edit: uploaded two more, with different EQ settings.

Thanks! I'll check them out later today.

 

[Dimiguitar]

Was just recording with the tonex one used as an audio interface. Tracks lining up nicely.

Without manual correction, used as an interface, I can't do that with my fm3. Tracks will be off with each other by too much. And that's a unit advertised for its interface capabilities as well.

The tonex one cost me 150 euros. Think about that.

Ps: all the reasonable criticisms of IK aside, I'm liking them more and more.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Played the first two gigs with the Tonex One serving as a pretty clean pedal platform "channel" (replaced the Amplifirebox I used before). Worked just great, sound has been fantastic. The only downside being that minor adjustments (which I often need to do) are a true PITA due to the small pots and their incredibly bad position indicator (FFS, they are transparent, so please add a *very* visible black dot, line or arrow for better indication). I already tried to add some black permanent marker spots in the knob's notches but it wasn't enough.
Are there any kinda toppers for these kinda pots?

 

[Sascha Franck]

Fwiw, while there's plenty of things to grumble about in IK/Tonex land, it's gotta be said that once you've established a proper workflow, there's some true gems to be found. In fact so much that I really don't know which amp to use as my dirt channel pedal platform on the next gigs.
And I've only just started exploring the marvels of ToneNET.

Fwiw #2: My patch hunting setup right now goes like this:
- Pedal sits in one loop of the GT-1000 with my dirt pedals in front.
- After the last dirt pedal, I run into a DI box.
- "Through" goes into the TO and then into the GT's return.
- XLR out goes into the Motu M2 and then into Logic, running the Tonex plugin. I'm using a gain plugin to have the plugin receive the same input level that the amp models expect in the pedal. And well, even with the pre-amp digital section of the GT, I'm still under 5ms.
- The TO is permanently connected to the editor.
-> ready to work myself through ToneNET, with all pre-dirt and whatever I may add in the pre-amp section of the GT (modulations and such) instantly available, so I can see how well the captures work before saving them.
- I also have a pre-everything looper in the GT, so I have my hands free for surfing sounds and editing.
- Checking out patches with a locked IR is pretty handy, even for amp&cab patches, as, contrary to what I thought at first, that automatic cab "reduction" works pretty well on many patches.
- Once I find something I like, I save it as a preset, which is then instantly available in the Tonex Editor, so I can drag it into the pedal and check whether things are working along with all the post-stuff of the GT.

All of this is working incredibly well and very fast, too. Also, this is where some of the qualities of the GT-1000 start to show off, namely super low latency (so it's not an issue to add it on top of the Motu's RTL), the very uncoloring pre-section and the excellent ground lifting options, allowing the Tonex One to perform as noisefree as it gets.

Finally, I really thought I was more of a component modeling guy, but as said, there's some true gems to be found on ToneNET and also within IKs factory models (owning a Tonex Max licence certainly helps as well).

In a nutshell, I'm quite a happy camper for the time being. The only downside being that I really seem to need at least one more Tonex One, at least one day. Ideally it'd rather be two more.

Oh, and I've got a question for those in the knows: The Tonex One is autosaving all presets automatically. That's something I really dig for what the thing is. Is this the same for the larger one?

 

[Dimiguitar]

Finally, I really thought I was more of a component modeling guy, but as said, there's some true gems to be found on ToneNET and also within IKs factory models (owning a Tonex Max licence certainly helps as well).

I've been a component modelling guy for years. Before that, I mostly made my own profiles with Kemper. Most of the time using other people's profiles wasn't a good fit.

Saying this, tonex one was bought as a backup to fm3. I captured my amp sim tones, and redone them now with the new capturing tech. Don't have the energy to lug real amps around to capture right now.

That said, I've tried to be more open minded and give other people's captures a go again. Most tonex captures just went to the dustbin, but I found quite a few that are spectacular, and a good fit for my taste, guitar, pickups, etc.

I can emulate most of these on my fm3, as well, or at least get in the ballpark (usually hard to hear the difference, but the feel is never quite the same). That said, it takes some experience to do so, time and effort, and insome cases EQ matching.

I'm using the tonex one more and more.

 

[Chocol8]

. Is this the same for the larger one?

No. The OG is a manual save, the One auto save, and I don’t believe either “default” can be changed yet. I really think it should be a user option on both.

 

[Sascha Franck]

No. The OG is a manual save, the One auto save, and I don’t believe either “default” can be changed yet.

Thanks.

I really think it should be a user option on both.

Yes. The Zoom units (at least some of them) do it that way. I usually stick with autosave.

 

[EOengineer]

You all ever feel like something’s off with the noise levels as you get into high gain captures? Moving back and forth between Helix and Tonex in the same environment and instruments, I get a ton more noise in Tonex.

I notice it mostly on the Tonex pedal but I believe this is also the case in the plugin.

In Helix I can run most high gain amps with no gate. In Tonex the gate is basically mandatory.

 

[Sascha Franck]

You all ever feel like something’s off with the noise levels as you get into high gain captures? Moving back and forth between Helix and Tonex in the same environment and instruments, I get a ton more noise in Tonex.

I notice it mostly on the Tonex pedal but I believe this is also the case in the plugin.

In Helix I can run most high gain amps with no gate. In Tonex the gate is basically mandatory.

Any particular model one could try for comparison?