IK Multimedia TONEX

[Progressive_disclosure]

Back on the general topic, I’ve come around on a few select ENGL collection captures actually. Using them on the actual pedal and A/B’ing using correct levels and gain staging against my own captures revealed how easy it is to dismiss stuff in Tonex. If I can I’ll do the same as Sascha and record some level-corrected DI’s, sounds like a really good approach.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I’ve been trying to avoid A/D/A conversions like the plague but now I’ve almost stopped caring about it.

Yeah well, similar here. I did record with the HX Floor when I had it, because it allowed me to grab the signal at pretty much any position without making compromises to the signal chain (with the Stomp it's not as easy, sometimes impossible), but I'm really getting annoyed by switching interfaces, so today the Motu is it, one input is usually there for direct plugin usage, the other is fed by external stuff. Easy to deal with, very low latency for plugin usage, etc.
And well, I actually don't notice any significant sound degration anyway. And it's pretty much that what I hear, namely the stuff arriving at the Motu's in, is the same stuff that gets recorded.

 

[Count_Drugula]

If it sounds good in the software, but doesn't sound good with the pedal into a cab or PA, then either something is going on with your gain staging into the pedal, or something is wrong with your playback setup, or both.

Are you possibly clipping the input of the Tonex pedal? How do you have the input trim set?

When you're using a PA, are you using a cab sim or IR? What about when you're sending the Tonex into a power amp and cab?

How does the pedal sound being fed into the same playback system (headphones, speakers, whatever) you're using with the software? If input levels are matched between software and pedal, it should sound basically the same as the software.

While it's possible and valid that you may not like Tonex, I think it's great to keep in mind that a lot of people get really good sounds, and that you're getting good sounds in software, so it's most likely an issue like this rather than Tonex itself being bad :)

Could be a gain staging thing maybe. I have the input gain gain set to flat / 0 db. I tried it a few different ways and that seemed to work fine. I also tried messing around with it with the pedal while plugged in.

The pedal sounds pretty good feeding into my DAW (Pro Tools), not quite as good as the software but close. It's just when I try to use it into the PA or a power amp + cab it's not great. I''m not using the stock presets either.

These things frustrate me because I hear people getting great sounds (albeit in a DAW) and it makes me think I'm doing something wrong somewhere but I can't figure out how / where.

Are you using a pedal? Tonex One or OG? First step would be to get the pedal to sound right with headphones.

If using a full amp+cab capture or and amp only capture plus IR and it sounds good into headphones, it should sound good into a PA, monitor, or FRFR with only minor tweaks (less reverb/delay? small EQ changes to adjust for headphones and PA neither being flat). If not I would check Tonex output levels, PA input levels, and cabling.

For a real cab, you will want an amp only capture. Start with that plus an IR, and if that sounds good through headphones, disable the cab block/IR and it should sound good into the amp and cab. Again, check output and input levels and cabling if not.

Tonex can sound fantastic through an FRFR or a real cab, so if yours doesn’t, something is definitely off.

ToneX One, brand new. I actually haven't even tried it with headphones yet. I'm not understanding the part about real amp + IR. Isn't that what the cab models are?

Come to think of it, I was only running the cab at the same time as the PA, so the cab mode was on through the amp. I had it running through the return of the amp's effects loop. How do you monitor with a real cab while sending the cab si to the PA at the same time?

 

[Sascha Franck]

or a power amp + cab it's not great

Of course it's not great in case you have a cab simulation running already.

How do you monitor with a real cab while sending the cab si to the PA at the same time?

That's not possible with the TXO. You can only disable the cab section globally. For this to work you'd need another device doing the cab simulation work.

 

[Chocol8]

How do you monitor with a real cab while sending the cab si to the PA at the same time?

You can’t do that without adding an IR after the Tonex.

Keep in mind there are two types of amp captures, amp only which are captured using a DI box before the cab, and “full” or amp+cab captures.

Amp only can be used with a real cab, with an external device that adds cab sim or IR, or with an IR in Tonex.

The amp+cab captures can be used with a PA, FRFR, etc. You CAN disable the cab block on these but Tonex is just going to make a guess what part of the capture was amp and what was cab, and it isn’t going to be consistently good at this. I would strongly recommend using amp only captures if you want to disable the cab block.

 

[Count_Drugula]

You can’t do that without adding an IR after the Tonex.

Keep in mind there are two types of amp captures, amp only which are captured using a DI box before the cab, and “full” or amp+cab captures.

Amp only can be used with a real cab, with an external device that adds cab sim or IR, or with an IR in Tonex.

The amp+cab captures can be used with a PA, FRFR, etc. You CAN disable the cab block on these but Tonex is just going to make a guess what part of the capture was amp and what was cab, and it isn’t going to be consistently good at this. I would strongly recommend using amp only captures if you want to disable the cab block.

I guess if I need other equipment to make this sound good through a PA it may not work for me. I was hoping for an all-in-one situation. I really was only trying to add the cab to see if I can make it sound better butI just realized the cab sim was on.

 

[dean701]

I guess if I need other equipment to make this sound good through a PA it may not work for me. I was hoping for an all-in-one situation. I really was only trying to add the cab to see if I can make it sound better butI just realized the cab sim was on.

As @Chocol8 said, if you are going out to a power amp and cab you just need to make sure that the capture you are using does not include a built in cab. This is where DI only captures work a little better.
For FRFR, a capture with an included cab should sound close to what you hear in the software but if you try to pass that through a power amp and a cab, you are adding another cab to a cab that is already there.

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

So did a bit or trial end error and my PSU is definitely not isolated. Running everything separately works great, running fuzz with other analog pedals afterwards on the HB PSU works great. As soon as something digital is powered by the PSU it is noise town. When I roll back volume with the fuzz engaged the guitar signal turns whisper quiet and the noise is really loud.

Tried my cleanish capture plus a high gain one with and without fuzz pedal engaged.

Sound like I should try to get the PSU returned or something, no? Or am I missing something fundamental? Appreciate the support!

 

[TVbene]

Thanks for all the feedback about the gain knob. I read something about gain structure being „part of the tone model“ but the infos here were much clearer to me.

 

[EOengineer]

If IK ever adds the ability to remove the cab/IR on one output I’m shipping their dev team a keg.

 

[Chocol8]

So did a bit or trial end error and my PSU is definitely not isolated. Running everything separately works great, running fuzz with other analog pedals afterwards on the HB PSU works great. As soon as something digital is powered by the PSU it is noise town. When I roll back volume with the fuzz engaged the guitar signal turns whisper quiet and the noise is really loud.

Tried my cleanish capture plus a high gain one with and without fuzz pedal engaged.

Sound like I should try to get the PSU returned or something, no? Or am I missing something fundamental? Appreciate the support!

Your fuzz pedal may have flipped ground (PNP vs NPN) and the power supply may not be isolating the grounds. Is the fuzz germanium? Does it work with the fuzz on battery or its own separate power supply?

 

[Sascha Franck]

So did a bit or trial end error and my PSU is definitely not isolated. Running everything separately works great, running fuzz with other analog pedals afterwards on the HB PSU works great. As soon as something digital is powered by the PSU it is noise town. When I roll back volume with the fuzz engaged the guitar signal turns whisper quiet and the noise is really loud.

During your tests, did you have any of the powered devices connected to your computer via USB as well? Because very often, regardless of the PSU's quality, this is asking for trouble.

 

[Sascha Franck]

If IK ever adds the ability to remove the cab/IR on one output I’m shipping their dev team a keg.

I guess that's not exactly something you could expect from the current line of Tonex series. I mean, they're pretty simple given their overall signal path structure.
And well, at least they allow you to disable the cab globally, which I think is just great (many others don't allow for that).

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

Your fuzz pedal may have flipped ground (PNP vs NPN) and the power supply may not be isolating the grounds. Is the fuzz germanium? Does it work with the fuzz on battery or its own separate power supply?

It was the same when running the digital pedals using the Harley Benton PSU and the fuzz via battery power. I tried that yesterday but might do it again to check. Would like to try the fuzz on separate power as well but I only have shitty PSU’s except the HB, which introduces other kinds of noise.

Here’s a description of the fuzz:

The Chthonic Fuzz (pronounced: THAH-nik) creates fat, corpulent, fudgy, sludgy, fuzz tones designed to pair perfectly with single-coil, P90, gold-foil, and DeArmond style pickups. It also works great with PAF-style humbuckers, but this fuzz was designed with brighter guitars and bright, clean amps in mind.

Starting with a beloved single-knob ‘70’s fuzz circuit, we experimented with adding a subtle tone control (Lustre), and then a separate gain control (Fuzz). This yielded a simple yet powerful fuzz with an earthy, dark flavor. Straight-up transistor clipping using a pair of 2N2222 transistors allows guitar volume knob clean-up similar to other classic fuzzes, but the Chthonic comes from a different dimension. Think of it as a kind of classic fuzz from an alternate universe.

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

During your tests, did you have any of the powered devices connected to your computer via USB as well? Because very often, regardless of the PSU's quality, this is asking for trouble.

Yep, USB unplugged on the Stomp and TO. Did connect monitors to the HX Stomp but made sure nothing else was connected.

 

[EOengineer]

I guess that's not exactly something you could expect from the current line of Tonex series. I mean, they're pretty simple given their overall signal path structure.
And well, at least they allow you to disable the cab globally, which I think is just great (many others don't allow for that).

Not looking for anything fancy (ala Helix) - more like a setting to disable cabs in dual mono would do. Kind of like how there’s a global setting to kill cabs now. IK hasn’t said whether this is possible within their current architecture or not.

I’m not holding my breath but it would add extra utility for those of us who like to split off to FOH but still monitor through a traditional guitar cab. I’ve played numerous gigs where I would have used that feature.

 

[Chocol8]

transistor clipping using a pair of 2N2222 transistors

Those should be silicon NPN transistors so I am not sure why it would not play well with other pedals on the same isolated power supply. Hmmm.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I’m not holding my breath but it would add extra utility for those of us who like to split off to FOH but still monitor through a traditional guitar cab. I’ve played numerous gigs where I would have used that feature.

Sure, I know what it would be nice to have for. But then, it might even need more CPU juice for that dual kinda processing. And I guess there's not all that much more IK could cram into the units.
Time for a Tonex Two. Or Dual Tonex. Which I'd defenitely buy in a heartbeat.

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

Those should be silicon NPN transistors so I am not sure why it would not play well with other pedals on the same isolated power supply. Hmmm.

Yeah I think it’s more up to my specific one that is not properly isolated. For now I’ve set it up with extra wall wart for Stomp and a powerbank for the Tonex One…

Thanks for the input!

 

[Dimiguitar]

I'm repeating myself, but again reminded how vital high and low cuts can be. I wanted to slightly modify a rather "raw" rectifier capture and load it to tonex one.

It was very easy to get the capture sounding like I wanted in my daw, using EQ vst after tonex. Just a high cut and a bit of low cut. But in the tonex vst? Quite a bit of dancing around, especially for the high end.

So loading the capture in my tonex one it doesn't quite sound like I want it to. There's several ways around this, sure, but it would be much easier with high and low cuts in tonex apps.

And it doesn't sound like too big of a deal to incorporate, I suppose.