IK Multimedia TONEX

[Byrdman]

I can't try that capture right now, but if the IR / "cab" is designed to model an acoustic guitar, it may not be filtering out the high end like a speaker would. This can be good for clean(er) sounds, but might be pretty bad with overdrive pedals. When running into your guitar speaker, you're getting the guitar speaker's frequency curve on top of this capture, and that's rounding things off, whereas that's not happening with a PA speaker etc that is giving a more neutral response (or at least one with a lot more high end, and usually low end too).

If you want to keep the capture as it is, and don't want to add a guitar speaker IR on top of it (e.g. with the cab block in Helix), then yeah I'd either use a drive pedal block that can cut quite a bit of high end (and possibly some low-end too), or introduce a high cut after the Tonex that toggles on when you toggle the drive pedal. I'd try setting that high cut as low as 5 to 7kHz even.

An alternative approach would be to switch to an entirely different Tonex capture for driven sounds, like a normal guitar amp one. Choosing an amp that doesn't have a big mid scoop or too little low end could help with the transition between the two sounds. A round full sound. I'd maybe even look at a tweed type thing, or like a Benson Chimera capture (Amalgam has some free amp + cab Benson captures on Tonenet that you can try), or AC30 normal channel.

Thanks for all the suggestions. For now, I have that Acoustic tone model in 2 capture spots. One is set up with gain pulled down to about 25% and EQed to accommodate the lower gain and the same preset in the next spot with the gain turned up to about 75% and EQed accordingly and added compression w/ gain.

I will be going to practice with the acoustic deal tomorrow night, so I will be able to try it out on the PA. I have to turn the volume down on the original preset anyway to get a good clean tone, so turning up the guitar volume + using the acoustic preset with the higher gain may get me where I want to be. I also put a Kinky Boost and Klon in the Stomp Preset and will see if either works with it.

I'll let you know how it works and if you have any additional hints, LMK.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Would just prefer a simple high cut within tonex.

Which possibly wouldn't satisfy you either if it was, say, like the high cut in the HX series. As they're coming with a very modest slope of just 6dB/oct, you'd likely have to set it way below 10k to get a noticeable cut up there.

 

[Dimiguitar]

Which possibly wouldn't satisfy you either if it was, say, like the high cut in the HX series. As they're coming with a very modest slope of just 6dB/oct, you'd likely have to set it way below 10k to get a noticeable cut up there.

Sure. I'm assuming a way more radical slope than that. Like what we have in fractal units.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I'm assuming a way more radical slope than that.

Then others might not like it. And in return, people would be asking for choices. Etc.
While I'd personally love all these options, you'd end up with a whole lot of things that you just can't cram into such a small (and possibly pretty CPU limited) device.

 

[Chocol8]

Sure. I'm assuming a way more radical slope than that. Like what we have in fractal units.

That's not common in other units that do offer high and low cuts in the cab block. I understand the desire for more flexible EQ options, but keep in mind Tonex was never meant to be a standalone all in one solution. External EQ is probably your best bet.

 

[Sascha Franck]

One thing that possibly would be very useful would be if one could exchange IRs straight on the unit. That way, you could just keep slight variations with different amounts of high and low cuts. Not too relevant for my main rig, though, as I have a dedicated additional EQ (or rather two of them) things are running into in the GT-1000.

 

[Sascha Franck]

View attachment 53450

Alrighty, I've been dipping my toes back into capturing some of my amps and humbly submit a small batch for my friends here. For those with hardware, these are setup to translate accurately to the Tonex harware with trim at 0.

• 1998 revision G Dual Rectifier
• fresh caps
• fresh JJ EL34s
• Solid State Rectification
• Bold switch
• Tung-Sol in V1
• a whole lot of attitude.

If you like Rectos, you will probably enjoy some of these. If you are Recto-curious, start with the crunch patches, plug in single coils and roll your guitar volume down a touch, there are nice shades of gain and compression in there.

Details:
I captured the amp through a Suhr RL direct via a Presonus Quantum 2626. I won't make any grand statements about quality, this was the result of a test working out levels and seeing how the various channels and modes responded to my reamping chain. I like some of these better than others, but I think it captures a decent summary of the amp.

Hope you all enjoy!

Clean:

Recto Clean B

Mesa Rectifier direct capture

www.tone.net

Vintage lighter crunch:

Recto Vintage Light Crunch B

Mesa Rectifier direct capture

www.tone.net

Vintage Crunch:

Recto Modern to Vintage Crunch B

Mesa Rectifier direct capture

www.tone.net

Vintage High Gain:

Recto Vintage High Gain B

Mesa Rectifier direct capture

www.tone.net

Modern cloned to vintage:

Recto Modern to Vintage Crunch B

Mesa Rectifier direct capture

www.tone.net

Modern Crunch

Recto Modern Crunch B

Mesa Rectifier direct capture - modern high gain

www.tone.net

Modern High Gain:

Recto Modern High Gain B

Mesa Rectifier direct capture

www.tone.net

Almost forgot, but I just tried those now. Excellent captures, especially as they're amazingly low noise for so much gain.
The real high gain ones might be too much away from my musical realm, but the crunchy ones will very likely find some usage.
Thanks!

 

[synthpenguin]

Thanks for all the suggestions. For now, I have that Acoustic tone model in 2 capture spots. One is set up with gain pulled down to about 25% and EQed to accommodate the lower gain and the same preset in the next spot with the gain turned up to about 75% and EQed accordingly and added compression w/ gain.

I will be going to practice with the acoustic deal tomorrow night, so I will be able to try it out on the PA. I have to turn the volume down on the original preset anyway to get a good clean tone, so turning up the guitar volume + using the acoustic preset with the higher gain may get me where I want to be. I also put a Kinky Boost and Klon in the Stomp Preset and will see if either works with it.

I'll let you know how it works and if you have any additional hints, LMK.

Good luck! I don't really have much else to add, except that the Klon would be a great choice to try, because it has a pretty powerful treble cut just like the Teemah / Timmy. Don't be afraid to turn it all the way down in this context!

The Kinky Boost's treble rolloff with bright mode off is pretty gentle though, so I'm not sure how that will do, but worth a try too.

You could also try one of the preamps, using it as a drive pedal. It would definitely take some work getting the EQ right, but this could be a really cool sound.

 

[Byrdman]

Good luck! I don't really have much else to add, except that the Klon would be a great choice to try, because it has a pretty powerful treble cut just like the Teemah / Timmy. Don't be afraid to turn it all the way down in this context!

The Kinky Boost's treble rolloff with bright mode off is pretty gentle though, so I'm not sure how that will do, but worth a try too.

You could also try one of the preamps, using it as a drive pedal. It would definitely take some work getting the EQ right, but this could be a really cool sound.

The Kinky Boost is more for the additional volume with out adding much/any gain to the amp model. You really have to dial down the volume and gain on the acoustic captures and turn up the volume on the PA to get a rich, full sound with out adding distortion to the mix. I'll have quite a few options to work with tomorrow night at practice. Somewhere in there is the sweet spot, I just have to find it, lol...

 

[Dimiguitar]

Takes ages.. but quite worth it, considering the results of V2 and the improved high end.

 

[synthpenguin]

The Kinky Boost is more for the additional volume with out adding much/any gain to the amp model. You really have to dial down the volume and gain on the acoustic captures and turn up the volume on the PA to get a rich, full sound with out adding distortion to the mix. I'll have quite a few options to work with tomorrow night at practice. Somewhere in there is the sweet spot, I just have to find it, lol...

Yeah, I think it's a tricky thing to balance out.

I looked into what people were doing for overdriven sounds with actual acoustic guitars, and it's a lot of acoustic-oriented drive pedals with 3 or 4 or 5 band EQs built-in (Fender Smolder, BBE Acoustimax, etc), more "transparent" and "amp-like" drive pedals with treble controls like the BD-2 (this or clones of it like the TC Cinders seem to be a popular choice), combos of EQ pedals and drive pedals (maybe the most common approach, but acoustic players in general tend to lean on dedicated EQs a lot more than electric players ime), heavy use of clean blends to balance out the sound, and a few people (including a Guitar World writer) insisting that the best sound comes from switching from direct into a PA to a dedicated guitar amp + cab for the overdriven sound (that cab then being mic'd and fed back into a PA, which also helps with the feedback issue with a real acoustic).

The good thing about digital is that it's easy to recreate or approximate most of these things in the box... the bad thing about digital is that it takes a lot of time to try them all lol

I do still think that just stacking a guitar speaker IR on top for your overdriven sound might be the best bet. The speaker does a lot of the work towards what we expect from an overdriven guitar, and even if it feels odd to do this, it might be the simplest and most flexible solution. And hey, if some actual acoustic players are doing it irl, then why not? haha.

You could always aim for an IR or cab block settings that give a more neutral sound too, so that the tonal shift isn't too drastic... like with a Helix cab block, maybe one that has Creambacks (1x12 Open Cream, smoother) or G12T-75s (4x12 Uber T75, flatter which can read as brighter) in it, maybe with the 414 Cond or 160 Ribbon mic set a little off center (3ish?), and pulled back several inches (don't be afraid to go far back). I don't know, that's probably how I'd approach it in digital! Especially since you liked how it sounded through your cab.

 

[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.

I’ve done some more testing tonight before possibly starting an errand on the PSU. It seems to work OK with the fuzz pedal and Tonex One, but sounds like a hissy mess when using a current doubler cable to the HX Stomp, so I think that’s the main culprit here. It was the same when powering the fuzz separately as well. Guess I’ll have to choose to power the Stomp on the PSU or using the fuzz.

Having the TO in the loop the Stomp gave some interesting noise with high gain captures but still fine for me. I’ll probably get a USB-C plug for the Stomp so I can power it via a powerbank when moving around and keep the pedalboard PSU current doubler-free.

Again, thanks for bouncing ideas and sending clips, @Sascha Franck and @Chocol8 !

 

[Dimiguitar]

Takes ages.. but quite worth it, considering the results of V2 and the improved high end. View attachment 53599

Update: The captures came out spectacular.

In blind tests, there's no way I can tell the difference between these, and my NAM versions of the amp. Tonex and NAM sound identical to each other — and to the Mesa.

There is a bit of a difference in feel, but it’s very slight and not a big deal to me. It’s nothing like the Kemper’s issues with handling palm mutes or anything that extreme.

In the past audio tests, I often found Tonex capturing struggle with the high end — there was usually this weird dip that I’d have to fix by creating compensatory EQ-matching IRs. I did that pretty regularly.

But now, none of that is necessary. The consistency of the captures, especially with high-gain tones, is just way better. And the best part? I can load them straight into Tonex One with only a very small change in sound.

I was already impressed with V1 capturing. And I had my tricks to get the most out of; but V2 feels like a much bigger step forward than some people give it credit for.

I saw Tone Junkie say the difference between V1 and V2 is very minor. But if you capture the kinds of tones many of us do, heavy ass tones, this ain't just a little, incremental update.

Kudos to IK Multimedia. I'm sure whatever they are prepping for next will also be impressive.

 

[synthpenguin]

The Benson / Milkman The Amp just came out, and honestly I would have jumped all over it a month or two ago. But now that I've unlocked the tube preamp > power amp capture combo, all of these units and setups that send a tube preamp straight into just a cabsim or neutral solid state power amp sound so disappointing in comparison (though I happen to think the Benson / Milkman one sounds a lot better than some still). Too bad it doesn't have an FX loop I could stick a Tonex One in.

Speaking of the Tonex One, I'm definitely going to trade my Tonex for a One now that I'm using it this way and basically never changing presets. I'm past the return period, but I think I'll see if a local shop would trade me for a One and maybe some store credit. I've got to look into how deregistering the unit from my IK account and all that works too.

 

[Sascha Franck]

I've got to look into how deregistering the unit from my IK account and all that works too.

Should be pretty trivial. The guy I bought my first TXO from simply deregistered and I was instantly able to register it with my account.
When you click onto "Serials/License" in your account, there's a popup with a "Transfer" button. That should be all that's needed.
You'll likely lose some Jam Points in the process.

 

[Chocol8]

Deregistering an OG pedal for a One will also probably drop your Tonex Max license unless you own one separate from the hardware.

 

[synthpenguin]

Should be pretty trivial. The guy I bought my first TXO from simple deregistered and I was instantly able to register it with my account.
When you click onto "Serials/License" in your account, there's a popup with a "Transfer" button. That should be all that's needed.
You'll likely lose some Jam Points in the process.

Nice! Much easier than certain companies lol.

Deregistering an OG pedal for a One will also probably drop your Tonex Max license unless you own one separate from the hardware.

That's fine! I don't really use any of it anyway.

 

[timbuck3]

 

[Dimiguitar]

Watched that. You can very clearly hear the Kemper mute issue when he illustrates it. And nam, tonex lead the way.

 

[timbuck3]

Watched that. You can very clearly hear the Kemper mute issue when he illustrates it. And nam, tonex lead the way.

Free always makes me happy lol