Line 6's stance on profiling

[jellodog]

Do Line 6 and Fractal do component level modelling?

Yes, they do.

 

[tekbow]

Yes, they do.

Cheers

 

[pipelineaudio]

I keep trying to get that clarified as well. Can the kemper style profiles actually model nonlinearities?

I spent some time a few years ago with our DSP guys really looking into the natures of differen't distortions (not for amps but other types of devices). Most of my life I thought of distortion really as multiband dynamics processors, especially because of the way low mids seemed to distort in amplitube and line 6 stuff vs many of the other sims. I'm not so sure about this anymore

 

[pipelineaudio]

With so many of these companies, it seems to me that there is a "something" to their distortion itself, which is common across every amp they model. And a different company will have a different version of that "something"...REALLY different to the point that I cannot get them to sound or behave similar

Every time I start thinking about this stuff, I get into rabbit holes that terrify the rest of the company, especially those holding the purse strings.

 

[Deadpan]

I saw @Digital Igloo mention he respected CK and that Line 6 would do their own thing.

I tried convey the usefulness of the subject with them before he made the statement. I hope they consider coming up with their own way to allow a user to recreate their own real setups perfectly as "doing their own thing." Many of the amps I have don't sound like their model, even if their model sounds like the one they have. And the response of the amp is arguably more important.

 

[KingsXJJ]

I need something clarified, but a profile is static right? It's a shot of an amp at particular settings? Now I realise there's a tone stack in the kemper etc, but those won't behave in the way the profiled amp will?

Do Line 6 and Fractal do component level modelling? I think I remember reading something years back about strymon not trying to ballpark the output of a given analogue unit, but the DSP actually modelled the circuitry at component level.

I wish this was more clear too. I’ve always assumed that modeling ideally captured each component and pot variation in the chain of tone. Captures captured a moment in time with X,Y and Z settings along with Cab.

 

[KingsXJJ]

With so many of these companies, it seems to me that there is a "something" to their distortion itself, which is common across every amp they model. And a different company will have a different version of that "something"...REALLY different to the point that I cannot get them to sound or behave similar

Every time I start thinking about this stuff, I get into rabbit holes that terrify the rest of the company, especially those holding the purse strings.

I think you know what you like when you hear it though. And sure, it’s a subjective thing.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

I have a very specific for instance....

Putting asbestos suit on

I REALLY love the sound of the 5150 in Bias, I fully understand it sounds nothing like a 5150, that's not the point.

I have tried like hell using eq's, matching eq's, capturing eq's into IRs and everything else i could think of. i can't even get it close in Helix, and I'm not sure why.

I can immediately get this sound using revalver's (or whatever the next version is called) capture system, I can immediately get it using audio assault's capture. These two as far as I know are not a dynamic capture system which (I think) people claim about the kemper and neuralQC

I'd love to get this sound on the helix and I figure I should have been able by now after owning it for a year or so, but I still epic fail

Buy a Bias Amp. Done.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Buy a Bias Amp. Done.

Yeah, that will fit in my helix and work exactly the same functionally as the Helix does. You know Helix isn't just an amp right?

 

[JiveTurkey]

Pro-tip: Helix isn't an amp

 

[JiveTurkey]

Fake snark aside; that's actually a good suggestion if you want that tone. Combine with a Stomp or HX FX and you have a giggable version of the tone you are hunting with the FX you are using. If you can find a good deal on it; it's a win-win I'd think?

 

[pipelineaudio]

Its not just that, you'd still lose piles of functionality. When you think about it even in plugin form its not all that viable, You'd need to run one instance of helix native before and one instance after, and you would still lose a lot of the functionality of the plugin.

If it was for tone only, I'd just run the Axe FX or the helix, I like the Helix amps, I'm just unable to get the same sound as I can with Bias.

I never said one was better than the other.

This is also pretty academic, I want to know WHY I can't get the same sort of sound.

This is starting to sound like the argument from all the anti-brakes people at the skatepark. Anything they can do on a bike without brakes, I can do on a bike WITH brakes, by, believe it or not, not pulling the brakes.

The inverse is not true

 

[JiveTurkey]

So you just have Native, not HX hardware and you want "that" tone in the DAW environment? I mean; I guess I would always err towards what's readily available vs. betting on a wish to come true?

 

[pipelineaudio]

I have both. REAPER was born on this sort of obstructionalism

 

[Sleezy E]

So you just have Native, not HX hardware and you want "that" tone in the DAW environment? I mean; I guess I would always err towards what's readily available vs. betting on a wish to come true?

..or you could buy a car without a sun roof and then constantly complain about the lack of sunroof.

Seems legit

 

[JiveTurkey]

I've yelled at Roland for years. It hasn't been very productive

 

[pipelineaudio]

The appropriate analogy would be to force everyone else to walk when a car is available.

I see the emotion is creeping into what otherwise was a fact finding mission

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Yeah, that will fit in my helix and work exactly the same functionally as the Helix does. You know Helix isn't just an amp right?

Bias amp has an effects loop. You can dream of the maker of your modeler "modeling" every device, digital or analog, out there to make your life optimally convenient, or you can use the tools at hand and recognize how terrible the world would be if a floor modeler became nothing more than a device that devours all the other gear in the world, including other digital devices.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

The appropriate analogy would be to force everyone else to walk when a car is available.

I see the emotion is creeping into what otherwise was a fact finding mission

The emotion is the fact behind Line6's decision.

 

[jellodog]

With so many of these companies, it seems to me that there is a "something" to their distortion itself, which is common across every amp they model. And a different company will have a different version of that "something"...REALLY different to the point that I cannot get them to sound or behave similar

Every time I start thinking about this stuff, I get into rabbit holes that terrify the rest of the company, especially those holding the purse strings.

In the simplest case, for distortion in preamp tubes, I would guess that each vendor has their own mathmatical model of tube behaviour for a given brand and sample set of data they've taken for say a 12AX7. They model the effects of that tube on various input signals to get the expected output signals, including distortion.

All of the vendor's input data will ideally be in the same ballpark if they've measured correctly and have a good sample size of tubes. There may still be variations there though. Then they will each have slightly different approaches in how they model the behaviour. And that's just preamp tubes.

Once you move on to power amp tubes, power amp interaction with speaker impedance curves, and interactions with power transformers, output transformers, crossover distortion and all the rest ... it gets very complex and there are bound to be much bigger differences in that part of the model. And we've not even touched on all the other component interactions.

So whilst each company is trying to achieve the same thing, they all have different approaches that could manifest in a signature sound, even if that is not the goal, but to make a perfect model and to not have a common recognizable distortion sound across their different modelled amps.