Synergy Owners Thread

[JiveTurkey]

Synergy wound up being a several hundred dollar rabbit hole of “yeah, I should have known better” for me.

It sounds good…and maybe if I were really focused on sounds that mostly come from preamp saturation I’d have a different feeling - but not as good as the Axe. Having direct 1:1 knobs was nice for getting everything set up, but as always I eventually found the sound and didn’t touch anything.

The one thing I liked was being able to crank a boost/overdrive pedal into it without having to watch out for digital clipping.

The idea of it on the surface is great. But I'd rather just buy the real amps I want or lean into the great things about the Axe. I would be willing to give a JVM module a go if they keep working with Marshall.

 

[Promit]

I'm largely a committed Fractal user, but I wanted to explore the Synergy stuff as it's picked up more steam. I will say that I thought it sounded pretty bad through the Power Station, and I returned the PS shortly after this. The Classic 50/50 just came in and is quite good but I need to do a direct A/B with running the Synergy into the return of my 5153 EL34 50W, which has been by far my favorite way to run the Synergy modules. Currently have Savage, HBE, and Powerball on hand.

In fact I started with the Syn-20IR and traded that off as I didn't think it was very good -

• I didn’t like having depth, presence, and sag mashed into the same reactance knob. I want to adjust those things separately.
• Structure is quite subtle.
• Running the preamp into my EVH 50w EL34 sounded so much better. That power amp made the Synergy modules sound immense in comparison to the 20.
• Running the preamp into a Power Station, on the other hand, was not very satisfying. That thing is practically a hi-fi amp. Is the Syn 50/50 also this stiff? Syn-20 is much preferable to PS.
• I don’t like the sound and feel of the amp running direct through an IR. It might have been better with IRs shot through tube amps, which I can’t find the files for anymore. But with the onboard IRs or the ones I usually use, didn’t love it.

Whether I prefer any of these configurations to the Fractal remains an open question. I think it's probably going to be more fun to explore modules that don't have Fractal equivalent models.

 

[Genghis]

How is the noise with 4cm? Not sure if it's a Helix thing or something else but Helix in the loop of the Mark V with nothing but noise gates (or nothing) has soo much noise I can't even enjoy it.

I don’t get that much noise with pure 4CM in my rig. I had noise issues when I tried running analog drives before the amp, but I get decent flexibility out of the Fractal drives before the amp, so don’t feel like I need to get into analog drives. Some people may notice latency, but it’s never been an issue for me.

This is a busy weekend with a big music festival this afternoon and my band is playing the day after party tomorrow at one of the main venues that support our local music scene tomorrow, but I’ll try to post more details in a couple of days.

For now I’ll just say that the Killer Kali is much easier to get sitting into the mix and covers more ground than my JP2C. I also went with a BMan for my clean and lower gain tones in the live rig. I also have the TW/DLX which I really like, but the BMan has more gain and I can roll off my volume controls to get close to what the DLX channel does. Also just picked up the Uber and that will work layered into recordings, but not what I need for live sounds. Kali is much more versatile.

My old rig I had the VH4, first version of SLO, MkIIC+, HBE, the Vai, and the TW/DLX. Note that the only one I felt I wanted again was the TW/DLX. Will elaborate on those others when I have time.

 

[aivoryuk]

I'm largely a committed Fractal user, but I wanted to explore the Synergy stuff as it's picked up more steam. I will say that I thought it sounded pretty bad through the Power Station, and I returned the PS shortly after this. The Classic 50/50 just came in and is quite good but I need to do a direct A/B with running the Synergy into the return of my 5153 EL34 50W, which has been by far my favorite way to run the Synergy modules. Currently have Savage, HBE, and Powerball on hand.
View attachment 50820
In fact I started with the Syn-20IR and traded that off as I didn't think it was very good -

• I didn’t like having depth, presence, and sag mashed into the same reactance knob. I want to adjust those things separately.
• Structure is quite subtle.
• Running the preamp into my EVH 50w EL34 sounded so much better. That power amp made the Synergy modules sound immense in comparison to the 20.
• Running the preamp into a Power Station, on the other hand, was not very satisfying. That thing is practically a hi-fi amp. Is the Syn 50/50 also this stiff? Syn-20 is much preferable to PS.
• I don’t like the sound and feel of the amp running direct through an IR. It might have been better with IRs shot through tube amps, which I can’t find the files for anymore. But with the onboard IRs or the ones I usually use, didn’t love it.

View attachment 50821
Whether I prefer any of these configurations to the Fractal remains an open question. I think it's probably going to be more fun to explore modules that don't have Fractal equivalent models.

I run my Synergy stuff through the power station using self attenuation so it is loaded down to line level into my FM3 - sounds great

 

[Desertdweller]

I went from a Synergy setup to Axe-FX alone and came back to Synergy with Axe-FX for effects only. Just like it better that way.

Yep, I've done some similar things too. The Axe FX amp models sound infallable direct recorded, but I've always fought frequencies when trying to set up a preset to run them to a real power amp. Whether it's a SS Seymour Duncan or a tube Mesa or Synergy power amp, I'm not quite there with the Axe FX models. Insane direct though for sure.

This new JMP module is interesting. As @paisleywookiee said we have no real need for more Marshall tones out there, but there's some nostalgia in me for a simpler time when the Triaxis, JMP1, and Rocktron Piranha were what my friends and I played with and what I saw from bands that had rack gear at the time, so any recreation of that era in modern tech is probably going to be a purchase from me.

 

[DrewJD82]

I should remind myself regularly that buying a load box to record my amps with did not give me one single bit of "better" in comparison to what I was already getting from the AxeFX, if anything it was more limiting going back to actual amps. I'm going to assume that if playing the actual amps didn't do anything new for me, preamp-only versions of the amps are most likely not going to move the needle either.

They're still cool AF though and I think it'd be fun to build a Vai-like rack with the Synergy and a Fractal.

 

[Genghis]

I should remind myself regularly that buying a load box to record my amps with did not give me one single bit of "better" in comparison to what I was already getting from the AxeFX, if anything it was more limiting going back to actual amps. I'm going to assume that if playing the actual amps didn't do anything new for me, preamp-only versions of the amps are most likely not going to move the needle either.

They're still cool AF though and I think it'd be fun to build a Vai-like rack with the Synergy and a Fractal.

I would probably be the same, but I have the luxury of having a relatively soundproof room that is far enough from neighbors that I can crank up through 2 4x12s with 2 mics on each cab and change my tone when mixing by just balancing the mics in different proportions. My closest neighbors are always trying to get me to open up the door so that they can hear it more, but they are regulars at our favorite venue in town and hired us to do their wedding last year. I have a hunch the other neighbors would be calling the cops if I did.

Not everyone has a place to mic up a loud amp, and back when I was in that position I did a lot of recording with every generation of the Axe-FX and was quite satisfied with the results.