9.00, no need for Warmth and Thump any longer

VegaBaby

VegaBaby

Fractal Fanatic
Befor 9.00 I used to use Warmth to make the amps a bit bouncier and roll off a bit of the 'harsher' high end and use Thump to make them a bit fatter. I think Cliff introduced those parameters back then to improve the power amp, but yesterday I turned them all the way off and WOW, to me there's really no need for them anymore. Sag takes care of the bouncyness really well in conjunction with the Master, the top end is soooo much sweeter with the new poweramp and without those two it's just so much clearer sounding to me. Anyone else experienced a similar thing ?

Don't get me wrong, Warmth and Thump was really helpful at that time, but now ? ... No need anymore IMHO.

If you haven't tried it yet, do it :D !
 
Re: 9.00, no need for Warmth and Thumb any longer

Although I haven't tried messing around with the Warmth and Thumb controls yet, 9.00 has been a really great improvement for me, too. Before 9.00 I had a PEQ directly after the amp and a GEQ at the end of the chain to "fix" things. With 9.00, I could remove those completely and have been able to dial in my tones with the amp's controls alone. They sound way more natural now. Cool stuff!
 
Re: 9.00, no need for Warmth and Thumb any longer

I think you mean "thump". Thumbs come in very hand for holding your pick and the back of the neck. :)
 
Re: 9.00, no need for Warmth and Thumb any longer

rickboot said:
I think you mean "thump". Thumbs come in very hand for holding your pick and the back of the neck. :)
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:lol: :oops: ...it was very early when I typed this :D
 
I never liked Thump, so always dialed it out. Don't know why Cliff defaults 2.99 when you select the amp fresh.

Warmth is not quite so bad, but I typically drop it down to no more than 1 or at most, 1.50.

My sense was always that these were band-aids, and reduced clarity.

So I guess I agree . . . Good point, VB.
 
Brian G said:
My sense was always that these were band-aids, and reduced clarity.

So I guess I agree . . . Good point, VB.
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+1

Like I said before, they were good when they were still needed, but not anymore (IMHO). It was kinda shocking actually to hear how much clearer everything sounds now when dialing them out, especially on cleans.
 
Re: 9.00, no need for Warmth and Thumb any longer

VegaBaby said:
rickboot said:
I think you mean "thump". Thumbs come in very hand for holding your pick and the back of the neck. :)
Click to expand...
:lol: :oops: ...it was very early when I typed this :D
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Vegababy, it was MY fault, not yours.
 
Yup, I really debated removing them. But I figured if I did someone would make a big stink so felt it best to leave them in.
 
I messed around today for what was supposed to be "oh, 15 minutes... no more!" and damn it you stole 3 hours. Bastards.

You guys gave me the keys to v9.x. Now I got my head around this.

I pulled warmth and thump almost out or out of my amp/cab presets. (I kept ending up with warmth at 0.00 and thump at 0.94 or so). All the sudden amps that had 'congestion' - and I've been working on those Bogners - worked. I also found some more stuff that I got my head around (transformer match and deeper into the relationship between Sag and the power tube bias). I've been relearning the box; starting from scratch and the results are dandy. Thanks for teaching this old dog new tricks guys. All the sudden things are coming into focus for me. ONWARD!

Tone is good for you. :D
 
FractalAudio said:
Yup, I really debated removing them. But I figured if I did someone would make a big stink so felt it best to leave them in.
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Could you make so that they amps default to zero warmth and thump?
 
I entirely agree at lower volumes that thump and warmth add some congestion. But at gig volume, my presets turn into eardrum shrapnel without them (I just tried a bunch of them). I wouldn't have made a big stink, but I'm glad they're still there :cool:. The suggestion in another thread to turn up the transformer match has been absolutely stellar. I never messed with that parameter until reading that this morning and it has improved the clarity and naturalness without adding harshness. This box rocks so hard :twisted:
 
FractalAudio said:
Yup, I really debated removing them. But I figured if I did someone would make a big stink so felt it best to leave them in.
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And there I thought for a second I would get flamed by such a suggestion :lol: . I have to add though, that my 'findings' were entirely based on direct recording, not running through a power amp or cab. At stage volume going through a cab I could see use for them.

I was playing around with the Tweed (Deluxe) yesterday and there was that 'cloud' of lower mids behind the tone. Turning these two down entirely removed that.

On another note I absolutely agree on Transformer Match. This and Bias are two of my fav advanced parameters apart from Sag.
 
Are ya'll speaking Inuit Eskimo or something? I can't figure out what ya'll are talking about in terms of tone. I hate being ear-tarded.

I hate not knowing what sounds good & being a crappy guitarist with an awesome preamp. It's like sticking a kindergartner in front of a Ferrari and asking him to tune it up.

I'm *STILL* willing to hire someone to help TEACH me good sounds. I can practice technique to get rid of the crappy guitarist, but I can't practice years of experience when I've made a gigantic leap from Crate G40XL to AxeFX! :) I know I NEED it, I just don't know how to really USE IT!
 
Tone is a Journey so I wouldn't totally try to rush it no matter how frustrating it can be. You're already WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY ahead of the financial curve by owning an Axe-FX.

Over the years with everything I played I'd always start with ignoring numbers and turn knobs to see what did what to the overall sound. Once I got a general idea how EQ curves were affected and characteristics were changed by the knobs I then dove into Tubes and started listening to the sounds they each had to offer.

Lucky for you those changes won't cost you a dime. Just pick ONE amp model and mess with stuff. Bypass it all and begin with the basics. Bass, Mid, Treble (bright switch) Master and Drive. Once you grasp and understand what they all do, Move on to page two.

What I can not stress enough is READ READ READ READ READ. The Wiki and these boards are full of so much information it would make you sick. I've found reading the exact same thing a couple times followed by doing it and reading it again really sorta reveal things I never noticed before. Thats just the way I learn so YMMV. That said I do believe it is a great place to start.
 
I'll add one addendum to this:

The AMP MODEL makes a difference. To me there are a few key 'across the board' tips, but for the most part, each amp has to be treated as a different animal.

IMO.

R
 
Also a good starting point is to listen to raw amps. It's never been easier than these days with the www. You don't know how for example a Bassman is supposed to sound, check the Fender site or YouTube to at least get an initial idea. I think sometimes people try to make a model sound like something it's not supposed to be and that's a mistake right from the start.
 
electronpirate said:
I'll add one addendum to this:

The AMP MODEL makes a difference. To me there are a few key 'across the board' tips, but for the most part, each amp has to be treated as a different animal.

IMO.

R
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+1 Everything effects EVERYTHING.

But, I've found that at concert levels (where I do my patches) there is no need for thump or warmth on the bulk of my patches. Now, I run FRFR and I have about 30-40 patches I work with and when I tweak for tone after a firmware like this one, I strip it back to amp/cab only to do so. I've got about a dozen of my main patches good to go and one commonality is that I've pulled warmth and thump all WAY down. So far I've reworked my Fender, Matchless, Vox, Budda, Plexi, JCM800, Bogner Blue, Bogner Red, Soldano and Recto patches. Each needed little to no 'warmth' and 'thump'. Each is different; as EP points out. But in all of these, I pulled down. Warmth is almost gone to 0.00 in all of them. It just clouds up the lower-mids to me now post 9.x. Thump is dialed by ear, all ended up anwhere from 0.00 to 1.00 for ME. YMMV.

The keys for me (in order I attack them) with 9.0 are drive/master volume/sag, amp block EQ, transformer match, lowcut* (advanced tab) *(using less and less of this as we go now; only if the bass is out of control); power tube bias *(running a little hotter or colder; Bogner's sound better to me at 0.35; they are defaulted at .252 or something like that).

Today was the "eureka" day where I starting rolling with all my tones where they were all killin' me through the FBT *and* the Mackie HR624's (studio monitors) without any tweaking between the two.
 
This is a brilliant thread! Just spent a while experimenting with the warmth and thump parameters and gotta say....what a difference its made! :)

I A/B'd my main distortion patch with and without them (completely off) and there's no question the warmth parameter muddy's up the low mids. Also been experimenting with the transformer match and that also adds clarity for me when i crank it a little. v9.00 added so much more clarity and this is just the icing on the cake. I'm sure that theres even more things i can do 'touch it up' a little :lol: Granted i'm only at bedroom levels and going direct so i cant say how much difference it will make at gig levels. How much better can this thing get...i'm certainly looking forward to finding out! :D

Thanks again for the continuing tips!
 
Very Interesting. The "Low-Mid" cloud is something I've been struggling with for quite some time. My base patches are centered around replicating the tone of my '70 SF Deluxe and '92 Matchless HC30 (Scott, thanks for the keys to dialing in the Matchless tone). while I've been able to dial up decent tone in the Ultra (Blackface and Boutique1), as soon as I start A/B'ing what I've dialed up to the actual amp, the actual amp's tone has an openness to it that the fractal just doesn't give, and to my ear, it's centered in the low/mid frequency range. After endlessly tweaking the presence freq, thump, warmth, eq center frequency... I finally settled on using a PEQ in front of the amp block and notched it out. I'll give the thump & warmth tip a try.

BTW-I'm using an Utra FW 9, Atomic Reactor FR w/redwirez IRs. Prior to the reactor, I used an ART SLA-2 into marsh 4x12 (25watt) or matchless 4x10 open back cab.

Regards,
Chris
 
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