Axe-Fx II "Quantum" Rev 7.02 Public Beta

motor drive simulates the characteristics that change when a speaker is driven hard (loud volume) or very lightly (low volume). A lot of classic guitar tones were recorded with the amp cranked to extreme volume (which can be very nice).

Yeah seems like that is exactly what Cliff was touching on when he mentioned the sound heard on recordings or however he put it. A much more ideal, polished sound.
 
i resisted- had an incredible gig night and first thing on my list this morning is updating!!! 7.01 sounded awesome. My u2ish patches (shut up and dance, WOWY and streets) with the new compressor after the amp block sounded great.
 
you know, i think this might just be the missing piece of the puzzle. my tones sound great at bedroom volume, but when i'm at gig volume, they're too dynamic compared to a real amp that's really pushing some air (especially cleans). the increased volume isn't translating in a way that reflects reality. i'm looking forward to trying this when the official release come out.
 
I might be late to noticing this behavior, however when I bring up an older preset with a Stereo UltraRes cab block selected in Axe-Edit 3.13.2 (latest at time of writing) I see 4 pages on the left hand side: Cabinet, Preamp, Room, and Advanced. In advanced I see Motor Drive and it's set to zero.

When I reset that Cab Block, it then changes to show 3 pages in Axe-Edit, Cabnet, Preamp, and Room. Motor Drive is now in the Cabinet page, and is set to 6.67.

I remember the later becoming the new functionality, but I'm wondering why I'm seeing the older 4 page method initially. I did a 'refresh after new firmware' of course but it doesn't change this behavior.

If I create a brand new preset, when I add the cab block it has the 4 pages with Motor Drive in the advanced page and set to 6.67 and when I reset the block, it toggles to 3 pages and retains the 6.7 Motor Drive setting in the Cabinet page.

Again, I think this 3 page behavior has been the standard for little while now if memory serves, so I think that's the correct behavior but I've never refreshed a block and had Axe-Edit display things differently.

Not a big deal of course but just pointing it out to Cliff and Team as part of the BETA.

Normal behavior.
When you reset a Cab block, it's defaults to the mono Cab block. The block in mono mode has one less page than the block in stereo mode.
 
My biggest criticism of the axefx (I've been here since 2012/13 somewhere around FW6) was that things never felt very 'joined together' or maybe that each stage of an amplifier didn't seem to interact with each other stage in the way that a real rig would. I felt that I had to do a lot of fiddling and extra signal processing to get an amp to feel right and I often found myself falling down a rabbit hole, losing hours to tweaking rather than playing.

This was OK with me though, I still thought of the AxeFx as by far the best digital modeller on the market at the time, but I saw that the endless tweaking was just the inevitable consequence of having virtually unlimited options available.

I used to use motor drive a lot (pre quantum) as one of the many weird and wonderful processes I tended to gravitate towards. I used to like how it smoothed out the lower mids quite nicely (even if it was in a sightly artificial way), it helped to polish big high-gain sounds, even if it wasn't strictly accurately modelling how a speaker reacts to a signal. This was all good in my book - if it helps you achieve the end result then I didn't really mind if it wasn't accurate.

This was changed many firmwares ago (pre quantum?) and it no longer had the same effect and I stopped using it altogether. Later firmwares started to sound naturally more balanced in the mids, so I didn't really feel I needed it anyway.

Since quantum, the overall feel and harmonic content of big overdriven sounds has been much more readily achievable, and many of the weird tweaks I used to make have fallen by the wayside. All the EQ blocks and filters are gone, and I no longer do strange things with the LF and HF curves in the speaker page.

Now I simply select an amp, a cab block, load a favourite IR, dial in for a few minutes... and play.

There are still a few favourite tweaks (turn up supply sag, pull back xformer match slightly) but these take minutes to apply and they just polish things slightly.

My previous (perfectly valid) criticisms of the AxeFx amp models 'not joining up, or interacting properly' no longer apply. The new motor drive algo, has just totally dispelled that criticism.

I just twisted up the motor drive on my heavy overdriven patch, played a second, then double tapped the 'store' button.
 
you know, i think this might just be the missing piece of the puzzle. my tones sound great at bedroom volume, but when i'm at gig volume, they're too dynamic compared to a real amp that's really pushing some air (especially cleans). the increased volume isn't translating in a way that reflects reality. i'm looking forward to trying this when the official release come out.
Very good description what it could be. I also think so - very good sounds at home, but often they don´t cut in the bandmix with keyboards.
 
I don't think I have heard another modeler simulate speaker compression like this. I think this was the advancement in modeling that everyone was waiting for. I am getting the best tones I have ever heard.

One thing I noticed I tend to need more low cut in the speaker block I went from around 80 to 120.
 
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How Do you guys use the Gainmonitor on the frontpanel? Or only use the Motordrive for personal taste?
 
Very good description what it could be. I also think so - very good sounds at home, but often they don´t cut in the bandmix with keyboards.

no, it's got nothing to do with "cutting through" for me. i play in a band with keyboards and i have no problem being heard. this is to do with recreating real world behaviour. the amplifier part of the signal chain is damn near perfect (maybe even better than real), it's what happens in the other part and that's the speaker. the ultrares IR's are amazing, but if cliff is saying that real speakers compress up to 6db, then that's incredibly significant. if this new motor drive is replicating that behaviour, then that's a big part of the puzzle.
 
no, it's got nothing to do with "cutting through" for me. i play in a band with keyboards and i have no problem being heard. this is to do with recreating real world behaviour. the amplifier part of the signal chain is damn near perfect (maybe even better than real), it's what happens in the other part and that's the speaker. the ultrares IR's are amazing, but if cliff is saying that real speakers compress up to 6db, then that's incredibly significant. if this new motor drive is replicating that behaviour, then that's a big part of the puzzle.
well sir, you are in for a treat when you finally upgrade ...incredibly significant indeed.
 
no, it's got nothing to do with "cutting through" for me. i play in a band with keyboards and i have no problem being heard. this is to do with recreating real world behaviour. the amplifier part of the signal chain is damn near perfect (maybe even better than real), it's what happens in the other part and that's the speaker. the ultrares IR's are amazing, but if cliff is saying that real speakers compress up to 6db, then that's incredibly significant. if this new motor drive is replicating that behaviour, then that's a big part of the puzzle.
Sometimes its only about the volume level with modeling amps in the mix. If it´s to low, the highs are not spot on.

So I think - hope - this motordrive compression will help to make the guitarsound in this frequences more noticeable .

Must try this at ACDC-Sounds - less gain, but very hard driven Speakers - should be a great reference for this new parameter.
 
I don't think the new gain monitor works correctly with stereo cabs. Also my stereo cabs don't sound quite as good as the single cabs in initial motor drive testing. I think something might be off with stereo cabs.
 
I don't think the new gain monitor works correctly with stereo cabs. Also my stereo cabs don't sound quite as good as the single cabs in initial motor drive testing. I think something might be off with stereo cabs.

I'm using it with stereo cabs here and it works and sounds great.
 
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