Wish Compensation Switch for MV

sgplayer76

sgplayer76

Inspired
I really like the NFB compensation switch recently added to the Negative FB control. The ability to hear how moving the negative fb control (actually) sounds without a large volume increase/decrease is awesome.

My Wish: It would be really cool to see something similar to the NFB compensation switch for negative feedback be added to the master volume control on the amp’s ideal page.
 
I get your wish. I want that, too. But it would be tricky to implement that.

Turning MV from 1 to 2 will cause a much bigger increase in perceived volume than turning it from 6 to 7. And how much volume change you get will also depend on how hard the preamp is hitting the power amp. And the frequency content of the signal. And a bunch of other stuff. And how much CPU will it take to recalculate all that every time the knob is bumped?

Maybe it's feasible to do that. Maybe not. It'd be cool, though.
 
sgplayer76 said:
It would be really cool to see something similar to the NFB compensation switch for negative feedback be added to the master volume control on the amp’s ideal page.
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Rex said:
Maybe it's feasible to do that. Maybe not. It'd be cool, though.
Click to expand...

It's a tough call. The master volume is a powerful parameter. The proposal is to… neuter the power of the master volume, and replace it with, or add… what?

The master volume on a tube amp WILL change the volume and it WILL change the thickness of the sound. It's how it's supposed to behave in the model.

This almost seems to me to be one of those things that other brand's modelers do differently and now Fractal is expected to join their ranks. I think "nuh uh", I'd rather the MV behave like it does on my tube amps and in the models now.

It perhaps need more discussion on our level, or maybe it needs Cliff to say no. It's his baby and we have been able to work with what it is.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
The master volume on a tube amp WILL change the volume and it WILL change the thickness of the sound. It's how it's supposed to behave in the model.
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Given we already have a completely transparent volume control for setting level (the OUTPUT LEVEL), I understand the desire to have the master volume only apply the thickness change without the volume change. This would also help avoid the "louder is always better" psychological effect when comparing Master Volume settings.

But making this actually work this way would be a very complex ask.
 
It's my understanding that most amps don't offer adjustment of the NFB without modification, so I understand the rationale to normalize the NFB parameter. While this is a great 'thinking outside the box' idea, I'm not sure about the normalizing of a volume control though, making the volume the same but applying the effect of increasing it in the circuit. Only Cliff would know the impact on the tone and if he wanted to attempt to implement it.
 
I'd love to see this too, but as said implementing it might be a whole lot of work and I can see it being a non-starter. I guess it'd be something that happens after the MV circuit so it can do its magic first. It would have to listen to levels (RMS? LUFS?) coming out of the amp block or somewhere, and then try to balance those levels so at least they'd be close. Of course, the MV affects frequencies etc and it'll never be exact.

I suppose putting a compressor after the amp would work, at least when dialing in your tone. Then you could remove the comp and set your levels if you didn't want compression.
 
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