New Speaker Breakup Parameter

B

Bman

Power User
I didn't see a thread on the topic, so I thought I'd kick it off. I'm finding that that for my JB pickup, I like the Speaker Breakup set to Hard. It also plays nice with my low output single coil in the neck because it helps it stay a bit cleaner. I'm using a greenback imp. curve and cabs. My Thornbucker plus and EVH Frankie p/u's like the medium setting. I'm guessing it's like fine tuning a speakers wattage or maybe it's 'break in'. I'm only 20 minutes into the new firmware and playing with the parameters so I may have a completely different outlook in a few hours/days.
 
Bman said:
I didn't see a thread on the topic, so I thought I'd kick it off. I'm finding that that for my JB pickup, I like the Speaker Breakup set to Hard. It also plays nice with my low output single coil in the neck because it helps it stay a bit cleaner. I'm using a greenback imp. curve and cabs. My Thornbucker plus and EVH Frankie p/u's like the medium setting. I'm guessing it's like fine tuning a speakers wattage or maybe it's 'break in'. I'm only 20 minutes into the new firmware and playing with the parameters so I may have a completely different outlook in a few hours/days.
Click to expand...
Looking forward to digging in to this.
 
so is this like speaker age? hard=new speaker, medium=moderately broken in speaker, soft=fully broken in speaker - sounds a tad warmer to me on "soft"
 
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For those having trouble locating it (if you find this thread but miss the 20.00 firmware thread):

In Axe-Edit, it's on the Speaker Page, but

In the Front Panel of the unit, It's on the Advanced Page, under Power Amp.

I had to do some digging to find it in the unit. I'm definitely curious about this. I had found Speaker Compression to be damn near life changing for my tones, then adding the new non-aliasing Speaker Drive made them even better and even more alive, and I'm guessing this Speaker Breakup is further fine tuning that revamped Speaker Drive, but I haven't gotten to try it myself yet.
 
sprint said:
so is this like speaker age? hard=new speaker, medium=moderately broken in speaker, soft=fully broken in speaker - sounds a tad warmer to me on "soft"
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure that's what the Speaker Compliance setting is...
 
unix-guy said:
I'm pretty sure that's what the Speaker Compliance setting is...
Click to expand...
hmm - parm values seem to align with aging though.

and the wiki defines SC as (quoted from Cliff) "models parameter shift as the voice coil moves within the magnet. The Bl product is a function of voice coil displacement. Bl is the "force factor" and is the product of magnetic field (B) times length of the coil in the magnet gap"

though the manual describes SC a bit differently: "changes the nonlinear behavior of the virtual speaker. "

Neither of those SC descriptions really describe what I understand as speaker aging in the sense of the speaker surround loosening up and cone paper getting old (soft) over time.

confusing...I guess an official description of SB is forthcoming (or maybe I missed it somewhere)
 
I'm pretty new when it comes to tweaking things and explaining sound, but to me it "feels" like the speaker hits harder on the hard setting like with palm mutes. Tried it with a 59slp and a 5153. Again, "feels' better under the fingers if that makes any sense. :laughing:
 
sprint said:
so is this like speaker age? hard=new speaker, medium=moderately broken in speaker, soft=fully broken in speaker - sounds a tad warmer to me on "soft"
Click to expand...

Not necessarily (just) aging. Likely speaker design/material/size are key factors to speaker distortion/overdrive in the the real world. I imagine Cliff has "generalized" it to Breakup + Drive for simplicity of control rather than attempting to model specific speakers and all their individual nonlinear quirks.

I recall Cliff saying that hi-fi speakers are designed with low THD for the majority of its operating range (before failing or whacking out) while guitar speakers will distort much sooner as a tradeoff to have a wider dynamic power bandwidth. So Breakup might be related to earlier vs. later breakup and the character of such breakup.
 
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RDeraz said:
I kind of thought of it as clipping. Ergo soft clipping, medium clipping, hard clipping. maybe I'm wrong, but that's what it sounds like.
Click to expand...
This is what my take on it is too. I also feel like I could dial in any of those three settings with the additional parameters but it would take time or me know what to tweak. The 3 settings make it easier to get there I guess.
 
sprint said:
hmm - parm values seem to align with aging though.

and the wiki defines SC as (quoted from Cliff) "models parameter shift as the voice coil moves within the magnet. The Bl product is a function of voice coil displacement. Bl is the "force factor" and is the product of magnetic field (B) times length of the coil in the magnet gap"

though the manual describes SC a bit differently: "changes the nonlinear behavior of the virtual speaker. "

Neither of those SC descriptions really describe what I understand as speaker aging in the sense of the speaker surround loosening up and cone paper getting old (soft) over time.

confusing...I guess an official description of SB is forthcoming (or maybe I missed it somewhere)
Click to expand...
Somewhere I believe Cliff essentially said Speaker Compliance models the "stiffness" of the speaker...
 
sprint said:
so is this like speaker age? hard=new speaker, medium=moderately broken in speaker, soft=fully broken in speaker - sounds a tad warmer to me on "soft"
Click to expand...

unix-guy said:
I'm pretty sure that's what the Speaker Compliance setting is...
Click to expand...

sprint said:
hmm - parm values seem to align with aging though.

and the wiki defines SC as (quoted from Cliff) "models parameter shift as the voice coil moves within the magnet. The Bl product is a function of voice coil displacement. Bl is the "force factor" and is the product of magnetic field (B) times length of the coil in the magnet gap"

though the manual describes SC a bit differently: "changes the nonlinear behavior of the virtual speaker. "

Neither of those SC descriptions really describe what I understand as speaker aging in the sense of the speaker surround loosening up and cone paper getting old (soft) over time.

confusing...I guess an official description of SB is forthcoming (or maybe I missed it somewhere)
Click to expand...

RDeraz said:
I kind of thought of it as clipping. Ergo soft clipping, medium clipping, hard clipping. maybe I'm wrong, but that's what it sounds like.
Click to expand...

Has this been cleared up by Fractal yet?
 
Is there a final understanding/description what the Speaker Breakup really is @Admin M@ ? In the wiki page there is no description and people here have different thoughts on it.
 
I believe that the Speaker Breakup control simulates the distortion that happens when you drive the crap out of a speaker with a high wattage amp.
 
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