Question re current plugins vs Fm3 Axe technology

Knightmare

Knightmare

Inspired
Hi all , was wondering this last night when recording
I literally have like 30 or so amp plugins I’ve bought over the years from the current popular developers (Ndsp Stl etc)
I was struggling getting a decent metal rhythm tone with my usual plugins but as always when I fire up the fm3 I get the sound I’m after in about 5 mins of tweaking
So I was thinking, what is it about the Fractal stuff that just sounds so much better? My guess is it’s the skill and talent of work Cliff has put into the algorithms
I notice it with fast palm muted picking on the wound strings mostly- hard to make this sound good with plugin amps
I do find it strange that I’ve yet to use a plugin amp that comes close to my FM3, so glad I got this beauty
 
I am NOT a metal player, but I also have had most of the plug ins over the years-never really did much for me. For me I got better sounds with my Boss GT stuff even before I got into Fractal (2009).
Just the quality I guess, not to mention dedicated hardware.
 
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Probably the modeling technology.

Fractal models and emulates the actual electronic components.

The idea is to create a virtual amp which responds the same as a real amp.

Most other stuff just tries to mimic the sounds.
 
Knightmare said:
Hi all , was wondering this last night when recording
I literally have like 30 or so amp plugins I’ve bought over the years from the current popular developers (Ndsp Stl etc)
I was struggling getting a decent metal rhythm tone with my usual plugins but as always when I fire up the fm3 I get the sound I’m after in about 5 mins of tweaking
So I was thinking, what is it about the Fractal stuff that just sounds so much better? My guess is it’s the skill and talent of work Cliff has put into the algorithms
I notice it with fast palm muted picking on the wound strings mostly- hard to make this sound good with plugin amps
I do find it strange that I’ve yet to use a plugin amp that comes close to my FM3, so glad I got this beauty
Click to expand...
It's hard to say exactly. If somebody knew the answer, they would know how to rival the Axe-FX :).

Everybody models amp components, that's basically what an amp modeler is. The notable exception is profilers. However, to run in real time, all modelers, including the Axe-FX, must deviate from rigorous component modeling in key places and use shortcuts. It's a tradeoff: performance vs. fidelity. Designing the best compromises to optimize that tradeoff requires a lot of skill and experience.
 
That sounds like user error more than anything. I've gotten great metal tones out of various plugins. NeuralDSP and ML Sound Lab plugins come with great sounding presets that don't require much out of the box.

Hardware modelers will give you lower latency so they feel more immediate to play but latency can generally be low enough even on a budget audio interface like a 2nd/3rd gen Focusrite Scarlett that it's not going to become a major issue until you are a shred god.

While Fractal is going to be more accurate to the amps modeled than many plugins, for us end users the only concern is "does it sound/feel like I prefer" and to reach that goal you don't need to have a 1:1 replica of some amp.
 
I don’t know the answer but I agree with you. The few plugins I have that I can get a good sound out of are more in the profiling camp…. But that has its own set of drawbacks. NDSP, Amplitube and all of the modellers just seem inferior. When you start to dive into the advanced amp params to tweak things like saturation, sag and other preamp tweaks the competition doesn’t hold a candle to what’s going on with the fractal stuff.

For smashing out prepro there’s absolutely nothing wrong with noodling around and recording with plugins, but when I actually care about the quality of the tone it’s where things start to fall apart with them.
 
I use Amplitube, ML, NDSP as my portable rig (latop + headphones). They sound great to me but not as good as Axefx. Seems like the pace of improvement for plugins has picked up over the past few years to where now they are "close".
 
Not sure if this is even relevant but cliff explains the "algorithm" differences in one of the recent intervirews found online by searching his name.

Supposedly most use an algoristh that says "x sound = y" where fractal models the components and how they work.
Massively simplified version but you can look it up for the real deal...
 
I like having all the tools at my disposal. I have tons of Neural DSP, Audio Assault, Amplitube, Waves CLA, Nembrini, and Plugin Alliance plugins. And I just picked up the Jens Borgren One Knob and it sounds really good for certain songs, sounds, and mixes. But my FM3 is often my choice for guitar tracks because it just sounds so authentically awesome.
 
Just noodling through some plugins now and, not sure, but I think what I find lacking across all of them is something in the input - like the dynamics are not quite right compared to a hw modeller like Axefx - maybe because the signal has to come in thru an audio interface instead of directly into the plugin. Otherwise I can get some really good sounds out of them compared to years ago but, despite being able to get descent latency, the dynamics just seem off to me whether its NDSP, ML, Amplitube, whatever. Stupidly I keep buying them for the nice graphics and/or hoping something wonderful is going to happen.
 
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I've gotten great metal tones from NDSP (Nolly, Petrucci, Gojira), but definitely struggle with latency, as others mentioned.
You can get great metal tones from the Quad Cortex as well.
That being said - after using any of those other options...I turn on my FM3 or Axe III and realize, there is nothing the Fractal products can't do better.
 
sprint said:
Just noodling through some plugins now and, not sure, but I think what I find lacking across all of them is something in the input - like the dynamics are not quite right compared to a hw modeller like Axefx - maybe because the signal has to come in thru an audio interface instead of directly into the plugin. Otherwise I can get some really good sounds out of them compared to years ago but, despite being able to get descent latency, the dynamics just seem off to me whether its NDSP, ML, Amplitube, whatever. Stupidly I keep buying them for the nice graphics and/or hoping something wonderful is going to happen.
Click to expand...
Plugins will always have more latency than a purpose built modeler like Fractal. The quality of your audio interface will also matter here.
 
Knightmare said:
Hi all , was wondering this last night when recording
I literally have like 30 or so amp plugins I’ve bought over the years from the current popular developers (Ndsp Stl etc)
I was struggling getting a decent metal rhythm tone with my usual plugins but as always when I fire up the fm3 I get the sound I’m after in about 5 mins of tweaking
So I was thinking, what is it about the Fractal stuff that just sounds so much better? My guess is it’s the skill and talent of work Cliff has put into the algorithms
I notice it with fast palm muted picking on the wound strings mostly- hard to make this sound good with plugin amps
I do find it strange that I’ve yet to use a plugin amp that comes close to my FM3, so glad I got this beauty
Click to expand...
I haven't updated my amp plugins in a year or two, but always felt that they sounded like a close mic'ed amp, and the FM3 can get more of the amp in the room tone.
 
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