The Axe-FX Drive Pedals vs. Real Thing (With "Science!")

H13

H13

Inspired
I'm a bit of a Tubescreamer nut. I use a TS808 as a clean boost and for me? It's pretty much always on. I've always said that if all my guitar gear was to burn up in a mysterious insurance-related bonfire, the first thing I'd go out and grab would be a TS808.

So my standards for Tubescreamer modelling are pretty damn high as I'm sure you can imagine. When I got my AFX, the first thing I did when setting up my own patch was look at the Tubescreamers. In case you're one of those odd people who don't use them, here are your options:

TS808 OD - First of all, this is inaccurately labelled. The TS808 is actually a TS9. There's a pretty noticable difference between the 808 and the 9. The TS9 compresses things differently and has more bite to it. It's a little rougher. I wouldn't complain about using a TS9 instead of an 808 if I had to, but I'd definitely prefer the mellower, smoother 808. In the AFX, this really pushes the mids hard and makes things a bit spikey.

TS808 Mod - This is described as "one of the most popular mods". This confuses me because there's 3 really popular mods which come to mind. There's the Keeley mod, Analogman mod and the TS808 Mod which converts a TS9 to a TS808. This has been the model I generally use in the AFX.

Now I've never really got a Tubescreamer vibe from...either of those models? The TS808 Mod got closest, but for me, it always had WAY too much gain for a Tubescreamer. Even though I use my TS as a clean boost, when dialed the same way, the TS808 Mod just added too much gain. It smoothed things out in the right way, but then there was this bit of harshness in the presence which I just couldn't dial out no matter how hard I tried.

So I've been getting real fussy with getting my sounds "right". I was struggling with some top end nastyness and things just weren't swinging the way that felt right to play. It also felt like the bottom end wasn't rolled off in the right way and like things were a bit too compressed. I noticed that when I turned the Drive block off, I'd lose the top end nastyness and things would swing better, however I was missing that bit of a mid hump and extra gain.

So as a "scientific experiment", I broke out my TS808 and ran that into the Axe-FX instead of using the Drive pedal.

And then I wondered why I hadn't done that earlier.

I know this might be a huge shock to you all (it was to me), but if you run a TS808 into the Axe-FX, it sounds and feels like you're running a TS808 into...well...your Axe-FX! What a shock right? It smoothed things out, added that bit of excitement with the mid hump and a SMIDGEN amount of gain. Most importantly to me though is that it felt a lot more natural. Playing-wise, things reacted in a much more predictable way. Not that it was wildly inaccurate before, but I felt like I was back in my safety blanket\comfort zone :).

To me, it feels like the TS808 that's in the AFX is the most exaggerated TS808 you could get. I kinda feel like somebody's gone: "Well a Tubescreamer has a mid hump, a bit of a bass roll-off and <x> sorta distortion" and gone from there. The qualities of a TS808 are in the model, but they're pushed out of balance and to me, it doesn't quite work as well.

Which one is better? That probably depends on how highly you regard tubescreamers ;). However I think it's safe to say that they are different. If you're not liking how the drive pedals sound in the AFX, grab your actual drive pedals and run them into it. I prefer the real thing myself, but I do admit that the difference isn't huge. If you're playing live, I probably wouldn't sweat the difference. If you're recording? Well that might be a different story...

So here comes the "science" part.

What I've done is re-amped the same 2 riffs. It's the same guitar, same pickups, hell even the same performance. One running my TS808, the other one using the AFX TS808 Mod. I have not used the same settings. What I've done is got the TS808 Mod in the drive block to sound as close to the noise that I can make with my actual 808 as possible. That in itself was pretty interesting. I found that I had to use different settings on the TSMod in order to get things to sound kinda the same.



TS-808 Settings: Drive: 0, Tone a smidgen before noon, Level on full.


TSMod Settings: Drive: 0, Tone: 4.25, Level: 8.5


Update: FAS Boost Settings: Drive 1, Tone 6, Level 10
(Seemingly the most common alternative!)

Now even though I've backed off the TSMod, there's still a LOT more gain on tap. However if I backed it off more than that, the accented high notes tended to struggle (due to admittedly mediocre playing!). So I had to choose between too much gain or a "consistent" riff. That in itself I think shows that the "feel" of the two pedals is fairly different.

In terms of tone, to my ears, the TSMod has way more gain and feels lot more compressed. Also, the bottom end is...different? Somehow? It's kinda rolled off, but there's more throb (heee!) as well in a way which is super difficult to control in a mix. The extra gain has also added some fizz up top in a way that I'm not a fan of. It's a bit "chirpier" as well which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I've got less tone on the TSMod so I wouldn't have expected that.

Update with FAS Boost! Now I actually thought I had nailed it until the last chords. On the sustained note, you can hear some fizzy harshness in the top end. If I dial back the tone much further, you lose that fizzy top end, but you also lose a fair bit of clarity and it gets murkier. It's still just not quite as natural as the actual TS808 and to be frank, that fizzy harshness is a bit of a dealbreaker for me. I could imagine that when double-tracked, that top end fizz will end up pretty significant in a mix and an utter pain to deal with.

Personally, I prefer the real thing. However, let's return to the original paragraph where I point out how much I love Tubescreamers. I'm fussy about them so to me, these differences are fairly significant. If nothing else, it's significant to my comfort zone. If you like the Axe-FX version, cool! We're going to get fairly similar results, but I think mine will be a bit more natural ;)

So what have we learned?
A) The Tubescreamer models in the AFX sound different to the real thing. Not necessarily worse, but different.
B) Running drive pedals into the AFX works really well.
C) If you don't like a certain drive pedal, but own the real thing, give that a shot.
D) I have too much spare time on my hands.
 
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I mainly use the fas boost in front of overdriven amps coz i found it best retains the amp feeling and tone
 
Cool!

So here's the same reamp but with the FAS Boost. (Updated the OP to include it as well :) )

The settings I used again were fairly different to the TS808. I used:
Drive: 1
Tone: 6
Level: 10


The FAS Boost I feel is a bit too much in the other direction. There wasn't QUITE enough gain with the FAS so I had to increase the drive a smidge. The compression tends to happen more in the upper mids than the lower mids and it's still not quite there, but I would say that the FAS Boost is better.

Now I actually thought I had nailed it until the last chords. On the sustained note, you can hear some fizzy harshness in the top end. If I dial back the tone much further, you lose that fizzy top end, but you also lose a fair bit of clarity and it gets murkier. It's still just not quite as natural as the actual TS808. Overall I like the FAS Boost better, but that top end is actually a bit of a dealbreaker for me. I could imagine that once double-tracked, that harshness will be a bit of an issue.

The FAS boost is pretty decent and I would argue better than the TSMod in the AFX, but for my money (being the Tubescreamer fanboy that I am) the actual one still wins out.
 
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Rex said:
Try dialing back High Cut instead of Tone.
Click to expand...

That actually worked really well. I would post a re-amp, but basically imagine the FAS Boost clip with less of the fizzy harshness :)

I would even say to most listeners, the two clips are almost identical. However the thing which still doesn't sit right is the compression of the FAS Boost. The compression is still far too strong compared to the real thing. The wave-forms look fairly different whereby the actual 808 has more peaks and troughs compared to the FAS Boost.

Again, to most, non-fussy-Tubescreamer people, I would suggest that if you blindfold A\Bd the two, you'd have a very hard time determining the difference. If you were blindfolded and playing the guitar however you would still spot the difference almost straight away :p
 
I think other drive/fuzz are similar in sound, but the feel is different. It's the way they clip and compress, I can struggle with eq and advance parameters but never get exactly there... I hope drive block could be upgraded soon, matching amp block in terms of emulation of real thing...
 
I've had the same kind of experience (with both ts9 and sd1 which are my main drive boxes) and I find that compensating settings (i.e. different than the actual pedals) i can get a very similar character and timbre, but the note separation is where the difference comes into play. With the real pedals there's more air (not in terms of eq, but in terms of openness and note definition) while the models seem to over compress and sound a little more muddy. Like you said, in a live context it's fine, the difference is not that relevant, although in an A/B comparison it's fairly clear - also, I generally run my tone knob at 9 o clock on my pedals, and on the ace models i have to set it at 1-2 o clock for similar results).
 
Smilzo said:
I think other drive/fuzz are similar in sound, but the feel is different. It's the way they clip and compress, I can struggle with eq and advance parameters but never get exactly there... I hope drive block could be upgraded soon, matching amp block in terms of emulation of real thing...
Click to expand...

edo said:
I've had the same kind of experience (with both ts9 and sd1 which are my main drive boxes) and I find that compensating settings (i.e. different than the actual pedals) i can get a very similar character and timbre, but the note separation is where the difference comes into play. With the real pedals there's more air (not in terms of eq, but in terms of openness and note definition) while the models seem to over compress and sound a little more muddy. Like you said, in a live context it's fine, the difference is not that relevant, although in an A/B comparison it's fairly clear - also, I generally run my tone knob at 9 o clock on my pedals, and on the ace models i have to set it at 1-2 o clock for similar results).
Click to expand...

You guys have nailed it for me.

For all intents and purposes, it's possible to tweak the FAS Boost to get it to sound pretty much identical to an actual TS808. However the compression is still going to be off which is going to make it that little bit trickier to sit in a mix. (Then again, that just might be a statement about my mixing skills!)

It's got a long way to go before the compression and feel of the notes is right. The way the actual pedal attacks the sustained chords in the samples I posted are the big thing that jump out at me in terms of how the pedal handles things vs. the AFX. Also, even though I was able to get incredibly similar sounds, they were with fairly dramatically different settings. I'm not sure if I like that?

That said, a BYOC Tubescreamer is 80 bucks.

If you want that "proper" TS808 sound and feel (which...well yes?) then go get yerself the pedal.

Edit: Listening on another source, there's still something about the top end that isn't quite right. I can't even begin to describe what's wrong with it. It's super slight, but now that I've noticed it, it's standing out like a sore thumb. I'm gonna suggest that they haven't quite nailed the clipping of a TS perfectly. I'm willing to bet what I'm hearing is a mental\auditory placebo but I swear there's something...harsh and...blocky? Gahh, I wish I could describe it.
 
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for you guys that are referring to compression being totally different...are you running the amps in the Axe exactly like you do real world? (and i mean EXACTLY)
 
Oddly enough, I don't have a Bogner Uberschall at home :p

However, there is no compression on the Bogner at all (as in output comp) and there's no compression block running in\out of it. As far as I can tell, the only difference in the compression that would be going on would be the drive block vs. pedal.

When I'm running the pedal, the drive block is completely removed from the patch.
 
jlynnb1 said:
for you guys that are referring to compression being totally different...are you running the amps in the Axe exactly like you do real world? (and i mean EXACTLY)
Click to expand...

I think in both the real pedal case and the drive block case, the Fractal was used as the amp, not a real amp.
 
yes, i'm aware of both points, but in both the OP and EDO's comments it seems they aren't nailing tones they nailed with real amps and pedals, so the question was if they were running the fractal amps the same way they did their real life amps. There's a lot of ways compression gets added in the fractal world that doesn't happen in real life unless you are intentional about it or are lucky enough to run some of these amps at deafening volumes.

my point was that it may not be the pedal that is making things compress in a strange way.

Take an AC30 for instance...how many guys really get to play them with Master wide open? not too many...but we can in the Axe...and that also adds compression because of the power amp working at full tilt. etc etc
 
I thought the OP point was using a real pedal with the Fractal was less compressed than using the drive block inside the Fractal.

Not real pedals and real amps are different than the Fractal; no arguing here, yes they aren't the same.
 
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Are you running the real TS before the front input? I wonder if that changes things due to impedance?

Maybe try adding the TS in the FX loop and running guitar into the front input, then place the loop before the amp block in the Axe, that way it should be closer to the internal drive block if this is a factor (which I'm not sure about). At the very worst it will prove not to be a factor.
 
I use a "drive board" in front of my AxeFX too; OCDv4, Analogman TS9, RC Boost & a Humphrey BOSS CS3 (in reverse order!). Works great but I do wish I could dial the onboard ones to my liking. The fas boost is my favourite but I haven't quite managed to get it to replace a real pedal yet...
 
Just to clarify, my signal chain when running the TS808 is:

Guitar -> TS808 - Front input of AFX (AKA: Where your normally stick your guitar) -> Bogner Uberschall patch

My signal chain when running one of the drive blocks is:

Guitar -> Front input of the AFX (AKA: Where you normally stick your guitar) -> Bogner Uberschall patch with a drive block in front of the amp.
 
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