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

jlynnb1 said:
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
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You're missing the point, he's comparing real pedals to the AxeFX pedals. He's not comparing overall tonal compression with full analog setups to overall compression with analog and digital setups. The only thing he's trying to recreate is the sound of his own TS808. He's trying to make the TS808 Drive Block sound like his own TS808, both of which are running into the AxeFX II. This means the only variable here is the drive pedal, not what amp he's running into.

It's Drive Block and AxeFX II Bogner vs. real TS808 into AxeFX II Bogner.
 
xpenno said:
Are you running the real TS before the front input? I wonder if that changes things due to impedance?
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it shouldn't make a difference if the Axe is set to 1M, which would be the same as running into most real amps.
 
Correct, I'm comparing real pedal into axe amp vs pedal sim into axe amp, so I'm talking about the differences in drive block only
 
VegaBaby said:
it shouldn't make a difference if the Axe is set to 1M, which would be the same as running into most real amps.
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Ok, i don't really understand how the buffer works but I thought that there could be a difference like this

1. Guitar > real drive > input > buffer > amp model
2. Guitar > input > buffer > drive model > amp model
3. Guitar > input > buffer > real drive > amp model

Options 1&2 have been tested by the OP, 3 is my suggestion which should be different.

Of course if the buffer doesn't alter the drive pedal then it won't matter. I though there was a post about fuzz pedals and thus a while back. Either way its not a fix for the issue just a test :)
 
xpenno said:
I though there was a post about fuzz pedals and thus a while back.
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I could be wrong, but IIRC that impedance "issue" was with modeled Fuzz pedals inside the Axe, not real ones outside. a real amp usually uses what we have in the Axe (mostly default as well) as 1M. that's the input of an amp or in our case the Axe. so if you put a real TS in front of a real amp or in front of the Axe should not make a difference unless the setting is changed inside the Axe due to another pedal being used that changes the Default setting accordingly. if it's set to 1M it doesn't change though, no matter if you follow the input with a Phaser or anything else.
 
Rex said:
Cool! Progress! Next step... Mess with Clip Type.
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I swapped in the Ge (Germanium) diode in clip type and got results that work for my taste: how close it is to a real TS-808, I can't say, but the type of clipping is usually the first thing I look at after getting gain and tone in the ballpark, and the Ge is less edgy.

Input trim: how hard you hit the input of the amp model with the pedal block makes some difference, but I expect that goes without saying.

Glad to hear that Tube Screamer is still getting some action.
 
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One thing that irks me a little is how much effort we're going to in order to tweak the drive pedals to sound like the real thing.

Maybe that's because a TS808 is so damn simple. Plug it in, wipe out all the gain, crank the volume and stick the tone somewhere in the middle.

AFX Drive pedal? Well first you don't USE the 808 models, then you gotta boost the drive a little, change the clipping mod, change the high-cut...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not going all Romeo Rose on us here :p. Considering how cheap an 808 is, it's not much effort to plug the real thing in and rock that like a hurricane instead. Also, the drive pedals don't sound bad. Hell I wouldn't even say that the current options are a poor copy.

Do the current ones get the job done in a way that only guitar wankers like us can tell the difference? Pretty much. Is there room for improvement? Probably. However we need to recognise that a virtual <X> is never going to be as good as the real one. If somebody wanted to argue that these virtual drive pedals are as good as it can get in a virtual environment, I wouldn't really argue with that claim.
 
H13 said:
One thing that irks me a little is how much effort we're going to in order to tweak the drive pedals to sound like the real thing.

Maybe that's because a TS808 is so damn simple. Plug it in, wipe out all the gain, crank the volume and stick the tone somewhere in the middle.

AFX Drive pedal? Well first you don't USE the 808 models, then you gotta boost the drive a little, change the clipping mod, change the high-cut...

Don't get me wrong. I'm not going all Romeo Rose on us here :p. Considering how cheap an 808 is, it's not much effort to plug the real thing in and rock that like a hurricane instead. Also, the drive pedals don't sound bad. Hell I wouldn't even say that the current options are a poor copy.

Do the current ones get the job done in a way that only guitar wankers like us can tell the difference? Pretty much. Is there room for improvement? Probably. However we need to recognise that a virtual <X> is never going to be as good as the real one. If somebody wanted to argue that these virtual drive pedals are as good as it can get in a virtual environment, I wouldn't really argue with that claim.
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How many 808's and 9's have you tried/used? I know some TS afficionados that will say that two 808s maybe just as different as an 808 and a 9. And two 9s may be completely different as well. Personally, I am not a big TS user, so I couldn't say. I have an 808 and I like what it did in my tube amp rig. In the Ax-world I usually find that a filter block might work just as well as an TS for boosting the amp.
 
If it makes you guys feel any better, I A/Bd the AxeFX 2 Rat against my own Rat after the G* drive update with the intention of getting it tone/matched exactly aligned. I went into it thinking 'drives are the weak part of the AFX'.... FWIW, after I got them dialed in, it was so close I could not really tell when I closed my eyes and the two were switched in and out. I went ahead and did the the tone match just so I could see the match curve and frequency wise it was well aligned to the point that I didn't bother using the tone match curve because there was just no point in it.

Some ckts have so much variation (how long have tube screamers been made and how many variants have Ibanez alone pumped out?) I would hardly expect even the same branded model to be dead bang with no deep param tweakage... the filter params etc on the main page are big help right out of the gate.

Fuzzes are a special case because they act as if they have a buffer in front of them (because the Axe's input is a buffer). Some of the old school fuzzes have impedances that interact deeply with the guitar's own tone control ckt and the AxeFx cannot model this because it has in/out circuitry sitting between the virtual fuzz and the guitar that cannot be dialed out.

All that said, it would be nice to see the stable built out a bit more. Sure, you can probably get virtually any sound via deep editing but I am a sucker for variety... ;)

I'd love more fuzzes, especially, even if they do have a buffer in front, it is hardly a show stopper lots of people have run them that way IRL.
 
Thanks for the comparisons, much appreciated! I have never liked the axe-fx drive blocks bc they always sounded artificial and just too fizzy IMO and the only one I would ever use, if and when I did, was the FET Boost OR switch the Clipping type to NULL or FET on the TS808.

Currently I am using a Walrus Voyager OD pedal in front of the AXE-FX and it is AWESOME, it is always on, even for cleans. Not sure whats going on under the hood of this thing but it handles my dirty channels just like a normal OD pedal would and leaving the settings the same and switching to clean...it just makes the tone sparkle like a clean boost.

I set level to about 7-8 and the drive down to like 1 or off and the tone dialed up just past noon, I also have a second drive pedal, the TS9, that I kick on for a nice soft and pluckery lead when I'm on clean patches, again the Walrus Voyager stays on. I set the TS9 levels much different to get that gain/distortion, Level set at noon or just past, Drive set at 7-8 and tone way up.
 
actionjackson12 said:
How would you go about Tonematching a drive pedal? I guess it works the same way as tone matching anything?
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Pretty much. The way I've done it in the past is to capture the reference tone with just the pedal I'm trying to match without anything else in the signal chain (amps, effects, etc.). Then I set up a drive block to get as close as I can to the raw reference tone and proceed with the match.

There's probably a better way to do this, so if anyone has any other methods, feel free to chime in!
 
actionjackson12 said:
Thanks for the comparisons, much appreciated! I have never liked the axe-fx drive blocks bc they always sounded artificial and just too fizzy IMO and the only one I would ever use, if and when I did, was the FET Boost OR switch the Clipping type to NULL or FET on the TS808.

Currently I am using a Walrus Voyager OD pedal in front of the AXE-FX and it is AWESOME, it is always on, even for cleans. Not sure whats going on under the hood of this thing but it handles my dirty channels just like a normal OD pedal would and leaving the settings the same and switching to clean...it just makes the tone sparkle like a clean boost.

I set level to about 7-8 and the drive down to like 1 or off and the tone dialed up just past noon, I also have a second drive pedal, the TS9, that I kick on for a nice soft and pluckery lead when I'm on clean patches, again the Walrus Voyager stays on. I set the TS9 levels much different to get that gain/distortion, Level set at noon or just past, Drive set at 7-8 and tone way up.
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PSST.

*quietly looks around*

That's because the Voyager is based on a Klon Centaur which are totally awesome pedals and quite different to a Tubescreamer

HA HAAAA! HOW ABOUT THAT AIRPLANE FOOD RIGHT GUYS?!
 
That's funny you posted this. I decided just a couple days ago that I'm going to put my Analogman TS-808 up for sale, because I just can't tell any meaningful difference between it and the Axe-FX 808. On top of that, once I got to putzing around with the 808 block, I actually ended up thinking it sounded better once I got a little clean blend going, something you can't do with the real thing.
 
The Cosmicist said:
That's funny you posted this. I decided just a couple days ago that I'm going to put my Analogman TS-808 up for sale, because I just can't tell any meaningful difference between it and the Axe-FX 808. On top of that, once I got to putzing around with the 808 block, I actually ended up thinking it sounded better once I got a little clean blend going, something you can't do with the real thing.
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The "Balance" control on the 808 is half level and half clean blend. It's an odd mix and it's still better to approach it as a "Level" control, but yeah.

If you're selling your Analogman TS-808, please inbox me. I'd love to buy one :)
 
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