Thanks for the kind words, Johnny. Glad you liked the Vh patch. Hoping to share some new ones soon.
No disrespect taken at all. I sincerely didn't mean my post to sound like "well it works for me, just accept that these things aren't exactly like the real thing." LOL! I swear it wasn't meant to sound that way if it did? My apologies if you took it wrong.
In my case, speaking for me only and my experience, it just helped me to say "ok, this thing does this that this and this...and that's how it sounds. I either get a good sound out of it, learn how to get a good sound out of it, learn what a good sound actually consists of, or I get rid of it."
See man, again, speaking for me.....I didn't get into the whole Fractal thing for the modeling. I really don't care if it sounds like what it's supposed to sound like or not. At the end of the day for me, how good is the tone and does it matter that I may be using a Rat pedal (which I hate in real life) as opposed to a Tube Screamer.....which I love. To me, as long as the sound is delivered, finding out if the stuff sounds like the real thing to me is well, sort of a waste of time. But that's ME.
I totally understand that this is important to you and others...and I respect it immensely.
I was just saying I think a little too much "comparing" goes into this stuff when in actuality, sometimes the Fractal stuff may fall a little short of the real thing...but just as often, I feel it is better than the real thing. You give me ten minutes and I'll make any amp, cab and pedal work and I'll come up with a really good sound. I got a video somewhere of what I felt was one of our worst cabs and I turned it into a killer, usable sound in my opinion.
See, one thing I have realized about this stuff man.....I don't rely on the stuff that you would normally rely on when using REAL gear. For example, my amp gains as well as my drive block gains, are very low. Amp gain 4.3, drive block 2.78 or something with my drive block output at 8.0. Yet, my distortion and sustain will blow your head off. I can hold a note at a low volume for at least 15 seconds or longer at any given time, and my notes don't trip over each other. I use the drive blocks to enhance what's going on and totally think differently using this stuff than I would a physical rig.
I found that this stuff just doesn't always translate like that. I'll use an amp and a drive block to color/enhance it, and a compressor set at kill mode to bring the distortion and sustain to insanity. I'll run an amp master volume a little lower than 4-5 to get a little more zip out of the amp. The master louder gives me a little more mid/boxyness. Master lower seems to give me a tighter, more snappy sound. With the right amp, the right cab, the right drive and the compressor I mentioned, I'm telling you, I can take our worst amp and cab and turn it into superman.
Again though, I do respect and appreciate that you are looking at things more in the modeling world. You're more right than I am for your application.
I'm just saying...if one day you totally throw the modeling thing out the window and alter your thinking and usual work-flow to what I'm sort of doing, you may get better results. Instead of relying on the drive block to drive the amp, rely on the amp + cab for starters and use the drive to enhance what is already there.
I use a comp, then the drive, then the amp and then the cab. This arrangement has never let me down. I find that the more I use the drive in the drive block, the more synthetic the tone becomes. This could be due to lots of factors really as modeling can be very finicky. But in moderation with the amp as my main core tone, the drive pedals seem to add that little extra something to where if I kill them, the amp alone will NOT stand on its own. The same with the way I use the compressor. Each piece in my chain is lost without the other. Though this may sound sad, it's due to how *I* run my particular system. I'm sure it's not for everyone....but changing my way of thinking and experimenting is what landed me the tones I have. The day I stopped looking at this as a modeler was the day I actually created some pretty awesome tones.
At any rate, I hope you either find a formula that works for you or the updates Cliff gives us helps you. As for me, the update will probably kill all my stuff. LOL! Every update we get, I seem to be the only one that is unhappy. By the time I figure it all out and get happy with my tone, a new major update comes out and screws me all up again.
Good luck brother.
-Danny
