AFIII Dual Recto with the LB-2 vs the Axe-Fx III and more

What about my impression of the "lost notes"? That's more about clarity in the gain structure. The frequency response differences are not that much bothering me, because that can be corrected relatively easy...
 
What about my impression of the "lost notes"? That's more about clarity in the gain structure. The frequency response differences are not that much bothering me, because that can be corrected relatively easy...

Can you explain a bit further what you mean?
 
In your last comparison where you play the chords (13:38) I'm hearing the notes of the chords clearly in the Recto recordings, in all the modelers I mainly hear the fizz and the notes disappear. In the Recto it sounds similar to a Tube Screamer where there's a clean attack in parallel with the distortion, that clean attack is missing in the modelers.
 
I had to test out the master volume setting so I used Jon's settings and ran a test raising the master volume in 0.5 increments and then volume balancing and match EQ measuring the differences. Here's a clip with the master on 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and finally 4.0.



Essentially between 0.5-2.0 there's no real difference. Getting a flat line in my comparison but from that point on at 3.0 you have 1dB less high end. On 4.0 you have like 3dB less high end. Here's a picture of 1.0 vs 4.0:



So the conclusion would be that the master setting didn't affect the brightness of the amp sim since Jon had it on 2.0 which was the default setting that was IMO the sweet spot as well and raising it up made the sound darker and it didn't get brighter when lowering it.
 
Agree with the relative lack of clarity/treble in the modelers in the A/B comparison at the end.

It's really clear for me and my hearing stops at 10kHz so it starts in the low treble for sure. Seems more than a few dB, more like a systematic roll-off of high freqs in the modelers (or bump in the actual amp).
 
I assure you guys that there weren't any hi-cuts or filters used throughout this entire video.
The DI tracks were all recorded with my axe fx as well as the signal of the amp.
You can see in the video that I tried to match the controls.

Sure, I could have spent a little more time to get them to sound even closer and likely even more so with the tonematch block.
However, I didn't want to use any form of post processing for this video because that will get all the platforms closer to the real amp and that would make it harder for people to really hear the differences between all the different platforms.
The Axe Fx III sounded close enough to me, especially in comparison to some of the other platforms cough*bias*cough.
 
I thought the comparison was done correctly. Tone match / advanced settings is quite a deep level of tweaking. I think the majority wants to see this kind of a direct head to head comparison. The good news for this community is that the Axe-Fx was definitely the closest modeler.
 
At 13:39 it sounds like you are really pumped and in a groove while playing the Mesa. Also the A/B switches tend to favor the harmonics in the actual song chord progression to where the Mesa parts sound more articulate. I would wager that when you were playing the physical amp you were pretty stoked and rocking it hard :D
 
I thought the comparison was done correctly. Tone match / advanced settings is quite a deep level of tweaking. I think the majority wants to see this kind of a direct head to head comparison. The good news for this community is that the Axe-Fx was definitely the closest modeler.
I disagree. I didn't do any tone match or advanced tweaks and my comparison (first two clips on the previous page) did not exhibit the same high end loss as the video. I used the exact same signal chain: amp-> LB-2 -> Axe-Fx III as IR player.
 
I disagree. I didn't do any tone match or advanced tweaks and my comparison (first two clips on the previous page) did not exhibit the same high end loss as the video. I used the exact same signal chain: amp-> LB-2 -> Axe-Fx III as IR player.
When we're talking about "brighter and darker" I think we first need to get the facts straight. This is a match EQ of the real Recto vs Axe-Fx III:



... as in, this is how you would have to EQ the Axe-Fx III to match Jon's Recto. This would be the tone match curve. So the real amp is brighter at 10khz by about 2dB but the Axe-Fx is actually the one that has less low end since it would need a 5,6dB boost at 70hz and 1.5dB in the low mids. Depending on what you're using for listening you might not hear that low end especially since it's been high passed quite a bit. On the later comparisons it seemed as if the Axe-Fx had less highs but I think there were volume differences in favor of the Dual Recto at times.

The way I would solve this would be to change the speaker page settings quite drastically and that's a real difference of this comparison. Loadbox vs the speaker simulation settings on the speaker page. This is usually where I need to make changes when comparing to my real amps as well. And I'm not only talking about loadbox comparisons. DI between amp and cab, same thing. Slave out of a Mesa plugged into a cab, same thing happens.

Here's my real Mark V compared to the Axe-Fx III with a lot of fine tuning on the speaker page of the amp sim:


It's not perfect especially in the low end but it's really close.
 
Since there are plenty of clips and videos where it's near impossible to tell tube amp from AFX, so my first guess would be that all the AFXIII needs is a minor tweak - or the Recto needs a minor tweaking to match the modellers... :)
 
If someone is interested in making deeper adjustments, here's a free software that, among a lot of other stuff, allows to measure the impedance curve of a speaker just by using an audio interface and a resistor.

http://www.roomeqwizard.com

Its help section explains clearly how to do it.
Never tried it so I don't know how accurate this method is, certainly worth a try.
 
When we're talking about "brighter and darker" I think we first need to get the facts straight. This is a match EQ of the real Recto vs Axe-Fx III:



... as in, this is how you would have to EQ the Axe-Fx III to match Jon's Recto. This would be the tone match curve. So the real amp is brighter at 10khz by about 2dB but the Axe-Fx is actually the one that has less low end since it would need a 5,6dB boost at 70hz and 1.5dB in the low mids. Depending on what you're using for listening you might not hear that low end especially since it's been high passed quite a bit. On the later comparisons it seemed as if the Axe-Fx had less highs but I think there were volume differences in favor of the Dual Recto at times.

The way I would solve this would be to change the speaker page settings quite drastically and that's a real difference of this comparison. Loadbox vs the speaker simulation settings on the speaker page. This is usually where I need to make changes when comparing to my real amps as well. And I'm not only talking about loadbox comparisons. DI between amp and cab, same thing. Slave out of a Mesa plugged into a cab, same thing happens.

Here's my real Mark V compared to the Axe-Fx III with a lot of fine tuning on the speaker page of the amp sim:


It's not perfect especially in the low end but it's really close.

"Drastic settings" are not required. What is required is an understanding of the controls on that page and what they do. The LB-2 is roughly equivalent to a LF Res. Frequency of 100 Hz, Q of 1.6 and LF Resonance of 4.0. With the voicing switch in the US position the frequency changes to about 70 and the resonance increases to about 5. Due to tolerances the frequency can vary +/- 10%.

So based on the above I'd say the LF resonant frequency is too high. The LB-2 was probably in the US voicing. A typical Recto cabinet has a resonant frequency a little over 100 Hz and therefore that is the default on the model.
 
If someone is interested in making deeper adjustments, here's a free software that, among a lot of other stuff, allows to measure the impedance curve of a speaker just by using an audio interface and a resistor.

http://www.roomeqwizard.com

Its help section explains clearly how to do it.
Never tried it so I don't know how accurate this method is, certainly worth a try.

I use that program to plot frequency responses. It seems to be very consistent. It also lets you export the frequency response as a CSV file, so it can be used in a spreadsheet to make Scatter charts.


Regarding @Guitarjon comparisons, I wish the end section of the solo recordings played the entire chord riff through each modeler because the chords you play through the real amp are bigger chords with higher notes and the regular power chords and sus2 chord are played through the modelers. It gives a false perception that the real amp is clearer but it's really because you're playing almost 3 octaves.
 
Regarding @Guitarjon comparisons, I wish the end section of the solo recordings played the entire chord riff through each modeler because the chords you play through the real amp are bigger chords with higher notes and the regular power chords and sus2 chord are played through the modelers. It gives a false perception that the real amp is clearer but it's really because you're playing almost 3 octaves.

This exactly what I was saying and that it sounded like he was really into the real amp.
 
"Drastic settings" are not required. What is required is an understanding of the controls on that page and what they do. The LB-2 is roughly equivalent to a LF Res. Frequency of 100 Hz, Q of 1.6 and LF Resonance of 4.0. With the voicing switch in the US position the frequency changes to about 70 and the resonance increases to about 5. Due to tolerances the frequency can vary +/- 10%.

So based on the above I'd say the LF resonant frequency is too high. The LB-2 was probably in the US voicing. A typical Recto cabinet has a resonant frequency a little over 100 Hz and therefore that is the default on the model.

I have it set on UK always.
 
I have it set on UK always.
So it should be already in the ballpark.
Was speaker comp turned up in your preset perhaps? I think that can change the frequency response too, while a loadbox shouldn't have any compression.. maybe
 
So it should be already in the ballpark.
Was speaker comp turned up in your preset perhaps? I think that can change the frequency response too, while a loadbox shouldn't have any compression.. maybe

The speaker comp was set to the default setting.
I just compared the default settings of 2 to 0 and I didn't notice a real difference in the top end.
I hardly ever use any settings other than the basic amp controls to be honest.
 
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