I usually wait for the full release but I got too excited for the new features. I spent a few hours earlier today messing around with presets and I think FW7 sounded quite a bit better. Every time I played FW7 I was simply floored. The SLO100 was incredible, basically the only amp I've been playing since the DC launch. Now it just sounds off (lost it's "chewy" feel and punch), massive difference to my fingers and ears for sure.
With FW8, I'm finding amps to have more low end "chunk" for sure, but they are also quite muddy and have a general harshness that I'm struggling to dial out. I reset all of my amp blocks and set them the same as I had on FW7 (Pretty simple, I set saturation to ideal and adjust depth to taste, never felt the need to change much more as everything just sounded great at default). With FW8, the saturation switch seems like an instant mud switch.
For better or worse I do think FW8 sounds more like a real tube amp. The gain is drier and the low mids are muddier just like my actual amps. The FM3 with FW7 and DC actually got me hating on my real amps. With most tube amps I've tried, I feel like I'm constantly tweaking and never really happy which led me down a speaker quest that I can no longer afford haha. FW8 has moved me into the same camp. I sat tweaking various amps for the past hour and gave up (tried 3 different guitars). I only briefly compared saturation on vs off (think it might sound better with it off now but I'll need more time to test). I had to shut it down as the general harshness got my tinnitus flared up real nice which is something I didn't have a problem with on FW7.
I kept my DC block the same, maybe that's the problem. Orange 412 on the left, Mesa 412 on the right. Think I need to spend some time trying different mics and positions.
