Question for the Strymon Guys

So you mean that bright sound is only there when engaging the pedal? On the Yamaha UD stomp the pedal also brightens your signal when you bypass the pedal. Once it is in your chain your whole sound is brighter. Either way it is not a good thing.
What you are describing is also what the Empress pedals have. Once you kick in the pedal the sound gets too bright. That's the reason I returned my Empress VM SuperDelay after one week. Didn't understand why they made it that way. Doesn't sound natural at all.
 
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I have a Timeline and really like it. Tons of options, twelve killer delays an onboard FX loop, stereo input and output. This thing is a serious beast. Also, it's actually quite intuitive to program once you get used to it.

I'd say the Timeline and the AxeFX II's delays are pretty comparable. That's just my gut opinion. I haven't exactly done any quantitative comparisons. I run my Timeline in my traditional pedalboard rig going into a tube amp. Unless you're really looking to free up CPU or are very particular about your effects, it would seem superfluous to run Strymon pedals into the FX loop of an AxeFX. If you do, I'm sure the results would be spectacular.

I don't find the Timeline to color my sound when disengaged. I run it at the end of my signal chain with the buffer turned on. I've got a Suhr buffer at the start of my chain and the Strymon buffer at the end. No negatives to my tone that I can tell. The Timeline can be easily switched into true bypass mode.

I do run an MXR Carbon Copy in addition to the Timeline on my board. I don't need to, mind you, but if I had one complaint about the Timeline it's that it can be at times a trifle overpowering, both feature-wise and tonally. When I want a dead-simple analog delay to slightly thicken my tone, I'll often switch over to the Carbon Copy.
 
To tell you the truth, I never tested with and without the effect because in my use it was always on. Regarding boosting the treble when the effect is on, Catalinbread pedals are awful in that regard. Much worse than the strymon. The van amps reverb pedal boosts the treble also.

All of the above pedals sound ok with clean tones but they take a lot more tweaking with distorted tones .

So you mean that bright sound is only there when engaging the pedal? On the Yamaha UD stomp the pedal also brightens your signal when you bypass the pedal. Once it is in your chain your whole sound is brighter. Either way it is not a good thing.
What you are describing is also what the Empress pedals have. Once you kick in the pedal the sound gets too bright. That's the reason I returned my Empress Tape Delay after one week. Didn't understand why they made it that way. Doesn't sound natural at all.
 
Regarding boosting the treble when the effect is on, Catalinbread pedals are awful in that regard. Much worse than the strymon.

Which pedal do you mean from Catalinbread? I have the Belle Epoch delay and don't notice any boosting of treble. Really like that pedal.
 
I love this Strymon setting. At 5:56

Hey @TheScientist - off topic, but I love the look of your PRS there in your pic.

I think my CU24 was originally that colour, but faded under the neon lights of the shop.
I do love a blue guitar :)
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It faded?! ACK!!!

Yep, this is what it looked like when the shop purchased it and took their glamour shots:
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At first I thought it was a different guitar, but all the grain lines up, especially near the bridge it's pretty obvious.

I never thought it could change so much, but I guess that's what 12 months of being under fluro lights does.
 
Yep, this is what it looked like when the shop purchased it and took their glamour shots:
537897_10151233645874032_1729634719_n.jpg


At first I thought it was a different guitar, but all the grain lines up, especially near the bridge it's pretty obvious.

I never thought it could change so much, but I guess that's what 12 months of being under fluro lights does.
Man, that's crazy. I've had my Custom 22 for 16 years now and the emerald green "10 top" hasn't faded a bit. I wonder if different colors are more susceptible to UV light.
 
I have been running my timeline and a lexicon pcm70 (or alesis quadraverbss) into the fx loop. Combining Simeon's patches and other multi delay and crystals it sounds amazing (with the timeline ice octave shimmer) however I am starting to find I can emulate the timeline shimmer using a pitch block and multidelay with ex detune or shift. And also adding another regular delay for a warm tape sound. It fills out nice. I would say I don't need the timeline but some sounds have a slightly different character that take a while on the axe fx to program. Also the reverb is just very hard to match to my lexicon PCM 70 concert hall. (For vintage 80s 90s sounds) also hard to emulate quadraverb reverbs because they are super lo Fi. Doesn't hurt to have the timeline and older gear when you want a specific sound however the axe can always get very similar. Many of the times eq will help an effect get closer to a brighter processor like the lexicon, and using multi blocks to get close. It is great having modern tones from the axe and also more vintage sounds from old racks and pedals. Hard to say what is better. I find sometimes I prefer the axe fx delays, and other times I like the strymon because of the hold switches for feedback ramping. In addition a looper on board the timeline is fun. The axe needs alot of messing with modulation an eq to nail the timeline tones and sometimes extra stuff like bit crusher, tremolo, multi delay, pitch with crystals or fixed harmony. The preamp character/main tone when using old racks and even strymon pedals. If you had to choose pick the axe fx and commit to spending time copying your old sounds. Then sell those other pieces of gear once you clone them in axe fx.
 
Strymon delay is as good as the axe delay but it has a different character in the fx loop vs just using the axe delay. Using both creates a very lovely sound. I found an awesome shimmer patch made of a tape delay, multi delay Plex detune, and pitch block with crystals (no delay on the pitch block just octave up shifts) and that is very close to the ice mode on the timeline. I have also found some vintage gear like my pcm70 and quadraverb still sound great but alter the tone a bit with the way they process the signal. I combine the timeline with these and it sounds great. I use the lexicon separate from the alesis gear as the pcm sounds more hi Fi. I also have struggled to exactly replicate the eq and sound of the concert hall on the lexicon. I even found a preset on the axe fx called pcm70 concert hall or something like that but after comparing and bypassing each the real pcm70 is different and just hard to recreate the same tone. The alesis reverb is also hard to emulate and would take alot if eq and possibly a bit reduction block. I'd say if you want different delays keep the timeline, but don't shy away from the axe delays either. Combine and tweak. The more variation the better. I honestly couldn't get rid of the timeline too because the hold switches for feedback ramping and send and return on the strymon itself are killer. Also couldn't get rid of my old racks. Axe fx can get 98% of the way there with tweaking to clone anything but there may always be a little difference just based on the signal processing and sample rate/ad da conversion on old units. And modern units have different architecture resulting in a different sound.
 
Which makes it impossible on the AX8 :eek:(

Not true:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/various-ambient-presets.112541/
If you want some examples I can record some of my presets that use some shimmer, cloud and bloom. As @jlynnb1 pointed out, it is the pertinent parameters and the engineering time that it takes to make it feasible/possible.
Proof:

I was asking for this stuff for a while which lead me to @javajunkie 's post about his attempts in the complex reverb routing. Found here:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/strymon-bigsky-style-verb.77739/

EDIT: To you @Lionheart, is there a specific amp/cab combo you want me to try and make an ambient preset for? And if so, which model? (AFX II, AX8)

Enjoy your verbin' selves.
 
I think what we all want are a few Mulitfx blocks so we aren't having to string together 5 blocks to emulate one Strymon/H9 preset. From a useabilty POV the axe is still more of a "utility" than an instrument.
 
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I have a TON of Strymon (Timeline, Big Sky, Mobius, DIG, Flint and El Cap).

I don't think I'll be parting with them, but I'm going to give my best shot at getting all my effects satisfaction inside my Axe II XL. I think I'm going to eventually make a mini board with effects that will go into the loop of my axe, which will probably be all strymon since their pedals are the only ones that don't take a steaming hot dog crap on my sound and introduce a huge noise floor when in the loop of the axe.

Regardless of the control you have with the Strymon stuff, it's a lot easier for me to get simple to complex sounds right off the bat when comparing to the axe. I'm getting comfortable with navigating the axe, but some of the more complex parameters still have me scratching my head.
 
I think what we all want are a few Mulitfx blocks so we aren't having to string together 5 blocks to emulate one Strymon/H9 preset. From a useabilty POV the axe is still more of a "utility" than an instrument.

I'll save the Cliff-a-nator the typing:
http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/cloud-style-reverb-strymon-bigsky-copy.98621/#post-1187589
"When you select a type on a pedal like that it's basically a preset with routing. Stuffing it all into one block on the Axe-Fx goes against the philosophy of the product and just adds unnecessary redundancy, more code to maintain and more CPU overhead. That sound doesn't seem to be anything special. Sounds like a pitch block into a really wet reverb. Obviously he's using a pedal for the swells so you would need to attach a modifier to the input gain of the pitch block. In fact I think there's several factory presets that sound very similar."

It'd be nice, but it would also go against the programming approach to the Fractal product offerings. Hope that helps.
 

I think this is the crux of the matter. If it could be done without any extra work we'd have it already and everyone would be happy.

A collapsable group module with a front facing macro panel would work, like Ableton's Effect Racks. Or something similar to Eventides Supermodules with or without the smaller modules.
 
I have had some great success using the pitch crystals, multi delay pitch, Reverb from my quadraverb, the axe fx reverb, and also the lexicon pcm70 hall. I sold my timeline and just use the axe fx and my old racks. Using a momentary switch set on continuous and controlling the feedback of the delays, and reverb time can sound awesome while using pitch crystals, multi delay pitch. I find both multi delay pitch and pitch crystals to be very similar. I believe the only difference is the multi delay pitch has 4 voices available, and you cannot control the feedback via external controller. The pitch crystals has two voices and the ability to control feedback through the external controller. I think they both have splice, decay, diffusion, and delay time controls which are essential to getting a solid shimmer sound. I will post some fun presets I have used.
 
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