Ares - what's new?

So I've been out of the loop for a while (mainly because I gave up expecting a firmware update after about half a year) to see that the II (XL+) now has Ares ported, to some degree. I was interested in what the actual difference is, under the hood so to speak. I remember seeing a white paper or two when the II came with "G3 modelling" or something similar, that actually explained stuff, and the Quantum Fw notes were quite informative, but I haven't been able to find much about what Ares actually is/does, other than clearly must take advantage of the Keystone chip's threading (and TI v. AD instruction sets). Can anyone point me to any resources? Thanks!
 
A more detailed description of what changed, apart from "Implemented some of the Axe FX 3 amp modelling in to Axe FX 2 and they should now sound fairly similar", was never explained, as far as I know. Basically, only Cliff knows what changed.
 
So I've been out of the loop for a while (mainly because I gave up expecting a firmware update after about half a year) to see that the II (XL+) now has Ares ported, to some degree. I was interested in what the actual difference is, under the hood so to speak. I remember seeing a white paper or two when the II came with "G3 modelling" or something similar, that actually explained stuff, and the Quantum Fw notes were quite informative, but I haven't been able to find much about what Ares actually is/does, other than clearly must take advantage of the Keystone chip's threading (and TI v. AD instruction sets). Can anyone point me to any resources? Thanks!

I think the best is to load Ares and try for your self as everybody has different ears, gear, taste and so on.....I like Ares anyway.
 
You probably won’t notice in a blind test. But your patches would sound different at least.
I think it’s nice knowing this is the last firmware. A beginning and an end.
 
I personally think Ares sounds better for midgain and classic/hard rock tones. Especially anything that involves a Marshall or has a cathode follower. Fenders sound a bit clearer without more high end . . . maybe a bit more of a dip in the high mids?

For pure balls to the walls metal I actually prefer pre-Ares and pre-Quantum tones. But I'm a bit of a weirdo so there's that . . . .
 
The biggest difference in sound came with the 'Speaker Compliance', in my opinion, since a few months.

Thus, I definitely recommend to load the latest Ares for AF2.
 
Some models will have a ton more gain on tap with an upgrade from Quantum to Ares, other models will just have some mid punch and more string separation.

When you switch tone stacks in Ares, the radical shifts in tone and gain structure really come alive more than in Quantum.
 
Some models will have a ton more gain on tap with an upgrade from Quantum to Ares, other models will just have some mid punch and more string separation.

When you switch tone stacks in Ares, the radical shifts in tone and gain structure really come alive more than in Quantum.

So if I am understanding this correctly
The Ares will have much more gain on the high and low gain models
But the clean presets will better string separation
Compare to the Quantum?

Or I am I missy something?
 
You are going to have to turn down the drive on the ac amp models. I found the ares sounds better, has better touch response, less compressed, and tad bit more mids. In a blind test you would have a hard time telling the difference from q10. It's for sure an improvement though.
 
So if I am understanding this correctly
The Ares will have much more gain on the high and low gain models
But the clean presets will better string separation
Compare to the Quantum?

Or I am I missy something?
Yes for hugh gain on some models.

The differences in gain really are on an amp model by amp model basis and those differences are more distinct in Ares.

For example, my 5150 Block crunchy amp preset went from input gain of 5 in Quantum to less than 1 to achieve the same amount of crunch in Ares.
 
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