Axe-Fx III Firmware Release Version 12.10

JiveTurkey said:
What a dumb piece of gear. Love me some Roland but my god; ugh.
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I don't think it's Roland's fault. Summing all the strings together then applying distortion is a very different thing that distorting each single string then summing them. If you want to test yourself, do a 5-6 part harmony playing the individual notes from a chord on separate tracks and you can emulate your own version of this with any guitar you want.
 
IronSean said:
I don't think it's Roland's fault. Summing all the strings together then applying distortion is a very different thing that distorting each single string then summing them. If you want to test yourself, do a 5-6 part harmony playing the individual notes from a chord on separate tracks and you can emulate your own version of this with any guitar you want.
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I know what their intentions were. In general. They just pick dumb niche things to focus their attention on instead of things you see requested from their customers that actually MAKE SENSE. Sorry; non Fractal sidetrack :expressionless:
 
JiveTurkey said:
I know what their intentions were. In general. They just pick dumb niche things to focus their attention on instead of things you see requested from their customers that actually MAKE SENSE. Sorry; non Fractal sidetrack :expressionless:
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I can see the appeal of trying it out, witness the topic happening here.

OTOH, if I did try it out at the retail level and it sounded like that, if be seriously uninterested.

Trying to think of a context where it'd be amazing, since it sort of seems like it could be maybe, coming up blank.
 
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JiveTurkey said:
What a dumb piece of gear. Love me some Roland but my god; ugh.
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Just listened to it again, it's so weird lol. Single notes sound completely normal and guitar-like, but then he adds a harmony and it suddenly turns into a synth sound to my ears haha.
 
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JiveTurkey said:
I know what their intentions were. In general. They just pick dumb niche things to focus their attention on instead of things you see requested from their customers that actually MAKE SENSE. Sorry; non Fractal sidetrack :expressionless:
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Your avatar heh.
 
yeky83 said:
Just listened to it again, it's so weird lol. Single notes sound completely normal and guitar-like, but then he adds a harmony and it suddenly turns into a synth sound to my ears haha.
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I think a lot of it is simply the distortion itself is "cheap". Little, if any, tone shaping and a simple, static nonlinearity. Lots of aliasing too.

As much as people hate Nickleback they've gotten some awesome studio tones. One of their biggest selling records was done by playing single notes and building the chords "manually".

The advantage to distorting each string individually is you don't get any intermodulation distortion so there's much more clarity, especially with chords more complex than standard power chords.
 
FractalAudio said:
I think a lot of it is simply the distortion itself is "cheap". Little, if any, tone shaping and a simple, static nonlinearity. Lots of aliasing too.

As much as people hate Nickleback they've gotten some awesome studio tones. One of their biggest selling records was done by playing single notes and building the chords "manually".

The advantage to distorting each string individually is you don't get any intermodulation distortion so there's much more clarity, especially with chords more complex than standard power chords.
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I'm still waiting for @hippietim Fractal GK Hexagon rig to make it's internet debut :hearteyes:
 
FractalAudio said:
I think a lot of it is simply the distortion itself is "cheap". Little, if any, tone shaping and a simple, static nonlinearity. Lots of aliasing too.

As much as people hate Nickleback they've gotten some awesome studio tones. One of their biggest selling records was done by playing single notes and building the chords "manually".

The advantage to distorting each string individually is you don't get any intermodulation distortion so there's much more clarity, especially with chords more complex than standard power chords.
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Interesting, thanks!

So you're saying the hexaphonic pickup with a separate Axe-Fx for each string idea has promise...!
 
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FractalAudio said:
I think a lot of it is simply the distortion itself is "cheap". Little, if any, tone shaping and a simple, static nonlinearity. Lots of aliasing too.

As much as people hate Nickleback they've gotten some awesome studio tones. One of their biggest selling records was done by playing single notes and building the chords "manually".

The advantage to distorting each string individually is you don't get any intermodulation distortion so there's much more clarity, especially with chords more complex than standard power chords.
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Not sure why Nickelback gets so much hate but I agree that they have some great guitar tones. Most of their recordings sound huge and they get some really heavy guitar and drum sounds, especially on the albums The Long Road and All the Right Reasons. I haven't listened to any of their albums past All the Right Reasons but now I'm going to have to re-visit those albums and check out their newer stuff to see if they got even better tones.
 
FractalAudio said:
As much as people hate Nickleback they've gotten some awesome studio tones. One of their biggest selling records was done by playing single notes and building the chords "manually".
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Mutt Lange also did that on the records he produced for Def Leppard; I heard an interview with Phil Collen and he talked about the process and how laborious it was but it ultimately yielded great results vs recording 'conventionally'.
 
Nickleback gets a lot of ridicule simply because it became a social thing to rag on Nickleback at some point. "All the Right Reasons" is a Diamond certified album here in the US (more that 10 million copies sold). They also topped the Billboard Alternative, Hard Rock, and Rock charts as well. Clearly someone thought they were pretty good. The same thing happened with Disco in the 80's. It became fashionable to hate on Disco, even though in its heyday in the 70's it was wildly popular. It happened again to a degree with hair bands in the 90's when grunge took over. Times change and tastes change. That doesn't mean the music didn't succeed in reaching and entertaining massive numbers of people.
 
I think a lot of the hate towards Nickelback is simply jealousy. They sell millions of records, the women go crazy on them, Chad Kroeger has a million dollar voice, and their most successful songs have very simple four-chord progressions.
I think I read it on the Gearslutz forum, one guy there commented on a few hate posts about Nickelback something along the lines of "I am sure they sit somewhere in a hotel room after playing a show in front of 40.000 people, checking Gearslutz and wiping the tears from their eyes with $1000 bills when they read this."
 
FractalAudio said:
The advantage to distorting each string individually is you don't get any intermodulation distortion so there's much more clarity, especially with chords more complex than standard power chords.
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That's the reason I asked a multiband distortion: it retain some of the string intermodulation, but add clarity. Or, opposite view: same chord gain with lot of individual string gain! The multiband compressor with a cheap (bypassable) clipping stage on each band could be a nice starting point...
 
parlopower said:
I think a lot of the hate towards Nickelback is simply jealousy. They sell millions of records, the women go crazy on them, Chad Kroeger has a million dollar voice, and their most successful songs have very simple four-chord progressions.
I think I read it on the Gearslutz forum, one guy there commented on a few hate posts about Nickelback something along the lines of "I am sure they sit somewhere in a hotel room after playing a show in front of 40.000 people, checking Gearslutz and wiping the tears from their eyes with $1000 bills when they read this."
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Sales does not equal quality. Nothing wrong with musicsl commodities, and most people love catchy songs about nothing. I don't really dislike it, but I'd prefer to spend my time listening to Steve Vai, Tool, and a few other bands that have something more to say. Most people would rather come home from work, turn on the TV, eat cheetos and watch porn. Hmmm... maybe there's something to that...
 
Genghis said:
Sales does not equal quality. Nothing wrong with musicsl commodities, and most people love catchy songs about nothing. I don't really dislike it, but I'd prefer to spend my time listening to Steve Vai, Tool, and a few other bands that have something more to say. Most people would rather come home from work, turn on the TV, eat cheetos and watch porn. Hmmm... maybe there's something to that...
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Complexity does also not equal quality. And more importantly, there is a tendency that the more complex music is, the less it has to say. At the end of the day, music - as all art forms - is a means of communication. A means that is able to transport meaning and emotions in a way that purely verbal communication cannot deliver, which is exactly its true purpose - to surpass the limitations of mere speech and overcome the barriers of language. And the measure to which a song can do this is the measure of its true quality. That's what a lot of "musicians" don't get. Because for them it has become a self-serving exercise instead of a way to express and communicate meaning and emotion.

But people still get it. That's why they listen to what they listen to, because of the emotions they experience. A good artist can give that to them, because he has something to say that touches their heart. And under that aspect, songs like "Photograph"or "Far Away" have more meaning for more people than what any given guitar god of the day could ever dream to deliver. And they are flawlessly produced and performed. That is quality music. The only ones in denial are those who are jealous because people don't admire how they can play 16th note arpeggios at 178bpm.

Edit: I would like to add that of course I think music can be both - very complex and very emotional. For my taste, that is especially (but not exclusively) true for orchestral music, often orchestral movie soundtracks. One of the best examples for me are the first three or four pieces on the soundtrack of "The Perfect Storm", written and conducted by James Horner I believe. So beautiful it makes me cry, especially when you know the context of the movie.
 
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