Axe-Fx III 16.00 Beta 4 "Cygnus" Firmware - Public Beta

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Warning with these type of comment , wear a shield 🛡. It seems you play metal, which amp gives you this feel ?
Metal? Why would you think that ;-).

Specifically, it's the 5153 100w Red Channel, but there are others. Things just seem darker to me with less definition with more spongy lows and woof. I worked with the 5153 tone for quite a while and never could get it to where it was. @Tone Ranger had mentioned something about "Cygnus not having the dynamic depth and presence controls" which he said he read in the tech notes, but I couldn't find. I was hoping he might be able to share what he did to resolve the issue.

I'm sure I'll adjust, just looking for a little help :).

Note: I'm running into a Matrix GT800fx through an Orange ppc412hp 400. Fishman Fluence modern pups, mostly on passive voice.
 
This is a beta. Feedback is welcome. If your opinion of Cygnus is not positive, that’s ok. People may make suggestions based on those comments, and that should be ok too.

“Sounds like shit” isn’t very helpful though, and is a bit rude considering all the work going into this. The more specifics that can be communicated, the easier that can be understood and considered.
 
Metal? Why would you think that ;-).

Specifically, it's the 5153 100w Red Channel, but there are others. Things just seem darker to me with less definition with more spongy lows and woof. I worked with the 5153 tone for quite a while and never could get it to where it was. @Tone Ranger had mentioned something about "Cygnus not having the dynamic depth and presence controls" which he said he read in the tech notes, but I couldn't find. I was hoping he might be able to share what he did to resolve the issue.

I'm sure I'll adjust, just looking for a little help :).

Note: I'm running into a Matrix GT800fx through an Orange ppc412hp 400. Fishman Fluence modern pups, mostly on passive voice.
Cliff mentioned he found a bug in that model and will adjust things in a future version.

Aside from that amp, I find more definition overall. Some amps have a bit more low end, and I just reduce the Bass knob or use the Output EQ in the Amp block as needed.
 
Metal? Why would you think that ;-).

Specifically, it's the 5153 100w Red Channel, but there are others. Things just seem darker to me with less definition with more spongy lows and woof. I worked with the 5153 tone for quite a while and never could get it to where it was. @Tone Ranger had mentioned something about "Cygnus not having the dynamic depth and presence controls" which he said he read in the tech notes, but I couldn't find. I was hoping he might be able to share what he did to resolve the issue.

I'm sure I'll adjust, just looking for a little help :).

Note: I'm running into a Matrix GT800fx through an Orange ppc412hp 400. Fishman Fluence modern pups, mostly on passive voice.
Consider the source of the information you are processing ......
 
Just as a reminder...

  1. First and foremost, be civil and courteous. Attacks, insults or harassment of others will not be tolerated.
  2. No excessively foul language, trolling, hate speech, or adult content. Also, don't SHOUT.
  3. None of this stuff like "I can hear something and if you can't hear it you're an idiot." Tone is subjective and personal. If others don't agree with your opinion that's life. Take the "stereophile" nonsense elsewhere.
  4. Respect the moderators and the founders of the forum. The moderators do their job without pay and graciously dedicate their time.
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/forum-rules.25484/
 
ok I m back from the future (and back to 15.01)

+
more PICK attack in clean sounds and light gain overdrive amps like fender's or marshall
the high gain are more dirty and sound more like tubes head
the archon i never really liked sounds good !
the 5130 red is not so bad

-
i need to redo all my presets
most of the heads i like are not in the beta , so I cannot stay in beta .
more dirty is cool for some big rock genre, but for tight metal things, prog, death /thrash ... i think i need to redo tons of hours of tweaking .

when you are in the beta, you want to turn back , and then , when I retry the sound i have in the 15.01 i said : ok , the beta is better .
everything in the 15.01 sound thinner , smaller in a way, and boxy sounding (in high gain , not in fenders and others )

so yes . time to wait the whole thing once again .

Great job , it sounds more true . But thats not an update for metal and I didnt see any "chug" /tightness/ohmmff I expected there when they annouced this "cygnus" thing some weeks ago . I was expecting crazy palm muting sounds
Give it time, I’m sure you’ll hear some tight metal sounds out of this thing when the ball really gets rolling. No one announced that all your old presets would instantly sound better with the new firmware.
 
Question about the amazing video @2112 put up yesterday. At the start, Leon mentioned that as usual he was using one of his IRs and how we could download them all. I zoomed in when he showed the can block and it read “LT TV Mix 7”. I looked around and I can’t find that one with his other shared IRs. Leon can you point us to that one?
 
I'm really impressed with the sound in this new firmware. It's nuanced well beyond what I heard in Ares, and I thought that was good enough to use instead of my real amps.

I wandered through my own presets with my headphones on, listening carefully, and again and again I could easily have been sitting in a control room listening to a miked amp in the other room. It was eerie at times.

To me it's like the noise floor has been reduced remarkably, and that clarity has been boosted, and that's with clean, edge-of-breakup, and pre-amps and/or power-amps spitting their guts out. One preset using the 50 watt Plexi was hard to move beyond because it was like a real stack was at the other end of my guitar cord. The ODS-types are richer sounding, the Fenders are like the original blackface Deluxes and the tweed Bassman I had. It's like an audio wonderland. :)

I'm gonna go wander through the factory presets. I look forward to being able to use this firmware on the FM3.

Good job Fractal!
 
Cliff mentioned he found a bug in that model and will adjust things in a future version.

Aside from that amp, I find more definition overall. Some amps have a bit more low end, and I just reduce the Bass knob or use the Output EQ in the Amp block as needed.
Oh cool, man. Great to know I wasn't imagining something up with that model. Overall, I've absolutely noticed more low end in Cygnus, and that's something I can work with, but nothing I was doing on the 5153 Red seemed to get it as good as it was. I'm pretty new the the Fractal world, moving over from 8 years with a Kemper, and I'm loving it. Appreciate the info.
 
I can only guess because, I’m FM3, but, if Cygnus is supposed to be more accurate, well, then an Overdrive pedal would be a must to make most tube amps “metal”.

That’s accuracy.
 
I can only guess because, I’m FM3, but, if Cygnus is supposed to be more accurate, well, then an Overdrive pedal would be a must to make most tube amps “metal”.

That’s accuracy.
That's not the reality of "most tube amps" though. Amps have all sorts of designs, and some are supposed to be clean, which people like to use as a platform for their pedals. Others are designed to create the sound that the pedal designers are trying to imitate and don't need a pedal.

For instance, my main amp is a ToneKing Imperial Mk II, which has an amazing clean channel, but its drive channel sounds like a pissed-off Marshall if I want it to. For years I plugged straight in and didn't use any pedals with it because it was so much fun. Then I decided to plug my pedal board into the clean side and run it at the edge of break-up, and push it with a drive pedal, and it sounded wonderful too.

Cygnus is more accurate for all types of amps so if you're wanting a tube amp to act as a base for your drive block, then it'll sound better too because the amp sounds better. Similarly, the metal and hard-rock sounds with just a head or combo that are designed for that style sound better.
 
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That's not the reality of "most tube amps" though. Amps have all sorts of designs, and some are supposed to be clean, which people like to use as a platform for their pedals. Others are designed to create the sound that the pedal designers are trying to imitate and don't need a pedal.

Cygnus is more accurate for all types of amps so if you're wanting a tube amp to act as a base for your drive block, then it'll sound better too because the amp sounds better.
I getcha, but somebody a few posts ago was saying that Cygnus wasn’t as tight as the previous firmware.
 
You guys realize some of you have been complaining about a fw that's not even been released yet?? It's an uncomplete beta, it's like your wife just turned on the oven and you tell her the Wellington filet was much better last week..!
 
You guys realize some of you have been complaining about a fw that's not even been released yet?? It's an uncomplete beta, it's like your wife just turned on the oven and you tell her the Wellington filet was much better last week..!
 

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I can only guess because, I’m FM3, but, if Cygnus is supposed to be more accurate, well, then an Overdrive pedal would be a must to make most tube amps “metal”.

That’s accuracy.
I have tried the od 808 and precision drive to tighten the tone in Cygnus, it works well, specially the 808. The precision drive is very present . I normally don’t like to add boost as it add a synthetic filter effect, or I put a neutral boost in the amp section . I think I will be obliged to add boost in most of high gain heads to tight them . The cut button helps .
I have noticed a very strange sound in mark 4 with the presence shift button activated in the ideal page (it was named like that ?, the button down right )
 
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