10.09 - trip-tik: are you kidding me ?

To my ears, the classic sounds better than the modern channel comparing those two videos.

It's almost as if the modern channel is trying to be something it's not, but the classic channel nails the ultimate classic rock tone perfectly.

Hard to compare these two tones as there are so many differences in the recording setups (not just that the first (modern) is through a 1x12 Speaker cab and second (classic) is through a 1960A cab). To my ears the second video (Classic) is more pleasing but that may be due to the 1001 other variables in the recordings and not just the voicing of the amp.

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread the amp has a nice blend of "uniqueness yet familiar" tones. Can't wait to try it out later tonight.
 
I made a very simple X/Y amp with the 2 Caroll Ann (OD 2 and triptik) and found these are very good sounding, on my FRFR set up, at least. The triptik is quiet agressive, but very nice to my ears.
 
I own the amp, the modern voicing is killer, you have it in your axe so you can decide for yourself if you dig it or not. It is not trying to be something it is not, it does not sound like anything else I have owned or heard. I would caution anyone against relying on internet videos as a basis for your tonal decisions and thanks to Cliff you will soon have both ! I also really hope Cliff decides to model the clean channel since I think it is amazing.

For anyone who cares, there is some history related to the modern/classic voicing. Alan is a close friend of mine, I had been bugging him to build a more modern sounding amp, that had the typical Carol Ann tonal qualities, for about three years. He had always said no to my request, (generally his answer was Fuck off Mate) because he felt that it wasn't his thing and he doesn't generally like those kind of tones. He was repairing some of my high gain amps and out of frustration with the tone and build qualities from them he grabbed a 73 Marshall he had laying in a heap in the corner and modded it to be his version of "Modern High Gain with Class". He brought it over and I was floored by it. That is how the Triptik came to be. He then designed a killer clean for the amp, dual gain channels, lead master and the classic and modern voicing. The classic mode only exists because Alan could not bear to make an amp that was not able to get his idea of the perfect rock tone (he is a Brit after all), for me that is the modern voicing for him that was the classic voicing. We both laugh about it because it was a compromise of him building me a modern rock amp. The amp sounded so bad ass he decided to put it in the line.



To my ears, the classic sounds better than the modern channel comparing those two videos.

It's almost as if the modern channel is trying to be something it's not, but the classic channel nails the ultimate classic rock tone perfectly.
 
Hey, at least he called you "mate."

I just plugged the TripTik into my Friedman HBE patch, which was my personal Holy Grail for lead tones. I must have said that out loud, because I just saved the result (with little tweaking) into that preset slot. Maybe it's too soon, but right now I feel this is the amp of my dreams. I can't spend more time with it today, but will as the week goes on and it will get gigged Thursday and this weekend. If the clean is half as good as you say and Cliff models that, I can see all five of my main presets as variations of that amp - and I'm okay with that!

Many, many thanks for the classy contributions of jharpersj and Alan - and Cliff, of course, who has made the Axe-Fx II into the 365 days of Christmas!
 
Just thought I'd drop back in here with another sound clip from this fantastic amp. A lot of guys coming around saying "But that doesn't sound too modern..." So here you go.

Note that there is no drive pedal in front of the amp. It's just amp and the OH Beta and OH Mesa SM57 going into a PEQ. I just added a bit of EQ in the DAW to get rid of some summing nasties, and an instance of Slate VTM on both right and left tracks. Oh, and I recorded these tracks in the middle of trying to keep a puppy from chewing my studio apart, so it's a bit on the hurried side again.



EDIT: Here's the link to the recording page that has the details on the amp:

http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-f...avy-stuff-quite-well-just-guitar-content.html
 
Last edited:
Cool man !! one thing to note for everyone interested in trying this amp model, the Triptik is the Carol Ann version of a modern rock amp, if your idea of modern is the red mode of a dual rec or an ENGL then this is not that. Alan will never build a buzzy harsh sounding amp. Those amps work great for a lot of things too, I am not knocking that sound. The Triptik was designed to be tight, warm, 3D, articulate and have a modern response and feel that could cover any and all of your rock, heavy rock styles. For the death metal guys probably not :>


Just thought I'd drop back in here with another sound clip from this fantastic amp. A lot of guys coming around saying "But that doesn't sound too modern..." So here you go.

Note that there is no drive pedal in front of the amp. It's just amp and the OH Beta and OH Mesa SM57 going into a PEQ. I just added a bit of EQ in the DAW to get rid of some summing nasties, and an instance of Slate VTM on both right and left tracks. Oh, and I recorded these tracks in the middle of trying to keep a puppy from chewing my studio apart, so it's a bit on the hurried side again.

 
With MV up and drive down i totally changed the amp from modern heavy to more of a 70's heavy. Same cab and same eq. Damn that's a versatile amp.... Anything Cliff put in of Carol-Ann in the Axe, i'm all in.
 
Cool man !! one thing to note for everyone interested in trying this amp model, the Triptik is the Carol Ann version of a modern rock amp, if your idea of modern is the red mode of a dual rec or an ENGL then this is not that. Alan will never build a buzzy harsh sounding amp. Those amps work great for a lot of things too, I am not knocking that sound. The Triptik was designed to be tight, warm, 3D, articulate and have a modern response and feel that could cover any and all of your rock, heavy rock styles. For the death metal guys probably not :>

I totally see where you're coming from...
but there's no rules...
so if it works.. it sticks...

that clip sounded great to me...
 
Some amps you have to work at it to sound good. You would have to work real hard to make this thing sound bad! Want a darker, creamy tone - turn down the mids. Want it more aggressive - crank up the mids and presence. It's all one sweet sweet-spot! My thanks to all involved!
 
Cliff did a great job modeling it, that is exactly how the real amp responds.

Some amps you have to work at it to sound good. You would have to work real hard to make this thing sound bad! Want a darker, creamy tone - turn down the mids. Want it more aggressive - crank up the mids and presence. It's all one sweet sweet-spot! My thanks to all involved!
 
I just tried this amp and absolutely cannot believe it. It is incredible.

I just tweaked a few knobs and went from AC/DC to And Justice For All to Dream Theater to a super high gain firebreathing, yet refined and controlled tone all within a few minutes with this one amp. Every single one of those sounds was great and didn't feel compromised at all. I've never seen/heard an amp do that before to anywhere near this degree.

I am absolutely in love with the TripTik. I have to say when I heard "tighter, refined Marshall," I didn't have extremely high expectations just because I don't really think of Carol Ann amps for this type of sound but I cannot believe it sounds as good as it does and is as versatile as it is with basically next to no effort on my part required. Good lord.

Cliff and Alan, you have outdone yourselves. Thank you both so much.
 
Last edited:
i just updated and tried it as well

bloody hell!

ii think it may push the HBE out and that's saying something...

i might knock up a quick patch and try it at rehearsal tonight... :)
 
last night I set myself the task of including the TripTik ni one of my experimental multi-timbral presets..

ok so I got all the control side working, but epically failed to dial in the tones..
why?
cos I ended up noodling with the TripTik and without realising it, noodled away the whole night

a loss of productivity due to pure joy..
 
Haven't had the chance to play too much with the Trip-tik model yet, but I do have an actual 50W Triptik here, running through a 2x12 Cab with Celestion H75s.

The thing that gets me with this amp is that even with a fair amount of gain, there is still an amazing clarity to the sound. You can still hear each individual string ring out when playing chords. The wound string in particular seem to 'jump' out at you when plucking them - almost like the amp has 'reverse compression'... It's a great amp for sure.

My preference on this amp though, is the 'Classic' voicing. Wonder if Cliff will model both voicings in future firmware editions, seeing as he mentioned you cannot user tweak the parameters to recreate the effect of the switch.

Yes...Classic please!
 
Cliff did a great job modeling it, that is exactly how the real amp responds.

Harper, you ever try your Axe through the loop of your Triptik (assuming it has a loop).
Wondering how nice the Axe may sound through Alan's power section.
If it's insanely good, why don't you talk him into building a rack power section.....
 
It has a killer efx loop, I have tried it before and it was great with the axe but did not try it with the triptik model because Cliff has the amps at the moment. I had talked to him, about a year ago, about building an all tube power amp that had a mixing console style EQ in it so if you ran it with your Ax you could make EQ changes without touching your presets. I think with the current backlog with just building amps he probably would not do it, or tell me to f'off for a few years and then do it ha ha


Harper, you ever try your Axe through the loop of your Triptik (assuming it has a loop).
Wondering how nice the Axe may sound through Alan's power section.
If it's insanely good, why don't you talk him into building a rack power section.....
 
It has a killer efx loop, I have tried it before and it was great with the axe but did not try it with the triptik model because Cliff has the amps at the moment. I had talked to him, about a year ago, about building an all tube power amp that had a mixing console style EQ in it so if you ran it with your Ax you could make EQ changes without touching your presets. I think with the current backlog with just building amps he probably would not do it, or tell me to f'off for a few years and then do it ha ha

I would buy it faster than he could build it :D
 
Back
Top Bottom