5150 Presence Knob

Do You Want the 5150 Presence Control to be Authentic?

  • Yes

    Votes: 160 36.6%

  • No

    Votes: 277 63.4%
  • Total voters
    437
DJD100 said:
The proposed presence knob positioning has no effect on the sound aside from where the knob pointer is pointing (with regards to this presence control's pot taper), and the ease of obtaining a preferred setting over 100% of the pot's travel vs only 25% (which reduces the control's granularity).

Ultimately it's a trivial matter within the big picture, and the calls for Fractal to do a bunch of work to provide both concepts for all amp models are ridiculous to say the least. The only benefit of the non-idealized pot taper is for people who don't use their ears, who instead use their eyes and prefer to copy settings, or own the real amps, but to each their own.

What's funny is that the vast majority of these various modeled tube amps are way more similar that they are different, and things like the cab(s)/speaker(s), mic(s)/mic locations/recording and playing environments/mic-pre(s), picks/fingers, pups, scale lengths, string types, tunings, and drives used have as much effect, or more often vastly more effect on the final results than the various tube amp's themselves (which makes pot tapers an even smaller point of contention in our view).

We Toobians are now officially withdrawing our vote for idealized (even though this is impossible via the poll's GUI?), and we'll merely vote present going forward seeing we're now officially neutral on the matter.

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It may be trivial but it’s extremely relevant to know how the amps are modeled. We need to know if the controls are authentic or not. There’s multiple reasons why and it’s been shared in this thread.
 
Authentic.

There’s an Ideal page for this stuff.

I also have it in my head that I heard James Brown or Howard Kaplan bring up a story about a single pot being different from the rest in a pre-production amp they sent Ed, but Ed preferred it so it stayed. I just skimmed both the ToneTalks with them on it but couldn’t find the story. But at the very least, if that turns out to be true, I’d keep it ‘wrong’ for that alone.
 
levipeto said:
"The only benefit of the non-idealized pot taper is for people who don't use their ears, who instead use their eyes and prefer to copy settings, or own the real amps, but to each their own.".

Because you can use Axe-Fx different ways!
You can use it to express yourself: using your ears; and you can use it as a learning tool. If I can copy the settings from an article or a rig down, it's not because I want to copy his tone, but I want to learn from if. I want to feel, what he feels even if it doesn't make sense!
Edward used a bunch of broken stuff, including his pickup, that instead of throwing it out, used it as inspiration. Eric Clapton's amp was designed to get his sound at 7 - 7 - 7 settings. Makes no sense, but that's his thing. If I want to feel what he feels at 777 I want to able to set it 777 and feel it and not read the manual that explains it to me that to get that sound I need 5-9-3, because that's logical.

This is very important. When people talk about some people can play like Edward better than others. You can't just copy his technic and amp settings. If you don't know what he felt, the ocean, the parties, the bohemian lifestyle, where all the playness came from, then you won't understand the core of it. When they talk about how Edward had an unmatched swing, it does not come from practicing, it comes from the back yard parties in Orange County when they had fun! It comes from fun and not logic!
If I want to understand a players background and want to feel on the amp what he felt, to learn more about the person I need authenticity, not using my ears! I don't care if a mesa boogie takes me closer to that sound if he used Marshall. In that case I could just use a Line6 and use my ears. I could create amazing tones in 1997 with my POD 2 using my ears. That is not the reason I have an Axe-Fx.
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You're not going feel what EVH felt playing the models unless you use real cabs at 120db, his guitars and FX, strings and picks, tunings, and have his technique down, especially his right hand picking and tapping.

I shared Studio America in Pasadena with VH back when they were demoing VH2, and EVH had the magic Plexi along with his Roland 10-Band, EP3, Vox Wah, Phaser and Flanger, plus the Variac and his Franken-Strats of course. He sounded amazing clean boosted and dimed through a single 4X12 Marshall cab in that relatively small studio environment (though he was playing ridiculously loud sans hearing protection warming up and rehearsing anyway, as a dimed and clean boosted Plexi, even through a single 4X12 and Variac'd is a death ray to mere humans!).

However, the reason he sounded amazing wasn't the rig, it was EVH's talent and ability (and certainly not his presence pot's taper LOL)!
 
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C'mon! We wanna see those votes converted people! Leads lead to sales!! C'mon team! Performance based bonus-i at the end of the week!!
 
FractalAudio said:
Even though the poll is leaning ideal, I'm personally leaning authentic.
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As someone who's never used the real-life amps in question, I was leaning ideal, but after reading the comments I feel authentic would be better in the long run.
 
My hot takes:
1. The number of people suggesting an Ideal/Authentic switch on the knob is baffling.

To support that on every amp model (even if hidden for most), every hardware, and every editor UI... plus the extra confusion, questions about what it is and why it's there, and complications for people sharing settings or screenshots... and doesn't even affect the tone...

2. I don't see how this is "harder" for someone who is just jumping between different amp models and trying things out. If you're just trying out different models you should have no expectation about what the knobs do and really be using your ears.

"I tried the amp and it didn't have enough presense." "Did you try turning up the presence?" "What?! No! What kind of monser would do that?!"

3. But on the opposite side, if you have prior expectations about an amp then it's better if it works as expected. Then you can rely both on advice about the Fractal model, and advice about the real amps you find elsewhere too.

Just picture this: "I'm very familiar with these amps and want to test my new Axe FX to see if it can replace them for recording and live" "So how did it go?" "Awful, the model was super bright and shrill, not like my real amps at all. And a lot of people online say this is the case because it's using an IR instead of an 'Amp in the room', so I guess that's just the way modellers are. Maybe for bedroom warriors it's cool but I'll stick to my real amps"

Listening to a close mic'd sound from studio monitors for the first time is already jarring for new users without the presence at 5 actually behaving like the presence at 8 enexpectedly adding to the experience.

4. It's not like this is the one case where an amp has something weird people might need to know to get the most from it. People need to learn that bogners have weird treble pots, both on the ecstasy and the uberschall. They have to learn why some amps like Fryette have two gain controls. Heck, the "legendary" Mesa Mark series of amps is so unusual Mesa has an unshakable reputation about being hard to dial, because the BMT knobs are before the distortion and need to be used like an Input EQ, while the 5-band is where the controls are on most high gain amps. And as an extra twist, people often try and replicate common EQ shapes on that 5-band and then get confused when it isn't doing what the expected because those are also idealized. At least if the model matches reality any google for "5150 presence" will immediately bring you to information about it which isn't contradictory.

5. There may be a "loss of usable range", but the Axe allows you to specify to 2 decimal points. You have 300 discrete settings between 7 and 10 on the knob to play with even if that is the compressed "useful range".

But further to that, people in this thread have mentioned "everyone sets it at 8 because that's where it starts working" but the majority of people online I can find actually talk about keeping it at 3-4, and complaining that above 7 it becomes way too much. Would the "ideal" taper change that so that 1-2 is the sweet spot for the people liking less presence?
 
IronSean said:
My hot takes:
1. The number of people suggesting an Ideal/Authentic switch on the knob is baffling.

To support that on every amp model (even if hidden for most), every hardware, and every editor UI... plus the extra confusion, questions about what it is and why it's there, and complications for people sharing settings or screenshots... and doesn't even affect the tone...

2. I don't see how this is "harder" for someone who is just jumping between different amp models and trying things out. If you're just trying out different models you should have no expectation about what the knobs do and really be using your ears.

"I tried the amp and it didn't have enough presense." "Did you try turning up the presence?" "What?! No! What kind of monser would do that?!"

3. But on the opposite side, if you have prior expectations about an amp then it's better if it works as expected. Then you can rely both on advice about the Fractal model, and advice about the real amps you find elsewhere too.

Just picture this: "I'm very familiar with these amps and want to test my new Axe FX to see if it can replace them for recording and live" "So how did it go?" "Awful, the model was super bright and shrill, not like my real amps at all. And a lot of people online say this is the case because it's using an IR instead of an 'Amp in the room', so I guess that's just the way modellers are. Maybe for bedroom warriors it's cool but I'll stick to my real amps"

Listening to a close mic'd sound from studio monitors for the first time is already jarring for new users without the presence at 5 actually behaving like the presence at 8 enexpectedly adding to the experience.

4. It's not like this is the one case where an amp has something weird people might need to know to get the most from it. People need to learn that bogners have weird treble pots, both on the ecstasy and the uberschall. They have to learn why some amps like Fryette have two gain controls. Heck, the "legendary" Mesa Mark series of amps is so unusual Mesa has an unshakable reputation about being hard to dial, because the BMT knobs are before the distortion and need to be used like an Input EQ, while the 5-band is where the controls are on most high gain amps. And as an extra twist, people often try and replicate common EQ shapes on that 5-band and then get confused when it isn't doing what the expected because those are also idealized. At least if the model matches reality any google for "5150 presence" will immediately bring you to information about it which isn't contradictory.

5. There may be a "loss of usable range", but the Axe allows you to specify to 2 decimal points. You have 300 discrete settings between 7 and 10 on the knob to play with even if that is the compressed "useful range".

But further to that, people in this thread have mentioned "everyone sets it at 8 because that's where it starts working" but the majority of people online I can find actually talk about keeping it at 3-4, and complaining that above 7 it becomes way too much. Would the "ideal" taper change that so that 1-2 is the sweet spot for the people liking less presence?
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I totally agree. And yes, in general Presence above 7 is usually too much for me although it depends on the situation. My knob stays between 6-8 all the time.
 
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