AC30 Amp Match with Clips, Pics and Presets

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year2525

Inspired
Hi guys,

after getting to know the tone match functionality better I finally managed to complete the first set of amp matches.

I matched the Top Boost channel of my Vox AC30 Head, as seen in the picture below.



I’ll be adding the Normal channel soon.
After that I’ll be trying to get the Channel 3 of the Diezel in the background into the Axe.

I’ve matched the whole amp section (preamp + poweramp).
I grabbed the signal between poweramp and cab while having the box connected.
Matching ONLY the preamp was a lot easier but as I’m seriously thinking about replacing my amps with the Axe I needed to have the sound of the whole thing.

Because the tone colour changes with increasing gain I found that one match doesn’t do it justice.
As a consequence, I matched the Top Boost channel in 6 positions (see marks in the pic below):

9 o’clock
10.30
12
1.30
3
5.30 (full gain)



I tried to leave most parameters alone, especially the EQ.
In the higher gain patches I had to set the bass to 2.50 in order to get closest.
The Axe AC30 model has very much bass and it seems to even increase dramatically with higher gain settings.
Bright switch was turned on in the Axe amp.
Also, I’ve found that I always had to set the gain a little higher in the Axe amp controls in order to match the corresponding setting of the real amp.

During the routing and matching process I was very careful with setting all levels properly.

Key was setting the Bright Cap from 60 to 150.
The real amp still seems to have a bit more sizzle up to (and beyond) 20000 Hz whereas the Axe amp doesn’t have as much energy up there.
But this doesn’t really matter as there’s not really happening anything above 12000 Hz, in fact, the important things are below 7000 Hz then.

Regarding the test signal, using pink noise seemed the most reliable to me as I always got closer than with white noise.
As a comparison, see the next image, which shows the same tone match, on the left with pink noise, and with white noise on the right side.



As you can see, there is a difference in the curve. The result of the pink noise seems to be a bit more detailed in the high end and judging by ear, it seems to pick up the character of the reference source better.

Here are a few files with different settings to compare original and Axe.
I’ve used a Cab IR that I shot of the 412 GSH12 V30 box you see in the pic.

In the following 3 audio examples you’ll hear only 4 standard chords (A, G, D, E) to quickly compare.
I recorded a DI and reamped with the Axe.
The guitar in the following clips is an American Tele (as said before, it was not used to match!):



The gain settings used are:

10:30

Real AC30 vs Axe AC30 TB 1030 4 Chords by trapped by giraffe on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

12:00

Real AC30 vs Axe AC30 TB 1200 4 Chords by trapped by giraffe on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

01:30

Real AC30 vs Axe AC30 TB 0130 4 Chords by trapped by giraffe on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free


The last clip compares a 03:00 gain setting with a short riff.

03:00

Real AC30 vs Axe AC30 TB 0300 Riff by trapped by giraffe on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free



All presets were exclusively created through the front panel, so there should be no bug when you load the TMA block.
The presets are still in the tone match template, you may delete the third row of the grid.
They are completely dry, only Amp and TMA are activated.
It is recommended to activate a cab though!
Cab is attached as well.

Hope you got some use for them!
It really sounds totally like my AC30.
 

Attachments

  • AC30 Head TB Ch 0900.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 439
  • AC30 Head TB Ch 1030.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 324
  • AC30 Head TB Ch 1200.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 340
  • AC30 Head TB Ch 0130.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 327
  • AC30 Head TB Ch 0300.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 336
  • AC30 Head TB Ch 0530.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 339
  • VOX 412 GSH12 V30.syx
    10.6 KB · Views: 464
Last edited:
Easiest to recognize the AXF when playing the riff. I'm 97.4% sure the last part of the riff snippet is the AC30. Or that the first part is the AXF, if you prefer 8)
 
Last edited:
Trazan said:
Easiest to recognize the AXF when playing the riff. I'm 99.7% sure the last part of the riff snippet is the AC30. Or that the first part is the AXF, if you prefer 8)
Click to expand...

That's correct, the introduced noise by the amp is clearly audible when the last chord rings and gets softer.
I won't miss that noise, though!

What about the other examples?
 
year2525 said:
That's correct, the introduced noise by the amp is clearly audible when the last chord rings and gets softer.
I won't miss that noise, though!

What about the other examples?
Click to expand...

It's not the noise, it's the character. AFX has an "Orban"-like attack to it...hard to describe. Orban is a multiband-compressor thingy used in broadcast.

Yeah, the chords sound very similar. Not that easy to tell from just strummin' some chords though, and the gain was a bit different between the two.
 
Great work!!!! Awesome! Samples sounds spot on! And it`s very useful, that you post exactly what you`ve done! Including nice pictures ... love it! Have to try out your patches - for sure....

What Mic and which position did you use for capture the CAB IR? Is it caputured with an SS AMP?

I also found out, that the setting of the bright cap is very important to get authentic results, when playin` with different guitar volumes ... For myself i was very happy with results using a sine-sweep at 0db from the synth-block and setting the time parameter to "PEAK HOLD". Tried different things (triangle, pink noise, sine ... all together ...different levels), but came up to these settings for the test tone ...
 
Glad you like it, guys! Awesome!


Trazan said:
It's not the noise, it's the character. AFX has an "Orban"-like attack to it...hard to describe. Orban is a multiband-compressor thingy used in broadcast.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I get what you mean. There are slight differences in the sound of the riff. I gotta switch forth and back to really be able to tell for sure, though.
But when playing myself (especially at good room volume and above) they are are negligible to me.

We compared both amps and in the end we really couldn't tell the difference, playing through the real cab it was totally impossible.
 
Morphosis said:
Great work!!!! Awesome! Samples sounds spot on! And it`s very useful, that you post exactly what you`ve done! Including nice pictures ... love it! Have to try out your patches - for sure....

What Mic and which position did you use for capture the CAB IR? Is it caputured with an SS AMP?
Click to expand...

I borrowed a Solid state amp (Art Sla), time to get a Matrix or something like that myself.

Mics used were my fav combo: 121, e906 and a bit of 57 (mixed in the DAW), all close to the... cotton (see what I did there? :D), about 2 thirds of an inch.
 
Last edited:
Wow, VERY cool and very detailed testing/explanation. Can you expound on this a bit?

"We compared both amps and in the end we really couldn't tell the difference, playing through the real cab it was totally impossible."

So are you saying that playing the newly created patches / tone matches AND using the IR capture (cab block) through ??? <FRFR? Studio Monitors???> vs. playing through the live amp rig it sounds very close?
And then using AxeFX II with cab sims off into power amp + the actual cab it's dead on?
The reason I ask is because I'm debating as to whether I am ready to try full blown FRFR again now that people are doing high quality IR captures of great cabs/speakers and doing amazing stuff with Tone Matching. I play at very moderate volumes and although I love my matrix loaded cab, I'm starting to miss the detail and ease of use of one patch/path for all monitoring sources: headphones, nearfield monitors, FRFR.
 
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