Acoustic Simulator - Why None?

Tones2 said:
Thanks for the total simplification of the issue, and making it combatant when it was meant to be suggestive. :rolleyes:
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Well, you're not the first by any means to ask for this and not the first to misunderstand why it's not something that Fractal is leaping to provide -- the basis for doing it well already exists in the unit as we've discussed and demonstrated at length in this thread, right?

Bottom line is I do not want to change EVERY SINGLE PATCH (hundreds) to turnoff the cabinet block just to have ONE patch be able to emulate an acoustic. There are times when I'm NOT playing through a cabinet that I want them on again, so then I would have to go through hundreds of patches to turn them all on again. This is not just a "turn of the knob". This is an unworkable solution.
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Maybe you're asking for the wrong thing then? Maybe what you want is the ability to override the global cabinet off/on setting on a per-preset basis? Then your complaint about the amount of work you'd need to do to use the CAB block for acoustic emulation is satisfied, right?

(Will also say that hundreds of patches is probably an exaggeration...you don't gig with hundreds of patches, right? You really only need to change the patches you play with live.)

Yes I could buy an external acoustic simulator and run it through the effects loop, which is what I'll probably do, but I was just making the suggestion of just including one in the unit. I mean, this is an multi-effect processor - it's NOT unreasonable to have an acoustic simulator in a multi-effects processor, as MOST of them do. I was just wondering if there was some TECHNICAL reason why this couldn't be done specific to the AX8. THAT is my suggestion / question.
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Or you could step back and consider what you're asking for and how you might ask for something else instead that also gets you to a solution...
 
Yes, being that we already have the Poltergeist Pig preset, why is there the need for an Acoustic Simulator preset?
 
iaresee said:
Well, there's the disconnect.

The GP-10 uses a hexaphonic pickup and synthesis techniques to do it's thing. Fractal products don't do synthesis. If you want a polyphonic guitar synth, you'll need to use a polyphonic guitar synth.
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No disconnect. I do not believe the GP-10 is doing synthesis in this case but rather modeling the input. For years people claimed you could not do polyphonic pitch shifting, and yet now it's possible and available in the AX8. People claimed you could not do polyphonic synthesis without hex pickups, and yet now it's possible (look at the Boss SY-300 and multiple EHX products).

I realize that as much as many of us would like it, the AX8 can't possibly do absolutely everything. But in fact the AX8 does do synthesis. Not polyphonic for the time being, and I have no idea if they plan to expand that aspect of things. But I think with very powerful products like the AX8, it's more about the priorities of the developer (which should match the majority of users by and large) as to what a device can and can't do as at this point the sky is pretty much the limit.
 
Will Chen said:
No disconnect. I do not believe the GP-10 is doing synthesis in this case but rather modeling the input.
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According to the product page from Boss I found here:

With a Roland GK-compatible pickup on your guitar, the GP-10 lets you transform your sound into numerous classic electric and acoustic guitar types, basses, and even analog-modeled synths, including the legendary Roland GR-300.
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Emphasis mine. But, no, the GP-10 is not modeling, if the manufacturers website is to be trusted.

it's more about the priorities of the developer (which should match the majority of users by and large) as to what a device can and can't do as at this point the sky is pretty much the limit.
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It's not about priorities at all, but base capabilities. None of the Fractal gear is synthesis gear that uses MIDI input like the GP-10 does to do its thing.

If you want to do modeling-to-modeling comparisons I'll bet heavily, every time that the Fractal IR + EQ approach is going to produce a better acoustic emulation than anything else out there. There have already been examples provided in this thread of the Fractal solution -- still waiting on the non-Fractal solutions that don't use synthesis. If that's not good enough, well, you need to go hex pickup and a device that supports it, which isn't Fractal. Asking Fractal to match a hex pickup solution without a hex pickup is just getting into silly absurd territory.
 
iaresee said:
According to the product page from Boss I found here:



Emphasis mine. But, no, the GP-10 is not modeling, if the manufacturers website is to be trusted.


It's not about priorities at all, but base capabilities. None of the Fractal gear is synthesis gear that uses MIDI input like the GP-10 does to do its thing.

If you want to do modeling-to-modeling comparisons I'll bet heavily, every time that the Fractal IR + EQ approach is going to produce a better acoustic emulation than anything else out there. There have already been examples provided in this thread of the Fractal solution -- still waiting on the non-Fractal solutions that don't use synthesis. If that's not good enough, well, you need to go hex pickup and a device that supports it, which isn't Fractal. Asking Fractal to match a hex pickup solution without a hex pickup is just getting into silly absurd territory.
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Not interested in a pissing contest, as such this will be my last post on the topic.

I don't see why asking for something informally in a polite manner which could be useful is such a "my way or the highway" issue for you. There are many features within the AX8 I'll never use and don't care about, I'm still glad they are there and if they resulted from interaction with this forum even better as it indicates a company which listens to their customers.

I'm a former owner of the GP-10 and I can 100% assure you that the acoustic tones are modeling. You are misinterpreting that quote. Yes, you do need a hexaphonic pickup, but that's due to them implementing alternate tunings as part of the Modeling Guitar (this is how it is referenced in the manual, and it's not just acoustics, electrics too). There is no MIDI triggering in the GP-10, that's a common misconception of this and the V-Guitar units which use a hex pickup, and quite a complement to Roland/Boss modeling if you thought those were triggered tones as this isn't one of their guitar synth products which uses triggering of synthesized instruments and samples. On the GP-10 modeled acoustics you can perform palm mutes, play pinch/tap harmonics, play slide, etc. Asking for alternate tunings without a hex pickups might be absurd based on current technology, but modeling acoustics is far from it IMHO.

I love the AX8 and in a majority of areas it stands above the competition. That said, there absolutely is niche stuff where other units have a leg up on it. Again, polyphonic pitch shifting couldn't be done until it could. Never say never...
 
barhrecords said:
Agree

I use the fishman aura pedal for this. Very compact and sounds great
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Someone shared Fishman Aura IRs a couple of years ago. They were removed due to copyright issues. Although it's a grey area.
I seem to remember people were generally pleased with it. Represented the actual unit pretty well.

I wasn't terribly impressed. Got better results tonematching my acoustic's pickup to a condenser microphone. It shows how individual this sort of tech is. What works for one guitar/taste/set of hands doesn't work as well for another. Which also makes it difficult to build an "effect" for it that will please many, let alone everyone.

I'm still going to try and match the acoustic tone to a couple of my electrics. Although I'm not expecting stellar results, it will probably be tolerable for effects purposes.
 
Dutch said:
Someone shared Fishman Aura IRs a couple of years ago. They were removed due to copyright issues. Although it's a grey area.
I seem to remember people were generally pleased with it. Represented the actual unit pretty well.

I wasn't terribly impressed. Got better results tonematching my acoustic's pickup to a condenser microphone. It shows how individual this sort of tech is. What works for one guitar/taste/set of hands doesn't work as well for another. Which also makes it difficult to build an "effect" for it that will please many, let alone everyone.

I'm still going to try and match the acoustic tone to a couple of my electrics. Although I'm not expecting stellar results, it will probably be tolerable for effects purposes.
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I have those and the Mamabear IR's too.

The pedal gets noticeably better results for my rig vs. the IR's.
 
Roland has been using its GK pickups for modeling since their first COSM modeler, the VG-8, was released. The GK pickup, at its core, is just 6 individuals piezo pickups that allow the guitar signal to be processed polyphonically. This allows them to do more realistic guitar modeling.
 
Matt_B_77 said:
Roland has been using its GK pickups for modeling since their first COSM modeler, the VG-8, was released. The GK pickup, at its core, is just 6 individuals piezo pickups that allow the guitar signal to be processed polyphonically. This allows them to do more realistic guitar modeling.
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I know I said the last post was my last, but the GK pickup is not piezo based. It's 6 individual mag pickups. Given what Roland/Boss just achieved with the SY-300 and EHX with a handful of pedals, we are likely 3-5 years away from some pretty powerful guitar synth effects (and guitar modeling) within MFX pedals which do not require special pickups.
 
bsas said:
Is the Fishman Aura an acoustic guitar "preamp" or an acoustic guitar "sim"? I am confused :(
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It has what I've always thought were matching EQ profiles. They call them "images". I don't think they are IR's though. Because this technology came out way before affordable IR players in pedal format were on the market.

It also has a ton of other features that are well thought out.

The best thing is, it sounds really really good.

https://www.fishman.com/products/series/aura/aura-spectrum-di-preamp/
 
barhrecords said:
It has what I've always thought were matching EQ profiles. They call them "images". I don't think they are IR's though. Because this technology came out way before affordable IR players in pedal format were on the market.
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I don't know whether they're IR-based or not, but they're some kind of tone matching. They used to (maybe still do) offer a service where you'd send them your guitar, and they'd create an "image" for it.

And just like tone matches, I found that only two images out of the entire collection worked for my guitar.
 
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Will Chen said:
I know I said the last post was my last, but the GK pickup is not piezo based. It's 6 individual mag pickups. Given what Roland/Boss just achieved with the SY-300 and EHX with a handful of pedals, we are likely 3-5 years away from some pretty powerful guitar synth effects (and guitar modeling) within MFX pedals which do not require special pickups.
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TIL the output from the GK pickup is a waveform, not MIDI data. I always thought the conversion was done in that box you stick in the guitar, not at the receiving unit's end.

http://roland.com/V-Guitar/about.html

I stand corrected about GK pickups implying synthesis is in play. It can totally be modeling with per-string processing.
 
Rex said:
I don't know whether they're IR-based or not, but they're some kind of tone matching. They used to (maybe still do) was offer a service where you'd send them your guitar, and they'd create an "image" for it.

And just like tone matches, I found that only two images out of the entire collection worked for my guitar.
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I had the first version of the Aura too. And downloaded a bunch of extra images.

I use my ear to find the tone I'm looking for. All it takes is one image I like for my guitar and I'm good to go :)
 
OK I give up as no one is actually answering the specific question. I'll buy an external acoustic simulator and run it though the effects loop. :)
 
Tones2 said:
OK I give up as no one is actually answering the specific question.
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The question was, "Why is there no acoustic simulator in the Axe?" Looking back through the thread, i see several direct answers.
 
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