Axe-Fx II Firmware 19.01 Public Beta (1)

Sure but that's why I said "in my humble opinion" in front. Don't get me wrong... for my personal enjoyment I still enoy a real cabinet driven with a good tube power amp but if I'm creating tones that will be heard by other people than me I steer away. I do appreciate that people care what my opinion is but in the end I am just one human being with an opinion of my own just like everyone else. Just like any single person in here whose opinion is appreciated greatly. I can admit that I usually approach everything from a modern gigging/recording guitarist point of view so I don't expect everyone to always agree with me and that is fine since there are all opinions and everyone's got one. That's just natural. :)

Another problem with "amp/cab in room" is the "room" part of it which normally changes every now and then if you move your setup and whether a room is treated or not has a huge effect. Also if you're used to a sound in a badly treated room your ears might be used to something that might sound bad for other people. :)

I meant it when I said 'no offense'. I do value your opinions too, you're one of the guys whose comments I actually read instead of skipping them when scrolling through a thread, lol. Thanks for your input. I get why some people are of the 'FRFR' camp, and the amp in the room camp (or the 'both' camp), but I think we can get caught up in all of the minutia of tone chasing and making sure the audience hears what we hear, but at the end of the day, most of us play to make us happy, so do whatever sounds good to you, IR's or not. JMHO :)
 
I think we have a really accurate and therefore "perfect" digital representation format (IR) at the moment. Just like in real life there are many ways to mic a cab and each cab is different and each mic works differently in front of different speakers etc. This type of tone searching has always existed but guitarists may have no experience of it since it's the audio engineers who do this work for them at the studio and they're more used to playing with amps "in the room" which is something you can never share with an audience.

IMHO people should forget about "amp in the room sound" (and first of all call it "cab in the room" ;) ) and concentrate on a guitar tone that is not just for yourself but the audience... which is a mic'ed guitar signal going through the PA. Now that we have the ability to create real professional level guitar sounds even at home with the Axe-Fx it's an integral part for everyone to take the time to choose the correct IR for your tone. The role of IR producers is to be that studio audio engineer that hands you with options and makes your life easier so you don't have to spend years in the studio learning techniques and methods for capturing your cabinet correctly.

Simply put: This is not a disadvantage of the Axe-Fx. It's a huge leap forward in guitar tone evolution. More control! I suggest people archive their IRs in a clear way and use Cab-Lab 3 as the IR loader when creating patches and only load those IRs to the Axe-Fx that you use with your presets. This way you don't need 3000 IR slots. :) I never even knew people loaded all IRs into their Axe-Fxs before I became an IR producer and received feedback on it.

I personally agree with you on this, this will be an endless disagreement though, I stand on the side of the fence of hearing what the audience hears. It's a learned process though, but when you get use to it's great! It's mind over matter. If one doesn't mind that no one else hears it the way you do , it doesn't matter !:)
 
Isn't playing a small club where you don't have to mic up your amp 'amp in the room' for the audience?
For all of us who have spent years and years practicing next to an amp, that's 'amp in the room' too.
I personally like that sound, so 'Amp in the room' is completely relevant to me.

"a small club where you don't have to mic up your amp" = "any club with a lazy FOH guy" :lol

All joking aside playing without a PA for guitars demonstrates multiple issues with "amp in the room":

1) Every room is different so you will sound different every time you enter another room.
2) A guitar cab literally sounds completely different no matter where you're standing in a room.
3) For some people the volume level will be good but most people will feel like your guitars are too loud or too quiet. This is because guitar cabinets are like beams and don't spread the sound like modern PA systems do.

But sure I have real tube amps and cabs at my studio. In all honesty my Axe-Fx is what I have at home but at the studio I'm usually playing real amps and real cabs. I completely understand and enjoy the amp/cab in the room sound. It's just a bit sad that I can never share that sound with anyone without bringing them to the studio with me.
 
I agree that the new Character control has far more impact (in a positive way) on shaping and dialing in your sound than the very subtle dephase control. I'm surprised there's so much discussion about dephase and so little about character control. I'd love to see people post some new character settings that sound great.

My biggest issue with IRs is the infinite universe of them. I got tired of auditioning the 1000 IRs that seem to come out with every new pack from someone. I actually would rather spend time playing. Less is more in my opinion, give me 5 to 10 IRs in one release with really different characteristics rather than 500 IRs with a million combinations of mics and placements. And it would be nice if they could be named with more description that actually describes the sound or what its optimized for (e.g. clean amps, mid gain, etc). My time is valuable and a handful of IRs respects that view. But to each his own. Just my opinion.


I find that the dephase control to greatly help me get much closer to SRV land than the new Character control(although I need more time hearing how it interacts with...)! I suspect the differences in FR gear, playing style, guitar/pickups, IRs/CL3, block use/parameter settings,etc... have a lot to do with differing opinions. Time spent (assuming you have it) on deep editing AXE/IRs does yield major benefits in sound and feel but there is a learning curve first then a familiarity of interactions and eventually being in the tweaking zone where you can play the parameters fluently. About too many IRs, you eventually get in a sixth sense zone that makes this process much faster too!
 
I agree that the new Character control has far more impact (in a positive way) on shaping and dialing in your sound than the very subtle dephase control.

Very subtle?????? Major night and day difference. I also have your issue of having too many IRs to search through. This is another area where De-Phase comes to the rescue. I generally have to try 100 IRs to find two or three that I like because of the excessive comb filtering. Now, I can quickly find many that will work for me after taming them with De-Phase. This cuts down on search time tremendously.

Character is awesome as well.
 
Completely agree.

Absolutely not a disadvantage at all. I certainly didn't mean that.

Strongly in the "both" camp, by the way. And yes, I know that the Axe FX is capable of that, particularly now. It has been fun to see the progression having started even on FW8. 9 was already a big leap forward.

For me, the best of both worlds is to run the FX front of house (hopefully, with a competent sound man) and have my own direct monitor. If what I hear sounds good, but what the audience hears isn't right, it's on the engineer (or the PA system itself). And that's unfortunate.

I think we have a really accurate and therefore "perfect" digital representation format (IR) at the moment. Just like in real life there are many ways to mic a cab and each cab is different and each mic works differently in front of different speakers etc. This type of tone searching has always existed but guitarists may have no experience of it since it's the audio engineers who do this work for them at the studio and they're more used to playing with amps "in the room" which is something you can never share with an audience.

IMHO people should forget about "amp in the room sound" (and first of all call it "cab in the room" ;) ) and concentrate on a guitar tone that is not just for yourself but the audience... which is a mic'ed guitar signal going through the PA. Now that we have the ability to create real professional level guitar sounds even at home with the Axe-Fx it's an integral part for everyone to take the time to choose the correct IR for your tone. The role of IR producers is to be that studio audio engineer that hands you with options and makes your life easier so you don't have to spend years in the studio learning techniques and methods for capturing your cabinet correctly.

Simply put: This is not a disadvantage of the Axe-Fx. It's a huge leap forward in guitar tone evolution. More control! I suggest people archive their IRs in a clear way and use Cab-Lab 3 as the IR loader when creating patches and only load those IRs to the Axe-Fx that you use with your presets. This way you don't need 3000 IR slots. :) I never even knew people loaded all IRs into their Axe-Fxs before I became an IR producer and received feedback on it.
 
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I suggest people archive their IRs in a clear way and use Cab-Lab 3 as the IR loader when creating patches and only load those IRs to the Axe-Fx that you use with your presets. This way you don't need 3000 IR slots. :) I never even knew people loaded all IRs into their Axe-Fxs before I became an IR producer and received feedback on it.

I like the option of changing IR's during sound check when I don't have a computer hooked up to my rig. For that reason alone, I like having the large number of user cab slots.

But I usually have in mind a few choices and don't need 3000 options either.
 
You know, I ran a Marshall JCM800, 2205 through a Marshall 1960A, for about a decade, and now I run my Axe direct, through in ears, with no stage monitor, and all this talk about "in the room" has me wondering what you guys are complaining about. Aside from the obvious "mic" character baked into some IR's, the Axe sounds, and feels as "in the room" as my Marshall did. Admittedly, the new dephase parameter makes it seem a bit more 3d, and clear, but even before that it sounded "in the room".


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You know, I ran a Marshall JCM800, 2205 through a Marshall 1960A, for about a decade, and now I run my Axe direct, through in ears, with no stage monitor, and all this talk about "in the room" has me wondering what you guys are complaining about. Aside from the obvious "mic" character baked into some IR's, the Axe sounds, and feels as "in the room" as my Marshall did. Admittedly, the new dephase parameter makes it seem a bit more 3d, and clear, but even before that it sounded "in the room".


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I used a JMP 2203 100 watt full stack for the better part of 20 years and agree completely. What ive noticed dealing with 100's of "musicians" is for some people it's more of a hearing with your eyes effect. If they don't see speakers, they don't "feel" it.

They seem to forget it's still pounding out the FOH which if you can't feel that, well. .... I'll just shake my head and walk away lol.
 
I used a JMP 2203 100 watt full stack for the better part of 20 years and agree completely. What ive noticed dealing with 100's of "musicians" is for some people it's more of a hearing with your eyes effect. If they don't see speakers, they don't "feel" it.

They seem to forget it's still pounding out the FOH which if you can't feel that, well. .... I'll just shake my head and walk away lol.

Don't forget the smell. I came up with a new product concept. "The Mesa smell" ... you know that smell that you get when you turn on your Mesa head. *sniffff* Now that's something I'd like to spray on my Axe-Fx. :lol
 
Don't forget the smell. I came up with a new product concept. "The Mesa smell" ... you know that smell that you get when you turn on your Mesa head. *sniffff* Now that's something I'd like to spray on my Axe-Fx. :lol

I can't say I miss the smell of Texas dust burning off on my tubes. It's people!!!!

However, if I ever really do miss that smell, I still have an egnater renegade collecting plenty of skin flakes at the moment that I can turn on to get the full experience.

Yuck.


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Hey hey.. this is literally the first time I mention Mesa in months. ;) :lol

Don't forget the smell. I came up with a new product concept. "The Mesa smell" ... you know that smell that you get when you turn on your Mesa head. *sniffff* Now that's something I'd like to spray on my Axe-Fx. :lol

That's three times in one day............before you can get better, you first have to admit that there is a problem....:lol:eagerness:
 
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