Axe-Fx II Firmware Version 12.04 Public Beta

Right. Some amps are more touch sensitive and others are more touch responsive. We can now hear and feel the difference much more with this update.

What most of us (me included) feel, when we say "it`s more dynamic", mostly the opposite is true: A more saturation of the Power Amp Tubes. It feels more punchy, more "dynamically", but loudness wise, it is less.

When comparing 12.03 vs 12.04b i normalized both tracks to -0.3db max. A/Bing both tracks sounds very similiar to me, but the little tighter low-end on 12.04b. So i change the phase on one track, assuming most of the sound will now cancel out eachother, but that did not happen! The cancelation was minimal! Looking at the meters, the differences where small, but i thought 12.04 has a bit smaller dynamic range loudness wise - what would explain the less cancelation but very similiar sounding of both tracks.

In other words: The feel is a bit more "tubish" now ... perhaps ... i don`t know. The only thing i know is: I am very satisfied with this beta ;)
 
And there you have it. Before if you cranked the Low Res up it would fart out or clip weird.

Yay, and... sigh.

I was going to hold off this and the previous FW revision as I am in the middle of tracking an album, but now I think I may need to start again. I was finding that my rhythm guitars, particularly the HBE patch pumped REALLY hard when Palm muting. I'm talking about 7db louder than more ringing open chords. I didn't want to compress the guitars that much, and I am trying to keep natural unedited takes of each guitar part for the length of the song, so automating was possible but not preferred. I ended up tweaking the LF res and evened out the sound at the cost of some balls in the sound. Figured it was nothing I'd miss once I was mixing, but it did bug me a little.

But now it looks like I can have my cake and eat it too! At the small cost of re tracking all the guitars. And no, I didn't save a dry track for re-amping. Fool that I am, I decided "stop tweaking with guitar sounds and COMMIT, otherwise you will never finish this album!" That'll learn me.

But sincere thanks to Cliff and all at Fractal for the constant refinement. You are absolutely without a doubt some of the best people in the biz.
 
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This same affect happens to the high end. When you dig in the highs soften rather than clipping and getting shrill.

Yes! This is what I have been missing. That "fold back" in the highs. Oddly, I have a 200W Marshall that does this quite nicely, and without being stupid loud. It almost has to be happening pre-power amp, but that doesn't make any sense with what Cliff just found.
 
MIMIC is distortion profile and frequency response matching. Hidden in the debug version of the firmware are special test tones and analysis modules that allow me to compare the real amp to the model.
When you change the modelling a fair bit, as per the last few versions, is it necessary to redo the MIMIC process on the amps? I can imagine it would be a lot of work to do so.
 
A simple multiband compressor running only between 90hz and 200hz would fix that up without making it sound un natural. You can use just about any multiband compressor in your DAW to do this.

Look for the Andy Sneap C4 trick online. It's fantastic. If you set the threshold just right it'll only kick in on the palm mutes but when playing anything else it won't change the sound. And since it only affects the low end, the rest of the sound is unaffected when the compressor kicks in.

I emulated this effect with the multiband compressor in the Axe. I can share that block with you if you'd like.

Yay, and... sigh.

I was going to hold off this and the previous FW revision as I am in the middle of tracking an album, but now I think I may need to start again. I was finding that my rhythm guitars, particularly the HBE patch pumped REALLY hard when Palm muting. I'm talking about 7db louder than more ringing open chords. I didn't want to compress the guitars that much, and I am trying to keep natural unedited takes of each guitar part for the length of the song, so automating was possible but not preferred. I ended up tweaking the LF res and evened out the sound at the cost of some balls in the sound. Figured it was nothing I'd miss once I was mixing, but it did bug me a little.

But now it looks like I can have my cake and eat it too! At the small cost of re tracking all the guitars. And no, I didn't save a dry track for re-amping. Fool that I am, I decided "stop tweaking with guitar sounds and COMMIT, otherwise you will never finish this album!" That'll learn me.

But sincere thanks to Cliff and all at Fractal for the constant refinement. You are absolutely without a doubt some of the best people in the biz.
 
A simple multiband compressor running only between 90hz and 200hz would fix that up without making it sound un natural. You can use just about any multiband compressor in your DAW to do this.

Look for the Andy Sneap C4 trick online. It's fantastic. If you set the threshold just right it'll only kick in on the palm mutes but when playing anything else it won't change the sound. And since it only affects the low end, the rest of the sound is unaffected when the compressor kicks in.

I emulated this effect with the multiband compressor in the Axe. I can share that block with you if you'd like.

Id love to get that too :)
 
Which is why my very first question was confirming if you are using scene controllers.

That should have clued you in to the fact you didn't say you were trying to use scene controllers.

Many people don't like the questions I ask when I'm troubleshooting for them. But I ask for a reason to deduce the problem among myriad variables in the axe etc. They're the ones with the problem, yet I'm inconveniencing or insulting them with my questions.

Meh.

To be fair, I did say I was using Scene controllers, and listed how. I realize that what I did not indicate was that they were working correctly prior to 12.04, so I had fundamental idea of what I was doing. However, thank you for your willingness to help.
 
Would love to see a preset just for the layout. Dual mono amps sounds interesting!

here ya go

Civ01St2_zps88fb36cf.jpg~320x480
 
And there you have it. Before if you cranked the Low Res up it would fart out or clip weird.

How you can really hear it is to crank Low Res and MV up. Do an open-E palm mute and you'll get punch, knock and "bongggg" rather than "bfffft".

It's all about the speakers too. Celestions typically have very prominent low-frequency resonance whereas Jensens do not. The resonance "gain" of a Celestion can be on the order of 20 dB or more whereas a Jensen is more like 12 dB. This "loose" response of the Celestions gives you that knock and bong. So to replicate this you turn up Low Res.

This same affect happens to the high end. When you dig in the highs soften rather than clipping and getting shrill.
Awesome. You can tell your passion right through the words.

Having the Head Honcho and Maker here on an internet forum sharing in such a way is truly... Awesome.
 
Just drop a quick line updated to new version beta. Presets all muffled and sound like blanket over speakers, I've checked and its showing modelling version 12.xx

having to make dramatic changes to get back the top end and clarity.

I've reloaded twice anyone any suggestions on what could be wrong?

Axefx2 QSC HPi actives tried both my Tyler Studio and Valley Arts Luke ... the EMG's are better but still all very dull

reloaded old presets tried those and ran through standard presets, changed amp and speakers.

No joy...

thanks for any assistance.
 
Just drop a quick line updated to new version beta. Presets all muffled and sound like blanket over speakers, I've checked and its showing modelling version 12.xx

having to make dramatic changes to get back the top end and clarity.

I've reloaded twice anyone any suggestions on what could be wrong?

Axefx2 QSC HPi actives tried both my Tyler Studio and Valley Arts Luke ... the EMG's are better but still all very dull

reloaded old presets tried those and ran through standard presets, changed amp and speakers.

No joy...

thanks for any assistance.
Which firmware were you on before updating ?
 
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