Have you tried increasing the Harmonics parameter?
I have. Something just sounds wrong with the 800 MOD and afs2. Brittle, not as tube responsive as when you roll back to 2.0.
We seem to have picked up more of a transistor tone in those amps in my opinion. Harmonics knob is killer and just what we've needed, but though it gives the amps more of that starved plate 12ax7 sound when you go closer to 0, there's a harshness that just sounds weird that I can't seem to dial out.
What I've discovered for my personal use is, amp gain in 2.0 had a nice break-up. New fw we lost some gain and when you push amp gain a bit, it doesn't react like it did. It appears to get loose and sort of trips over itself compared to the last fw.
It gets better when I set that parameter next to crunch....(default is like 74% can't remember what it's called right now) to 10% and sag to 6.0. I tried resetting my parameters to old amp settings manually but there's still a harshness that I can't quite take out. Take out too much, amps are missing something. That happy medium is missing and it's just not kicking my butt like I hoped it would.
Honestly not meaning to sound like I'm complaining. I guess you can say I'm a little let down that all the amps have improved for the better and the two favorites of mine that I rely on have taken a turn for the "no longer my cup of tea." I'm almost hoping Cliff says "oh crap guys, you're right....I gotta fix those!"
Not done experimenting and haven't given up hope, but so far the easy tweaks, screen shots and manual editing aren't getting me where I would like to be.
I guess the truth is, this is how these amps probably sound for real. What sucks is, some of us wound up making them sound better than they actually do with the old settings.
I know I never had a Marshall that wasn't a bit brittle, but I've always made them work and sound creamy. It was a breath of fresh air to make these amps work so well with axefx. The afs2 is the amp I use for my vh tribute stuff and in its current state, it definitely won't work right.
Might be time for us to work with new amps, guys. I still think there is a bit of a harsh transistor sound going on, but if Cliff says this is authentic, it's time for me to make some of the others my favorites.
Cliff, any chance there could be something overlooked in 800 mod and afs 2 that may make them a little more harsh than they should be? Honest it's a night and day difference for the better when going back to 2.0. Any suggestions on what we could try to get things closer to what we had?
The only way I can explain it is, some of the other amps in 2.0 had this fake sound. They have all been improved with 2.01 and now these amps we are talking about have picked up that element the others had.
It's like, the amps sound more digital or something. Like the sound we got when you first started the whole G3 procedure until you honed it in. Some amps benefitted from G3 while others got that sonic, digital sound. At any rate, I'm still thankful for this update...I just wish my amps benefitted more positively.
