Axe-Fx III 16.00 Beta 4 "Cygnus" Firmware - Public Beta

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I think @FractalAudio mentioned the SLOs which got me thinking about Warren Haynes. And well, I can't think about Warren without thinking about the spectacular cover of Gold Dust Woman Gov't Mule and Grace Potter do that's just...mmm...perfect.

Anyhow, 30 minutes later and I've got an SLO preset that I'm freaking in love with. This is just one of the four amp tones in it. There's a big clean, growly (this tone), lead and soaring lead scene plus some bonus stuff for you to play around with.

The note defintion and dynamics area just amazing to play with loud and live. The round, bottom end holds together so beautifully. I could loop on this all night and just float there.

Pardon the out of tune low G -- I'm finding the humidity changes here are making tuning a little harder to hold. Need to acclimatize the guitars a little more?

Preset was made with my old PRS Standard 24 runing BKP Abraxas pickups.

Preset attached because I know you're going to ask for it. When time slips away playing this, don't say I didn't warn you. :)


Yes, the SLO and Camerons CCV 2s are the big surprises for me in this release. I never paid attention to them before, always went to the excellent Mesa's. Rolling off the volume on the bridge pkup on all these is heavenly. Adding full volume is flapping screamin' demons.
 
I think @FractalAudio mentioned the SLOs which got me thinking about Warren Haynes. And well, I can't think about Warren without thinking about the spectacular cover of Gold Dust Woman Gov't Mule and Grace Potter do that's just...mmm...perfect.

Anyhow, 30 minutes later and I've got an SLO preset that I'm freaking in love with. This is just one of the four amp tones in it. There's a big clean, growly (this tone), lead and soaring lead scene plus some bonus stuff for you to play around with.

The note defintion and dynamics area just amazing to play with loud and live. The round, bottom end holds together so beautifully. I could loop on this all night and just float there.

Pardon the out of tune low G -- I'm finding the humidity changes here are making tuning a little harder to hold. Need to acclimatize the guitars a little more?

Preset was made with my old PRS Standard 24 runing BKP Abraxas pickups.

Preset attached because I know you're going to ask for it. When time slips away playing this, don't say I didn't warn you. :)


We play this tune in my acoustic duo so yeah, I'm going to totally use this. :). Sounds great man!
 
Looking forward to trying this next week when I’m back at the Axe III.

My litmus test has been to select a Fender Deluxe or Twin with a typical IR, crank up the volume to something close to rehearsal volume and strum the strings with a solid sweep, but muted with the left hand. An amp gives a solid ‘thwack’ that you can feel. Since somewhere in the Axe II evolution, it’s been close enough to be satisfying, but not identical. From the descriptions I’ve read, it seems as though this FW delivers the goods.

Other modelers were never even close for me.
 
Looking forward to trying this next week when I’m back at the Axe III.

My litmus test has been to select a Fender Deluxe or Twin with a typical IR, crank up the volume to something close to rehearsal volume and strum the strings with a solid sweep, but muted with the left hand. An amp gives a solid ‘thwack’ that you can feel. Since somewhere in the Axe II evolution, it’s been close enough to be satisfying, but not identical. From the descriptions I’ve read, it seems as though this FW delivers the goods.

Other modelers were never even close for me.
In spades. So careful with the volume the first time. You might get shocked with the initial transient - or actually, ignore my warning. Be shocked!
 
Very nice, Ian!


Pardon the out of tune low G -- I'm finding the humidity changes here are making tuning a little harder to hold. Need to acclimatize the guitars a little more?
You need a whole-house humidifier. The swing between 5°F and 30°F leads to radical variations in indoor humidity, and both conditions are positively arid compared to the summers you're used to.
 
The SLO-100 was a nice surprise as well. I was working with that model a bit and finally got it to where I wanted it when Andy Wood did his Killswitch Engage tone settings on YouTube. But now it just screams on its own without all the tricks he used.

On another note, when I first went through my presets after updating I was underwhelmed and almost disappointed. Especially with the 5150 type amp models. The other night I sort of rolled up my sleeves and went on a deep dive into the preset to see if I could make it feel right again. I realized I had been turning the treble way down in these amps to compensate for some of the shrill frequencies that would come out of them. After the update, all I had to do was turn the treble up and BLAM! amazing tone! I started looking at some of my other presets and there was a pattern. Not sure if this is something anyone else found, but it has helped me get a handle on some of the other high gain amp models.
 
Took the plunge. My 4 amp tones on my main patch are a 5E3, an extensively hand-tweaked Plexi (with 6CA7 tubes), a Dumble HRM, and a JTM45. Kept the settings the same and just adjusted the levels (definitely necessary).

Huge increase in dynamics, depth, clarity, and touch sensitivity of the overdrive. What is interesting is it feels like my strings are bigger: they sound huge and deep. My mid-high gain settings (Plexi and HRM) initially seemed less distorted but... the analogy in my head is the distortion is like a sauce, and there are now bigger pieces of meat so it feels less saucy than before.

Tweed 5E3 is a completely different beast. I used to use it for a percussive, jangly, dirty clean with the neck pickup, but now this thing falls apart when you push the neck pickup into it. (Yes, I turned normal drive to 0 and kept the bright drive in my old spot of 5 to make it a true comparison.) Single notes sound huge in that thing now.

No going back for me. :)
 
Wow, now that my amps are setup, I was playing with some mod effects in front of the amp and holy cow do they sound amazing now! If only you guys could see the faces I was just making playing with the phaser :openmouth::anguished::weary::smile::openmouth:
2) Speaker compression probably took me the longest to dial in, now that the poweramp modeling is so good imo you really have to adjust the time constant to get the right feel. You're gonna need some good ears for compression otherwise it's gonna be hard. All I can say is if when you pluck it sounds choked its probably too low, if too loose then too high. Mine range from about 60ms-500ms so there isn't really a ballpark just gotta use your ears to find what feels right.
Update, the amps were actually quicker than I had thought the range is now approx. 40ms-260ms (lower jensen, higher celestion). For anyone that cares...
 
Loving this beta. Thanks for posting it. Got lost playing for an hour, and mainly camped on the BE V2 through a York MRSH M25 IR. The Axe-FX III is the only modeling unit I can just enjoy playing without entering into endless tweaking. Strange statement, it seems, for a unit that can be endlessly tweaked if you want to. But it just sounds so good, I focus instead on just playing guitar just like I would when sitting in front of a tube amp. With other modelers I keep tweaking because they don't sound and respond well. Nicely done on this beta!
 
Is it just me or is it much more bassy? I'm finding a lot of resonance around 100-150 on the RTA. Yes I have reset!
 
To me it feels like there's not "more bass" so much as it's better at coupling the low end of the amp to the resonance of the speaker cab. I'm not hearing that intial "chug" followed by the "woomph" of the cab resonance the way I used to. Now it sounds more seamless.

As always, if you think it's too bassy...turn the bass down! (actually I usually turn down the speaker resonance instead)
 
Is it just me or is it much more bassy? I'm finding a lot of resonance around 100-150 on the RTA. Yes I have reset!
Just throwing an amp and cab in and playing around, I've found it (in general) a little bass-y for my taste - however, just using the B/M/T controls on the amp I was able to QUICKLY get it right where I like it. I'm really, really liking how everything sounds with this update a lot...very excited for the rest of the amps to be done.
 
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