Axe-Fx III Firmware 27.03 Public Beta

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I never really get all that excited about new drive models - always been a drive from the amp kinda player, but the Colortone booster has something special going on. It has such a throaty growl to it. Funny how one of the very first is still one of the best ever. Thank you @FractalAudio for adding this and the new Pi's as well. You rock!
 
RevDrucifer said:
Spent a little bit with the Ram's Head and Colorsound Booster for the "Comfortably Numb" solo, getting in the ballpark. The OG does that classic Gilmour thing where it doesn't really sound all that distorted listening to the isolated track, hard to get the edge of the notes to have that grit from the fuzz while keeping things sustaining and "clean" sounding.

There's the Electric Mistress flanger in front of the fuzz pedals, feeding into a HiWatt. The Hiwatt aspect is tricky, I can't remember when Gilmour started using that Alembic preamp in front of the HiWatts power section and who knows how he has that thing set.

Click to expand...

He definitely put the mistress after drive pedals, not in front... but I think in the studio version it was just the ram's head into the hiwatt and a bunch of plate reverb in post, I don't hear a mistress. Maybe in the second solo there's also some signal coming from a yamaha ra-200 but even there I don't hear a mistress.
He started using the alembic in the '80s, in the wall album he used the preamp of a mesa mk1 as an overdrive in some parts (iirc young lust for example).

Anyway, most people set the mistress wrong when going for Gilmour tones, cuz it's known his favourite setting was "all 3 knobs at 10 o'clock", but very few know that on the V2 mistress that he owns the range of the knobs goes like this:

electric-mistress-pot-range-v2.jpg

So the correct settings on clones and later versions are quite different, it's basically rate at minimum, depth at 90% and color at 60%... and on the axe you need to set the feedback at negative values cuz the feedback circuit on that mistress has inverted polarity.

PS: and also, aiming for a particular value on the feedback is pointless cuz the max feedback is set by an internal trimpot and it varied a lot from pedal to pedal, so better go by ear there

PPS: these settings imho nail those tunes where the use of the mistress is quite evident, like this one for example:

 
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DLC86 said:
He definitely put the mistress after drive pedals, not in front... but I think in the studio version it was just the ram's head into the hiwatt and a bunch of plate reverb in post, I don't hear a mistress. Maybe in the second solo there's also some signal coming from a yamaha ra-200 but even there I don't hear a mistress.
He started using the alembic in the '80s, in the wall album he used the preamp of a mesa mk1 as an overdrive in some parts (iirc young lust for example).

Anyway, most people set the mistress wrong when going for Gilmour tones, cuz it's known his favourite setting was "all 3 knobs at 10 o'clock", but very few know that on the V2 mistress that he owns the range of the knobs goes like this:

View attachment 148868

So the correct settings on clones and later versions are quite different, it's basically rate at minimum, depth at max and color at 60%... and on the axe you need to set the feedback at negative values cuz the feedback circuit on that mistress has inverted polarity.
Click to expand...
Cool info!

Gotta say, what a messed up way to build a pedal. Sheesh.
 
Dave Merrill said:
Cool info!

Gotta say, what a messed up way to build a pedal. Sheesh.
Click to expand...
Definitely... but it was the '70s and pedal builders at the time were probably a bunch of mad scientists in their experimenting phase.
Look at how those pots were soldered :sweatsmile:

1977-vintage-electric-mistress-v2-pcb-components.jpg

And those traces on the pcb look like they were drawn by someone on a trip :tearsofjoy:

1977-vintage-electric-mistress-v2-pcb-copper-side.jpg

PS: for anyone who wants to dive deeper on the mistress, here's a great resource from where these pics were taken: http://www.metzgerralf.de/elekt/stomp/mistress/index.shtml
Your browser will tell you it's not safe to open it, but it's just because it's an old website still in http (with no "s")
 
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DLC86 said:
Definitely... but it was the '70s and pedal builders at the time were probably a bunch of mad scientists in their experimenting phase.
Look at how those pots were soldered :sweatsmile:

View attachment 148869

And those traces on the pcb look like they were drawn by someone on a trip :tearsofjoy:

View attachment 148870

PS: for anyone that wants to dive deeper on the mistress, here's a great resource from where these pics were taken: http://www.metzgerralf.de/elekt/stomp/mistress/index.shtml
Your browser will tell you it's not safe to open it, but it's just because it's an old website still in http (with no "s")
Click to expand...
Traces were probably drawn by hand.
Funky stuff.
 
Dave Merrill said:
Traces were probably drawn by hand.
Funky stuff.
Click to expand...
Traces were laid with tape, at 2x scale, with templates for DIP packages, components, etc. Photographic processes transfer that onto copper-clad boards for etching.

I started my tech career this way - hand drawn schematics done on a drafting table, and designing PCB layouts boards with tape and stencils on a light table. When I saw what even the earliest PC CAD/CAE tools were capable of - SPICE, anybody? - I was blown away, and immediately hooked.
 
I’m at a gig so can’t read thread but I’m getting the flashing blocks (mostly shunts) in the zoomed in Layout grid.
 
allenma said:
Traces were laid with tape, at 2x scale, with templates for DIP packages, components, etc. Photographic processes transfer that onto copper-clad boards for etching.

I started my tech career this way - hand drawn schematics done on a drafting table, and designing PCB layouts boards with tape and stencils on a light table. When I saw what even the earliest PC CAD/CAE tools were capable of - SPICE, anybody? - I was blown away, and immediately hooked.
Click to expand...
Not a professional but in my diy journey, discovering diptrace and jlcpcb made me make a huge leap in quality compared to veroboard, transfers done with toner and clothes iron and homemade etching (a lot less risky too!)
 
DLC86 said:
He definitely put the mistress after drive pedals, not in front... but I think in the studio version it was just the ram's head into the hiwatt and a bunch of plate reverb in post, I don't hear a mistress. Maybe in the second solo there's also some signal coming from a yamaha ra-200 but even there I don't hear a mistress.
He started using the alembic in the '80s, in the wall album he used the preamp of a mesa mk1 as an overdrive in some parts (iirc young lust for example).

Anyway, most people set the mistress wrong when going for Gilmour tones, cuz it's known his favourite setting was "all 3 knobs at 10 o'clock", but very few know that on the V2 mistress that he owns the range of the knobs goes like this:

View attachment 148868

So the correct settings on clones and later versions are quite different, it's basically rate at minimum, depth at 90% and color at 60%... and on the axe you need to set the feedback at negative values cuz the feedback circuit on that mistress has inverted polarity.

PS: and also, aiming for a particular value on the feedback is pointless cuz the max feedback is set by an internal trimpot and it varied a lot from pedal to pedal, so better go by ear there

PPS: these settings imho nail those tunes where the use of the mistress is quite evident, like this one for example:

Click to expand...


I was using the isolated track as reference, sounds like there’s some light modulation going on in the first few notes but maybe it’s the rotary cab.
 
unix-guy said:
Haven't seen that reported as far as I recall...
Click to expand...
Have seen flashing shunts this week while editing in the layout view on this beta.

It started flashing when i was manually editing (adding/comnecting) on the layout view on the frontpanel.

Have added my Trio+ to the peddleboard and when I was connecting a new grid to out 3 the shunt went flashing.
There was no signal loss while the shunts were flashing so didn't go to this thread and report but kept on playing.
 
komorebi_dayo said:
damnnnnn that sounds good as hell
Click to expand...
Indeed! There's a life to the noise that the pedal has going on under its articulate fuzz. It almost sounds too polite—in an Eric Johnson violin-like FF kinda way—when playing through it, but the second you stop, it's almost as if the earth beneath your feet shifts and all the chaos and noise from underneath rises up like hellfire.

Poetic descriptions aside, it's really inspiring to play slower and bigger riffs. Classis case of writing around the pedal rather than just sticking it onto any other bit of music.

Oh, and the blend of greenbacks and blackbacks in a Mesa 4x12 definitely adds to the humungousness of it all.
 
Saarang Narayan said:
Indeed! There's a life to the noise that the pedal has going on under its articulate fuzz. It almost sounds too polite—in an Eric Johnson violin-like FF kinda way—when playing through it, but the second you stop, it's almost as if the earth beneath your feet shifts and all the chaos and noise from underneath rises up like hellfire.

Poetic descriptions aside, it's really inspiring to play slower and bigger riffs. Classis case of writing around the pedal rather than just sticking it onto any other bit of music.

Oh, and the blend of greenbacks and blackbacks in a Mesa 4x12 definitely adds to the humungousness of it all.
Click to expand...
Any chance you'd be willing to share the preset? Digging the tones here!
 
Having a blast with the fuzzes, I don’t think I would have ever bought one on my own, but now that I have some in the AXFXIII I find they really are addictive and I’ve been missing all the fun LOL.
 
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