zenaxe
Fractal Fanatic
I think you need to pay a lot more attention to Scott's second paragraph. This was my exact reaction on reading your post, too. You say that you think there may be an inadequacy for the power amp modeling because "high gain" stuff is not sounding the way you want live but you do think it is up to par for the clean and mid gain stuff.mortega76 said:Thanks for chiming in Scott...Scott Peterson said:I do think the power amp modeling is up to par, I think it exceeds 'par'. In clean to lower gain amps - which is an enormous spectrum of amps - the power amp is much more 'in play' than the super hi-gain modern metal brootlz. So a better 'test' of power amp capabilities would those amps that the power amp - and I am referring to Plexi type sounds in particular - are a tremendous component of the end sound.
Unless you can cite some specific quality or component w.r.t. the power amp modeling that comes into play for high gain, I think you are really barking up the wrong tree to think the root cause of your issue might be some kind of short coming in the power amp modeling. Power amps affect the tone for any rig, sure, but they are nowhere NEAR the make or break component for the overall sound for the high gain stuff that they are for the mid gain and crunch sounds. I would honestly think any amp simulator that is sufficient for mid gain sounds would be more than adequate for metal rather than the other way around (i.e. the requirements for crunch power amp modeling is a super set of the requirements for HG power amp modeling). So, if you think it is sufficient for crunch, you might want to dig in and learn about some of the deep editing parameters since it is probably more than adequate for what you're trying to do (IMHO).
IMHO, as a metal guy, I'd say metal is one of the most forgiving styles out there for power amp variation. In fact I think tube power amps are hardly a requirement for metal at all. Solid state amps can make some amazing tones for this genre.
Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that you are struggling getting the sounds you want and I don't think anyone is doubting that you're not being open minded in general, but, as Jay has been indicating, it sounds like you may need to dig deeper into the mechanics of the tones you're seeking and get a better grip on the landscape at large before thinking the tool set you have needs to be called out as insufficient.
And as for A/Bing amps, no one is saying you have to do that to get good sounds, in general. They're saying you have to that to MATCH a sound. It's completely immaterial that one unit is digital and one unit is tube/analog. You'd have to A/B if you really wanted to match one tube amp to another or if you wanted to match some patch on your Axe with a real world amp, too. It's a two way street. Matching two things is in essence a comparison process. If you don't want to compare things don't try to match them.