electronpirate said:
Some notes:
I had every intention of going to bed early. Wife out of town for 5 more days, I'm Mr. Mom with twin girls. Rest, and a boys night tomorrow where I''ll clearly burn it late.
But new firmware comes up. Okay, I'll load it up, Dink for a few, get to bed....RIGHT. It's now 3 hours later. All my AMP settings have to be thrown out. They don't sound right with the new mods. I have to go default on everything now and tweak.
Crunchy amps:
Took me MUCH longer than I thought to dial in. Kind of had to throw out much of what I've gotten used to on each amp. At first a little irritated. So I quit reinventing the wheel, take defaults, add some more mids, a 'touch' more Master Volume, and suddenly it's an hour later. But....I don't get the Master volume thing. Most of the MV defaults sound AWESOME, and they're all at noon. I know, I know, tweak with your ears, not your eyes. But here's my deal: The MV on most amps seems to just muddy things (try to tighten it up with some presence)...does that mean I'm just a preamp distortion junkie? Don't care. Dialed in a Wreck and played some Styx (I know, I know...Castle Walls, Blue Collar Man...sue me) note definition, sassyness, fookin' R&R love.
One note: Is it just me, or do the amp models not clean up as well on Volume knob drop? I'll check later, but seems...different.
Clean:
Loved them before, and they just got better. 'Nuff said. Still playing with them, but the AC30 sims seem to be much more of what I expect from one, and the Fenders bounce and shimmer so much it's silly. So much I bailed on the light chorus FX that I had on my Twin patch. VERY happy there, but they'll take some work too.
BB Preamp:
Took all of about 12 seconds to decide this is my favorite drive by far. Just the right amount of dirt, mids, retains the amp personality with a bit of it's own mojo, and POW. Granted I've only tried it with a few of the amps, but so far, WOW.
Enough. Not going to get enough sleep tonight, headed back to it.
Ron
Ok good im glad you noticed this stuff because i thought i was going crazy!
I noticed exactly what you said about the gain models. Its not just you, they DONT clean up as well on volume drop. I thought i was losing my mind. I actually bothered to record a clip for myself with 9.0 and with 9.2 and i played this recto lead line with full volume and then lowered the volume and played this delicate clean line.
I tried the same thing with 9.2 both with the patch defaults AND after initializing and completely re tweaking the amp model for 30 min.
It just did not work =(. In 9.0 the tone got much much cleaner, in 9.2 i just got less hair, but it was much harder to get a dynamic clean from the same settings. I made sure the gain was approximately the same, but it wasnt really a gain difference. I just got the feeling that 9.0 high gain amps had much better touch sensitivity.
And i also agree about the master. All of sudden the deizel amp i rely on is much more muddy. It lost alot of tightness and expressiveness. Once again i spendt like an hour trying to re tweak this model.
and i also noticed what you did on the cleans!
The cleans are the exact OPPOSITE story! I mean, the cleans are more expressive than ever! All of them, (except the semi clean tones that i had previously dialed up). The fender cleans are just leaps and bounds ahead in dynamics. They went from almost sterile sounding to like, just plain inspiring. Poppy, chimey, thumpy,. Possibly the best modeled fender tones i have ever heard (only one up there is this ONE patch on an old j-station i had,).Honestly if you stuck the clean fender models in a box and stuck a logo on it, alot of people wouldn't be able to tell any difference.
Ok good im glad you noticed this stuff because i thought i was going crazy!
My feelings in the end...
1) Cleans are a mile of improvement!
2) The gains have been rendered muddier and less dynamic
I REALLY REALLY feel that maybe cliff should CONSIDER making the new and old power amp modeling user selectable for each patch or even blend-able. In my limited experience it seems like the new modeling works miracles for clean, and on the gain side kind of detracts, where as the old model was almost perfectly suited to gain. The best of both would be great.
For now im going to play the fender models for a little, and then say goodbye. I have to go back to 9.0, the high gain sounds there have songs in them that must be written ! =)
~mx~
