Axe II / Poweramp / Cab question (amp and output settings)

[warretaliator]

Hi everyone.
A question for all of you from rookie. As asked and answered many times before, same goes again.
Few days ago I've decided to plug Axe in Marshall 9200 and 4x12 Marshall Greenbacks cab.
Result was interesting in comparison with JTM45 and 1959 head. Could say even more than interesting although it was only one minute preset tweaking.
So now it's time to dig it in more detailed manner and I would appreciate help from you.
To get preset signal for poweramp and one direct clean signal that would go to the amp head ad other cabinet (for comparison) I guess I should use one unballanced output panned left in editor and one also unballanced (?) panned right without any ablock in the chain (for amp head)?
And second, maybe more important, to get best out of Marshall amp in Axe, beside regular EQ, low / hi cut tweakings, where should I start tweaking and go for more emphasized well known old Marshall nasal middle raw bite (when you hear it you know it). First tweakings were too polite on Axe, it lacked dirtiness and well known bite I would like to hear more.
There are many possibilities to match it on Axe, but It is always good to start from one good point.
I guess that would hide in filtering so few guidelines are more than wellcome.
Many thanks in advance!

 

[ChainOfThought]

I've never been one to use a Marshall tone so I don't know much about tweaking those amp models, but for your signal path, use the FX-Loop block to route output2 through the power amp and cab. You can find plenty of threads/pictures on this around here, I just can't look them up right now. You just need to put the Fx-Loop block after the amp block and any effects, but before the cab block, and have it on a separate row from the rest of the chain. Signal taps out from whatever is the last block before the cab and runs down the fxloop block where it terminates, then output2 on the back of the axefx will be your signal that you send to the power amp input. Don't worry about panning anything, just use a regular 1/4" cable from out2-L into your power amp input and voila. For out1 use whatever cables you prefer for your setup. I run 1/4" on both outputs, one goes to a recording interface and the other to my power amp.

Some things to keep in mind...running into that Marshall tube power amp with power amp modeling on might produce some unexpected/undesirable results. Some people like to 'double stack' it like that, I personally do not. I think a lot of it depends on what type of tone you're going for and what amp models you're using. I gravitate to the Engl models for brutal/high-gain type stuff, so YMMV. To sum that up, try deactivating power amp modeling from the global menu, or turning sag to 0 in the amp block (you don't have to do both, just either or) to see what difference it makes.

Another thing you'll see a lot of discussion about with the poweramp/cab setup is Low-Freq Resonance on the speaker page in the cab block. That whole discussion centers around using a solid-state power amp though. With a tube power amp, I think what you want to do is go to that speaker page and turn the Resonance amount down to 0. There's a good read on that in the tech notes section of the forum.

You can get away with more gain running through a traditional cab if that's your thing, in my opinion anyways.

Don't forget to try a boost/drive block before the amp if you haven't done that yet. TS808 model with drive around 0, level 6 or higher and everything else default is always a good starting point. Idea is to tighten up the tone, not add much/any more gain to it.

If the Marshall amp models aren't doing the trick for you, I see a lot of people swear by the friedmans for that type of tone. Splawn quick rod models are another good Marshall hotrod type of tone.