BlackStar the bane of my existence.

Tom Morris

Power User
Blackstar HT STAGE 100 MKII. Bought this amp for my bandmate to use after his older model bit the dust. This amp and others in the Blackstar line have an Eq circuit called Infinite Shape Feature. It shifts frequencies around in an odd way which I just for the life of me can't figure out how to mimic with the AFXIII. The low's seem lower mids scooped in an odd way and high's seem to go higher than the AFX can reach. I'm sure it could be done if someone with the knowledge of electronics could understand what the patent is talking about. All the tools we have in the AXF seems it wouldn't be that hard of a task. I can find amp's that are close to the basic gain feel of this amp but the whole EQ thing has driven me crazy for the past two years. I don't care about being able to sweep the setting just what they call the USA tone. I find Amp block Splawn Nitrous 1 is pretty close running no cab block and using Matrix GT100FX into a real cab, power amp modeling still on.

Here is the patent if anyone can help.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwMWxzd7lEJ4WWZselRsb3R5Q0U/edit?pli=1
 
Following, been a die hard Blackstar fan almost since their inception, but I am going the full Axe Fx route after having an FM3. Looking forward to trying the tone match block with my Blackstar Series One 1046L6.
 
If you think the Splawn is close, why not try a tone match to the real amp run into a load box. You might be able to get there with a post-amp EQ block.
 
Played around with the tone match again tonight. Seems when I had tried it some time ago must have been doing something wrong because the result was a fizzy mess. This evening much better and closer, at least I'm in the ballpark now. Will work on it more tomorrow and see if I can nail what I'm after. Pretty simple with this amp as it has an XLR speaker emulated out. Really need to get ahold of his cabinet and shoot an IR of that as well.

Anyone know why when I do a tone match and save it as an IR the volume is 7-8 db less than any of the stock IR's?
 
It would seem that way but its double stacked potentiometer that's doing two frequency sweeps at once. Changing the tone stack frequency in the amp block doesn't really seem to shift it in a useful way in regards to what that ISF is doing.
 
It would seem that way but its double stacked potentiometer that's doing two frequency sweeps at once. Changing the tone stack frequency in the amp block doesn't really seem to shift it in a useful way in regards to what that ISF is doing.
It changes the frequency range of both the bass and treble controls, effectively also changing the center frequency of the mid control.
 
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Anyone know why when I do a tone match and save it as an IR the volume is 7-8 db less than any of the stock IR's?

I don't know, but boost the level by 9 dB. I'd also recommend setting the Averaging Time to 70 rather than the default.
 
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Played around with the tone match again tonight. Seems when I had tried it some time ago must have been doing something wrong because the result was a fizzy mess. This evening much better and closer, at least I'm in the ballpark now. Will work on it more tomorrow and see if I can nail what I'm after. Pretty simple with this amp as it has an XLR speaker emulated out. Really need to get ahold of his cabinet and shoot an IR of that as well.

Note that the emulated speaker out, well, has a speaker emulator on it So when you tone match that you won't just match the amp but also their emulated speaker. Then when you run it out to your real cab you'll be using both the real speaker and the emulated one (since it'll be baked into the tone match).

If you can disable the cab emulation or take a line out somehow you'll avoid this problem.
 
IronSean That makes sense. However I don't have access to a load box.

Just realized my buddy has a RIVERA RockCrusher, will grab that tomorrow and give it another go.
 
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Used the RIVERA RockCrusher today to do another tone match. Better than the tone match from the amps direct out, hard to say. I can get pretty close to the the real rig using the Matrix GT1000FX and a real cab. Next challenge to get FRFR speakers to sound the same.
 
Already scoured the internet on the subject of ISF but thanks for posting. The real question is how can we recreate this in the AXE FX. My guess is three filter blocks set to Allpass focused on those LOW MID HIGH frequencies then control the three filters with a modifier connected to an expression knob?
 
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