Check your Amp block balance..

ChrisMetal86

Experienced
Updated to Quantum 1.02 tonight and my "Y" state amps sounded bad in my presets. I dialed and twiddled for about 45 min and it was puzzling the mess out of me.

The way I have my presets setup is that "X" state is clean, "Y" state is gain. The gain state sounded muffled, no clarity, no balls. I reloaded firmware and no change. I looked at just about everything and was ready to give up, then I saw it. The balance on the "Y" state was set at -59.1. I checked every preset of mine and they were all like that. Changed them back to 0.0 and my gosh everything was incredible again!

The factory presets were fine, just mine had that weird change. Not sure what caused it to do that, but I reloaded the original quantum and the presets I had backed up previously and they were all fine. Reloaded the new 1.02fw and same thing as before with the amp "Y" state being -59.1. And again, it was only on my presets, not the factory ones.

Either way, I changed them back to 0.0 and everything sounded perfect. I guess my reasoning for posting this is for others who upgrade firmware and then everything sounds muffled, no clarity, no balls.. Check the amp block balance parameter because that's what made mine sound bad.
 
I don't use Y but good to know for people who do that might have the same issue.
 
I've had issues in two previous FW updates that affected settings only in the Y state of amp blocks... In both cases it was only for amps that had both a Drive and Overdrive control.

Might be worth reporting in the Bugs forum.

I plan to update to Q1.02 tomorrow, so I'll keep an eye out for this.
 
Confirmed and thanks for the heads-up. On my AxeFx II Mk I all presets have "Y" state balance -100.
 
Sounds like a valid bug to me. Maybe a mod can move it to that forum so the FAS folks can look into it.
 
My AxeFx arrives tomorrow...would someone be so kind as to explain what the amp balance is, how it works and why?

Thanks in advance for your help. :)
 
My AxeFx arrives tomorrow...would someone be so kind as to explain what the amp balance is, how it works and why?

Thanks in advance for your help. :)

The amp balance controls where the sound is panned in the stereo field at the output of the amp block. If set to 0, the output is centered between speakers, -100 is hard panned left, 100 is hard panned right. It's handy because you can have two amp blocks panned left and right, which makes for a cool sound.
 
The amp balance controls where the sound is panned in the stereo field at the output of the amp block. If set to 0, the output is centered between speakers, -100 is hard panned left, 100 is hard panned right. It's handy because you can have two amp blocks panned left and right, which makes for a cool sound.

Beat me to it. Was gonna say the balance is what keeps the virtual amp from falling over lol
 
The amp balance controls where the sound is panned in the stereo field at the output of the amp block. If set to 0, the output is centered between speakers, -100 is hard panned left, 100 is hard panned right. It's handy because you can have two amp blocks panned left and right, which makes for a cool sound.


Thanks. :)
 
Ha! I wish I thought of that!

Haha.

While it may be a possible bug, it could be the culprit for some of these "I updated FW and now it sounds like poop" threads. Maybe some of those guys have "Y" state amps that the balance was changed on and they hear a muffled/muddy, no clarity, or punch type of tone? Either way, mods, if it needs to be moved to the bug section, feel free to do so. :)
 
Definitely possible. For what it's worth, I just made it over to my Axe to check, and the couple of presets I have that use the Y state are still balanced to center, but those were created pre-Quantum beta. I also tried creating a new preset with an amp block, and that was fine too. I have an XL+, though, maybe it's a Mk I or Mk II only issue.
 
I'm glad I never bothered to use X/Y! :)

I never used the X/Y when I first got my XL. I just used 2 amp blocks. After hanging out with Larry Mitchell one day and talking gear and watching him use the FX8 he had just got, I learned a ton. The X/Y saves on CPU for one, and it makes sense when using scenes as well. Got tons of pointers from the tone guru himself. Have been implementing lots of those pointers in my patches now. Pretty much use X/Y for everything where the effects on clean don't sound right with gain states (chorus, pitch, drive, comp, reverb, delay, etc.) I use 4 scenes and have them set with different X/Y states on several things. And of course, if I need more than 4 scenes, there is the MFC buttons set for individual effects to add and remove from the signal. My CPU went from hovering in the 88-90% down to the low 70s for my highest CPU patches by using X/Y for effects and amps instead of multiple drives, choruses, etc.
 
Could this be amp dependent?
I checked all my presets and none of them had what was describes. I currently only use Tucana Clean, Tucana Lead, Car Roamer and Angle Severe 1

Or does it probably only happen if you use the amp block as global block?
 
Could this be amp dependent?
I checked all my presets and none of them had what was describes. I currently only use Tucana Clean, Tucana Lead, Car Roamer and Angle Severe 1

Or does it probably only happen if you use the amp block as global block?


I'm not totally sure since I'm not near my Axe right now. On all of my presets except for one, my "X" state is the Shiva Clean channel, the other one preset is the Dumble Clean channel. All of them have different "Y" state amps (Ecstasy Red Modern, Uberschall, Recto 2 Red Modern, USA Lead Bright +, Dumble, AFD100, Lonestar, 1959 SLP, and a few others), but they all had the same thing with the amp balance issue. Not a major issue or anything that causes cut outs or freezes and weird sounds. Just they were not in the 0.0 position. Simple fix once I noticed what happened. Everything is good and flawless other than that.
 
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