Cliff, can we do this in the II yet??

I dont believe this is possible yet with just one control. We can simulate some of the side effects of the variac with the Sag and Damping controls, as well as the B+ Time constant, but its not going to get you the exact same thing as lowering the B+ voltage on the whole amp or just the power section. However, given that Cliff has included the ability to choose AC or DC power, adding (if it's not already in there) and revealing a B+ voltage control that effected the whole amp or just the power section is only a few steps away. Incidentally this is how Power Scaling (and the Power Scale control on amps like the Badger) works.
 
groovenut said:
I dont believe this is possible yet with just one control. We can simulate some of the side effects of the variac with the Sag and Damping controls, as well as the B+ Time constant, but its not going to get you the exact same thing as lowering the B+ voltage on the whole amp or just the power section. However, given that Cliff has included the ability to choose AC or DC power, adding (if it's not already in there) and revealing a B+ voltage control that effected the whole amp or just the power section is only a few steps away.
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I would like to think that was true....

However at this stage we seem to have everything BUT variac control, which seems a bit odd as:

a) It's arguably the most famous 'mod' ever applied to a tube amp.
b) People have been asking about it since the Standard days.

So I kind of suspect that if it were easy to implement it would be in the box by now....maybe..
 
I love watching videos like this.

Here's another snippet from some guy making a documentary on amps. I saw this on HR inc.

Ampoholic

I think they should interview Cliff about the now and the future of digital modeling and add that as a segment. Get some behind the scenes real life stories of why he created this in the first place. He's told us all before, why he go into it, but it would be nice to get it documented for prosperity.
 
scottburrow said:
I love watching videos like this.

Here's another snippet from some guy making a documentary on amps. I saw this on HR inc.

Ampoholic
Click to expand...

For sure will watch on it later that day. And actually I like watching this kind of stuff, too.

And after watching most of the video: I think Mr. Soldano demonstrating us how you can make great products if you're passioned about what you're doing, even after so many years.

scottburrow said:
I think they should interview Cliff about the now and the future of digital modeling and add that as a segment. Get some behind the scenes real life stories of why he created this in the first place. He's told us all before, why he go into it, but it would be nice to get it documented for prosperity.
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Tbh exactly what I thought whyle watching this.
 
well if you think about it- it's not just a variac for a marshall/brown sound

Mesa's have a spongy/bold - variac switch- so it could be applied throughout.
 
Funny but I thought the whole point to amp molding (aside from versatility) was to get a great cranked amp tone at low volume. Not that this isn't a great amp tone but I can get this tone from the Axe II now, don't really need a Variac parameter.
 
Jeries said:
Mesa's have a spongy/bold - variac switch- so it could be applied throughout.
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Absolutely!

This is why I wondering if it just isn't possible to emulate in the Axe ( hard to believe though..)?

We've got every parameter we couldn't even have imagined yet we don't have this one... would love to hear a response from Cliff of this.



Sixstring said:
Funny but I thought the whole point to amp molding (aside from versatility) was to get a great cranked amp tone at low volume. Not that this isn't a great amp tone but I can get this tone from the Axe II now, don't really need a Variac parameter.
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Are you saying you NEED a AC line frequency parameter ?? :)

The reason I'm interested in it is because I'm forever in pursuit of the ultimate VH1 / VH2 plexi tone.
 
zack said:
Absolutely!

This is why I wondering if it just isn't possible to emulate in the Axe ( hard to believe though..)?

We've got every parameter we couldn't even have imagined yet we don't have this one... would love to hear a response from Cliff of this.





Are you saying you NEED a AC line frequency parameter ?? :)

The reason I'm interested in it is because I'm forever in pursuit of the ultimate VH1 / VH2 plexi tone.
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I'm saying you can get these tones from the Axe with the given sims and parameters already. Heck there were guys getting this tone with the Standard and Ultras three years ago and nailing it ;)
 
^^ that does indeed sound excellent.... but could it sound even closer with a variac parameter :)
 
Here's one I did with V6.02 using the Brown model with NO TMA.

The preset is on Axechange #679. The Brown model should already have the B+ voltage dropped to simulate a Variac. Like I said in my original response the tools are already there to achieve this sound and response, it's just not in one convenient control.

However, using a Variac on a real tube amp does all sorts of things that are probably too resource hungry to do in real time in the AxeFx. The model would have to not only adjust the B+ voltage across the entire amp, but also would have to drop the heater voltages to the tubes and skew the bias voltage to the power tubes. I assume Cliff already took these things into consideration when he modeled the Brown amp.
 
I used to use one in the 80's with a Mesa Boogie Mk IIC so I can crank it up and play at reasonable levels. I preferred using it with a voltage regulator because it sounded better. The sound was brighter and got tons of sustain with it. I used to plug directly to the Boogie with no pedals and I ran in stereo by taking a DI out and plugging it to an eq an then to a Ibanez Analog delay which had a doubler setting.
It sounded huge using 2 1972 Marshall cabs. Depending how loud I needed it I use to set it between 80 and 100 volts depending how loud I needed to be.
 
Sixstring said:
This is a perfect example... Early EVH tone
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That's not even close. EVH sound was cleaner and he didn't use pedals all. The Friedman amp has to much gain.EVH barely had that much gain with his amp and his sound was very bright. With FW10 if you use the 50 watt Plexi and crank all the tone controls to 10 and tweak the dynamic presence and other parameters you get a very close sound to EVH. I tried it with the Plexi 100 and for some reason is to dark sounding.
 
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