Dialing OUT the digital Axe-Fx midrange

[aziz]

I only listen Beethovens Moonlight Sonata from CDs that have been recorded without that horrible digital sound.

 

[Orvillain]

But the thing is, you really don't know.

You know what your interpretation of that phrase means. And probably you know what aliasing sounds like, too.

When someone says it, you might even automatically think that is what they are referring to. Until you actually hear it yourself you won't really know...

But "it sounds digital" is so overused, and often for things that have nothing to do with being digital or not.

Humans operate on inference. I "don't really know" a lot of things. But I simply cannot operate in the world without making assumptions, inferences, and value judgements. The human condition. heh.

 

[GuitarManiac32]

Maybe for some people the "digital sound/tone" means that it sounds more polished than tube amps. More like listening to a recorded guitar amp which is the way modellers usually work. I personally enjoy the recorded sound more than overdriven tube amps. When I used to use tube amps I didn't really like the overdriven tones. I usually looked for smoother overdrive so I used my tube amps clean and kicked in an overdrive pedal in front... Sounded nicer to my ears

 

[AlGrenadine]

Maybe you can share some sound of the digital-sounding thing versus the analog-sounding thing?

For the "redflag" topic, isn't using "redflag" a red flag? ^^

 

[duzie]

Maybe you can share some sound of the digital-sounding thing versus the analog-sounding thing?

For the "redflag" topic, isn't using "redflag" a red flag? ^^

Unfortunately I don’t think actual comparisons of sound was the premise of the OP
We shall see
Or maybe not

 

[Budda]

petition to call tube amps noisy. Especially since op wont be back to post clips etc per their track record, though im happy to be wrong.

 

[Possum]

I don't think the Axe sounds "digital" at all and my take on this is that this comes from people who never played the early digital modeling amps / sims from like 20 years ago. I remember times where I used a Korg PX4D effects processor, an Ibanez TB100h solid state head and a Roland Cube 30 modelling solid state amp. They all shared the same tonal behavior: Weird non adjustable noise gates, partly very compressed feel, weird sonic artifacts such as weird kind of distortion when doing low palm mutes or some chirpiness when picking on higher notes. It sounded more like a combination of the smoothed off tube distortion and hard clipping than anything else.
My guess is that people tried to model the distinct way a saturated tube compresses the peak of the sine, but either the hardware or the algorithms were just not accurate enough to really accurately recalculate the audio signal. And I doubt that early guitar sims or digital amps were as sophisticated as modern world class modelers like the FAS stuff. People that never played the very old solid state amps possibly have a complete different imagination of what "digital" sounds like. But the Axe III sure doesn't.

I still believe the "unnatural" amount of mids to be caused by the power amp section. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I ran some samples with a load box and a Marshall JVM 410h. The first half of the MV settings you didn't hear lots of additional gain being added by the power tubes being saturated, but there was a lot of compression going on long before the distortion was audible, flattening the frequency across the board. With all knobs at 12 o clock, the amp sounded very "mid heavy" and "marshally", but the spectral analyzer revealed that the mids were actually quieter/scooped compared to the bass and high frequencies. MV1 already compressed the signal significantly compared to bedroom volume, resulting in the bass and heights being compressed first (due to higher amplitude), technically flattening the readings of the spectral analyzer.

Maybe we can at least get rid of "digital" which the Axe sure isn't and rather focus on why the mids seem to be more prominent compared to other modelers? (Though I don't share that impression about the Axe, which is why it is worth each Penny IMHO)

 

[Stratman68]

Dude was making a funny

OK Rex-That is the reason I left the forum for few months before, funnys I didn't see as funny. Guess I will again.
I know, who cares-Only me..................

 

[steadystate]

Maybe you can share some sound of the digital-sounding thing versus the analog-sounding thing?

Impossible, as anything shared on the internet is digital. Even awesome recordings of analog gear. Another illustration of my point.

 

[RifferMcDuck]

The classic "if everything is digital then nothing is digital" approach

 

[steadystate]

The classic "if everything is digital then nothing is digital" approach

I don't even know what that means.

 

[Rex]

OK Rex-That is the reason I left the forum for few months before, funnys I didn't see as funny. Guess I will again.
I know, who cares-Only me..................

I hope you come back when this blows over. You’re a valuable contributing member of the forum.

 

[Necr0lancer]

Just gonna drop this in here to anyone who wants to watch. This thread was started on the basis of high gain amps so this video is about the Dual Rec vs basically every modeler. I'm curious to see what people think about it and how it relates to the this "digital" sound.

 

[oacikgoz]

Chill guys, don’t unleash the fury!

 

[Budda]

Chill guys, don’t unleash the fury!

Do we have a yjm sig yet?

 

[GuitarMan2550]

I think maybe the answer to dialing out the "digital" sound with the Axe FX is to grab that front panel knob that says, "OUT 1" (if this is the output you are using) and turn it all the way to the left until it stops. Fixed! No digital sound at all, lol!
Apparently, I like that "digital" sound.
The Fractal is the only modeler I have used that 1) has all the ingredients of my old live rig and 2) I can replicate it to what my ears hear as spot on. Now, are all the knobs the same as my live rig? Nope, and neither would it be if I had two identical live rigs.
If I tried to record my old live rig it wouldn't sound near as good as the Fractal.
I can fire up my old live rig and stand in that sweet spot and it sounds perfect. Then fire up the Fractal with the same digitized gear and start tweaking.......and there it is!

 

[RifferMcDuck]

Just gonna drop this in here to anyone who wants to watch. This thread was started on the basis of high gain amps so this video is about the Dual Rec vs basically every modeler. I'm curious to see what people think about it and how it relates to the this "digital" sound.

Again I don't think FAS modeling sounds "digital", I imagine few here do, OP just used that word and I inadvertently spiraled it into a whole debate lol. But if I'm being completely honest about the comparison here, it's the same thing I hear in any high gain comparison with a real amp: the FAS version is a little less open in the highs a lows, a little more "boxed in", and a little more firm in the midrange. I felt the QC was the most accurate in this video, but I think the EQ curve of the Rectifier is basically the same EQ curve the QC has for all of its amps to begin with, which is why I don't own one.

 

[Mongillo19]

Again I don't think FAS modeling sounds "digital", I imagine few here do, OP just used that word and I inadvertently spiraled it into a whole debate lol. But if I'm being completely honest about the comparison here, it's the same thing I hear in any high gain comparison with a real amp: the FAS version is a little less open in the highs a lows, a little more "boxed in", and a little more firm in the midrange. I felt the QC was the most accurate in this video, but I think the EQ curve of the Rectifier is basically the same EQ curve the QC has for all of its amps to begin with, which is why I don't own one.

From the brief sections I watched, the III didn't have to have extreme settings to somewhat match the tone. A lot of the other devices had to have, for example, presence maxed

 

[unix-guy]

Humans operate on inference. I "don't really know" a lot of things. But I simply cannot operate in the world without making assumptions, inferences, and value judgements. The human condition. heh.

All true... And often, wrong.

Not you specifically. All of us...

 

[Possum]

Again I don't think FAS modeling sounds "digital", I imagine few here do, OP just used that word and I inadvertently spiraled it into a whole debate lol. But if I'm being completely honest about the comparison here, it's the same thing I hear in any high gain comparison with a real amp: the FAS version is a little less open in the highs a lows, a little more "boxed in", and a little more firm in the midrange. I felt the QC was the most accurate in this video, but I think the EQ curve of the Rectifier is basically the same EQ curve the QC has for all of its amps to begin with, which is why I don't own one.

Got the same impression, though I am a bit careful when it comes to watching Johns videos on YouTube for some reasons. I don't really trust his content anymore but that's another story. I watched similar videos where he compared the Helix with another amp and after changing a bazillion settings to kinda extreme settings (at least for someone who is used dialing in actual tube amps) the Helix sounded really similar and I was impressed. Which is why I bought the Axe III. Because there I just load the amp into an empty preset and I'm in the ballpark straight away. Night and day difference to how much you had to tweak in the Helix universe. I don't care of other modelers can sound good if you tweak the shit out of it.

I mean you could use a Fender, a distortion pedal, record some shitty tones and then apply match EQs to rape your tone into something that sounds like a recording of a Dual Rec... If I buy a modeler whose only selling point is modeling guitar gear, but it doesn't sound like that particular gear, then the product is shit IMHO. I don't care if you can adjust it to sound identical with a hour of tweaking. I want it to be identical right of the bat...