Ugly Bunny
Power User
Let me first say that for the most part, I love the OD pedals that I've tried in the Axe FX III.
My concern is that they all seem to have essentially the same adjustable parameters which don't equate to the real-life pedal. For instance, my bass player came over and we tried to compare the Microtubes B7K to the Fractal equivalent. The problem was that there just simply weren't the same parameters. The B7K has two three-way toggles that are not represented in the Fractal. It's got the drive, level, and blend, which, sure the Fractal has, but the ranges are nowhere near the pedal's. For instance, I turned up the drive on the the Fractal to 10 and it barely scratched the surface of what the B7K did not even nearly that far cranked.
The character of the distortion was very close and quite desirable, so it's not too big of an issue, but I've noticed this with a lot of things. My favorite OD pedal, the Klon (or any number of klones out there) is not represented in the Fractal. There are a couple guides out there, supposedly, to being able to approximate the tone, but they do not relate to the current options available (and the closest I could get from following the guides got me nowhere near). I figured the Klon would be one of the first and/or most desired models, but I've been wrong before lol.
I'm in no way suggesting that the Helix even TOUCHES the Axe FX in terms of quality of sound or feel, but one thing that's easy to appreciate is that the parameters offered on the models, for the most part, sync up to the real-world equivalents. There are instances where I'm GLAD it doesn't work like this: for instance, the SDD 3000 preamp: all that has is a drive and two selector switches for in/out dB boosts - not terribly easy to work with. The Fractal version is MUCH more user friendly.
Are there any plans to maybe, I dunno, 'skin' the OD models so they're more representative of their namesakes? I guess to someone like me, and I'm sure many others, who aren't familiar with sculpting the tone of an overdrive pedal using specific boosts/cuts/frequencies and messing with biasing and clipping types, is there a more basic way to adjust these or a more thorough guide on setting things so they interact more like what they're modeled after? I mean, an 808 has three knobs - I love that there are options to really go under the hood and adjust everything, but sometimes, man, it'd be so much easier to just have those three knobs (Klon, too).
Anyway, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent, just wondering how people work around the differences between the Axe and the real thing when they are very familiar with the real thing and are trying to replicate it using the Axe's quite different parameters. Thanks!
My concern is that they all seem to have essentially the same adjustable parameters which don't equate to the real-life pedal. For instance, my bass player came over and we tried to compare the Microtubes B7K to the Fractal equivalent. The problem was that there just simply weren't the same parameters. The B7K has two three-way toggles that are not represented in the Fractal. It's got the drive, level, and blend, which, sure the Fractal has, but the ranges are nowhere near the pedal's. For instance, I turned up the drive on the the Fractal to 10 and it barely scratched the surface of what the B7K did not even nearly that far cranked.
The character of the distortion was very close and quite desirable, so it's not too big of an issue, but I've noticed this with a lot of things. My favorite OD pedal, the Klon (or any number of klones out there) is not represented in the Fractal. There are a couple guides out there, supposedly, to being able to approximate the tone, but they do not relate to the current options available (and the closest I could get from following the guides got me nowhere near). I figured the Klon would be one of the first and/or most desired models, but I've been wrong before lol.
I'm in no way suggesting that the Helix even TOUCHES the Axe FX in terms of quality of sound or feel, but one thing that's easy to appreciate is that the parameters offered on the models, for the most part, sync up to the real-world equivalents. There are instances where I'm GLAD it doesn't work like this: for instance, the SDD 3000 preamp: all that has is a drive and two selector switches for in/out dB boosts - not terribly easy to work with. The Fractal version is MUCH more user friendly.
Are there any plans to maybe, I dunno, 'skin' the OD models so they're more representative of their namesakes? I guess to someone like me, and I'm sure many others, who aren't familiar with sculpting the tone of an overdrive pedal using specific boosts/cuts/frequencies and messing with biasing and clipping types, is there a more basic way to adjust these or a more thorough guide on setting things so they interact more like what they're modeled after? I mean, an 808 has three knobs - I love that there are options to really go under the hood and adjust everything, but sometimes, man, it'd be so much easier to just have those three knobs (Klon, too).
Anyway, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent, just wondering how people work around the differences between the Axe and the real thing when they are very familiar with the real thing and are trying to replicate it using the Axe's quite different parameters. Thanks!