FAS Class-A is...Even Better than the Real Thing

Per Cliff: "FAS Hot Rod is my version of what a modded Marshall should be. I find the BE/HBE a little too boomy and scooped. Bogners are too dark. Splawns don't have enough compression. Etc. So it's my take on a hot-rodded Marshall tone."
Take this with a grain of salt and as my simple opinion, but I vastly prefer the HBE to the Hot Rod model. I may have to revisit it. I could get good tones from it, but not tones that scratched my Friedman itch.
 
The FAS models typically remove or minimize the undesirable characteristics of those old amps. Guitar tube amp design was nascent in the 60s and 70s and designers didn't fully understand the impact of overdriving tubes. One of the biggest issues was blocking distortion which is excessive bias excursion. When the grid conducts it shifts the bias point and in those old amps it can shift so much that the tube goes into cutoff prematurely.

More modern designs employ grid stoppers and smaller coupling capacitors to reduce bias excursion.
I have a preset I consistently go back to, called " FAS Crunch" and I can use it for all styles, from blues to heavy hard rock. I always enjoy these tones.
 
the FAS Class A is a fender style amp, rather than a vox, no? a blackface preamp into a 6l6 power amp...?

Yeah, that's what the docs say. Doesn't feel particularly Fendery to me though.

The model defaults to EL84/6BQ5 power tubes. So are the docs wrong?
 
"Added “FAS Class-A” amp model which is a “Blackface” preamp into a cathode-biased 6L6 power amp with no negative feedback. This was a happy accident when originally modeling the Carr Rambler in the beta version of this release. Several mistakes were made in the model prior to MIMIC’ing the amp but the model was so well liked that we decided to make it into its own custom amp model. "

Odd as I see EL84 too...
 
The FAS models typically remove or minimize the undesirable characteristics of those old amps. Guitar tube amp design was nascent in the 60s and 70s and designers didn't fully understand the impact of overdriving tubes. One of the biggest issues was blocking distortion which is excessive bias excursion. When the grid conducts it shifts the bias point and in those old amps it can shift so much that the tube goes into cutoff prematurely.

More modern designs employ grid stoppers and smaller coupling capacitors to reduce bias excursion.
I love it when you talk dirty... ;-)
 
If I had my way there would be only FAS models but too many people demand reproductions of existing amps.

The FAS models are my go to models. I'm more into newer better tones than reproductions. I wish you would release a FAS only model plugin, so I wouldn't have to keep using the Line 6 Helix Native plugin. It's too time consuming to have to re-amp with my Axe-Fx III.
 
If I had my way there would be only FAS models but too many people demand reproductions of existing amps.

I've always enthused about many of the FAS models over the decade that I've used Fractal devices. The "FAS-Crunch" was a mainstay for a long while in my AFX II.

While there will always be a large contingent of people who want reproductions of current amps, I've always felt that developing new amps in the digital realm is far more exciting and suspect there are many who would welcome that too, especially since we could all have it both ways.

Given all of the knowledge of tube amps, their warts, limitations, similarities, etc. you've accumulated over the years refining and creating "The Next Generation" of amps would be an amazing and fresh way to further put that knowledge to use.

I know I'd be all over them. I find it very interesting when you 'distill' the various aspects of tone creation, component/circuit interactions, etc. into new models that go beyond what current tube amp tech can offer, especially when you can remove the many unpleasant artifacts (bias excursion, etc.) and limitations (filters that could only be created digitally and never by analog circuitry, etc.).

Even pushing for a entire new paradigm would be cool; where you didn't model conventional stages, components, filters, etc. but distilling and abstracting the various elements of tone, dynamics, interactions, circuits, bloom, all of that into a new 'black box' with new types of controls that simplify and add new methods of versatility and the dialing in of tones while retaining all that we love about the strange ways tube amps 'do their thing'.

Who knows...in the years to come FAS original amps may be the new standard of guitar amplification...!
 
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Agree with Stratoblaster :) 🤘
There is something to do in this way... many options:
- A pure SW appli (too many competitors...)
_ a tiny AXe FX /FM X with only FAS models ans simplified effects => the best one :D
- an hybrid device with some pre amp tubes : if they are still useful...!?
 
Agree with Stratoblaster :) 🤘
There is something to do in this way... many options:
- A pure SW appli (too many competitors...)
_ a tiny AXe FX /FM X with only FAS models ans simplified effects => the best one :D
- an hybrid device with some pre amp tubes : if they are still useful...!?

Some interesting ideas for sure...:cool:

I was thinking of the further development of new custom amps/paradigms that could be exploited using the AFX hardware itself. We could have the best of both worlds; new 'next-gen' amps, ways of tweaking, options, etc. along side of the current modelling of conventional tube amps...everybody wins!
 
Necro bumping this thread because I just LOVE the FAS amps. FAS Buttery and FAS Class A are my favorites at the moment. As mentioned by others in this thread, I too am all for more FAS models and taking amplification to the next level that leaves the "classics" in the dust they have accumulated over the years ;~)) I see the modeler as the future sounds of guitars, not perfect echoes of the past! To boldly go where no amp (cab, pedal, effect) has gone before!! But that is just my opinion and I do get and respect those who are looking to duplicate what others have done!!!

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