Firmware V2 vs. V3 A/B test... discouraged

IMHO. Grape's Group A crush Group B. No contest.

But... Group B are not tweaked nor setup correctly just on how they sound and what I am hearing. Something's wrong with Group B; and it ain't the firmware.

No matter what firmware each is.

Here's my take on the same clip with Firmware 3.00 and my personal Bogner Red preset as I use it for 'reals':



hey dude... I got to say I like that tone a lot....
has plenty of fizz and bite about it.. but plenty of clarity and definition too....
very very nice indeed...
 
First I want to emphasize that the source clip is not me. It's Angus. Check the source thread for all of the info about the clip. I was looking for several dry clips from a variety of guitars to use as examples and happened on Scott's post in another forum. The clip was intended for this purpose (reamping to compare products).

I hear good things in both but definitely have a preference. I will hold off on telling which is which so that I don't skew anyone's perception.

@Scott
I absolutely am making a point in this thread but it's simple : that updating 3.00 has changed most of my sounds but not for the better. My post serves multiple purposes:

1. Informs people (including Cliff) of the issues a user is having with the system. This might make users think twice about upgrading at a time when they don't have time to re-tweak. I saw a few posts before 3.0 came out of users were going to upgrade too close to a gig (in my opinion) so my post could have prevented a disaster.
2. Allows people to post what has worked for them in the transition to 3.00. You provided lots of information that everyone is finding helpful so thanks for that.
3. Points out that it's good to test claims of the "new version" being better than the old because it may not apply to everyone.
4. Proper A/B-ing practice is important when doing direct comparisons. I worked hard on a few presets on the Ultra and lost them in translation to II 1.0. However I found beauty in II 2.0 only to lose it again in 3.0. This oscillation prompted me to perform real A/B testing and question whether the raving about 3.0 applied to me. The A/B test is really helping me learn about the changes so hopefully it will help others as well. I have corrected several presets as I've noted in my updates to the first post but still have a bit to go before I'm happy with 3.0.

I still have some tests yet to post but I don't think I'll ever post a preset. That's a personal thing. It doesn't indicate any sort of agenda on my part. It's ok if I don't get help from the thread. In that case it will just serve as information.
 
First I want to emphasize that the source clip is not me. It's Angus. Check the source thread for all of the info about the clip. I was looking for several dry clips from a variety of guitars to use as examples and happened on Scott's post in another forum. The clip was intended for this purpose (reamping to compare products).

I hear good things in both but definitely have a preference. I will hold off on telling which is which so that I don't skew anyone's perception.

@Scott
I absolutely am making a point in this thread but it's simple : that updating 3.00 has changed most of my sounds but not for the better. My post serves multiple purposes:

1. Informs people (including Cliff) of the issues a user is having with the system. This might make users think twice about upgrading at a time when they don't have time to re-tweak. I saw a few posts before 3.0 came out of users were going to upgrade too close to a gig (in my opinion) so my post could have prevented a disaster.
2. Allows people to post what has worked for them in the transition to 3.00. You provided lots of information that everyone is finding helpful so thanks for that.
3. Points out that it's good to test claims of the "new version" being better than the old because it may not apply to everyone.
4. Proper A/B-ing practice is important when doing direct comparisons. I worked hard on a few presets on the Ultra and lost them in translation to II 1.0. However I found beauty in II 2.0 only to lose it again in 3.0. This oscillation prompted me to perform real A/B testing and question whether the raving about 3.0 applied to me. The A/B test is really helping me learn about the changes so hopefully it will help others as well. I have corrected several presets as I've noted in my updates to the first post but still have a bit to go before I'm happy with 3.0.

I still have some tests yet to post but I don't think I'll ever post a preset. That's a personal thing. It doesn't indicate any sort of agenda on my part. It's ok if I don't get help from the thread. In that case it will just serve as information.

I can appreciate all that and thanks for sharing it. Context is EVERYTHING on the Internet. So many folks just ignore that fact. Thank you for not ignoring it.

Presets can be shared privately too. Remember that.

I'll also add that presets are collections of parameter settings. Nothing magic. Nothing personal. Nothing really at all. I understand where you are coming from; but we can do this privately too.

I'm trying to help you. If you end up with better sounds because someone helped you, then you are better off than when you started. I'm willing to help. PM me.
 
IMHO. Grape's Group A crush Group B. No contest.

But... Group B are not tweaked nor setup correctly just on how they sound and what I am hearing. Something's wrong with Group B; and it ain't the firmware.

No matter what firmware each is.

Here's my take on the same clip with Firmware 3.00 and my personal Bogner Red preset as I use it for 'reals':



Can you do the same with firmware 2.0? Just to for the sake of experimentation?
I'm curious about this, and its holding me back from upgrading to 3.0
 
Can you do the same with firmware 2.0? Just to for the sake of experimentation?
I'm curious about this, and its holding me back from upgrading to 3.0

I don't have the time to do that to be honest. I am scrambling to learn 12 new songs for tomorrow's rehearsal, have my youngest son's science project due Friday and need to scramble for a gig that is happening Sunday (P&W) that I will not be able to rehearse at all, but have to show up and nail the set (another 5 songs on top of my normal band's new 12).

Trust me, 2.xx sounds good. 3.xx sounds freaking great. IMHO. YMMV. If you have 2.0, then just reamp the dry track from FlyinAngus. it's in the link Grape noted - I put it up on the web for Angus over 2 years ago now. :D

Peace.
 
I don't have the time to do that to be honest. I am scrambling to learn 12 new songs for tomorrow's rehearsal, have my youngest son's science project due Friday and need to scramble for a gig that is happening Sunday (P&W) that I will not be able to rehearse at all, but have to show up and nail the set (another 5 songs on top of my normal band's new 12).

And don't forget "and then I have to post all my patches for people like bjjp2 who, rather than do their own tweaking, just wait and copy mine."
 
The group A clips are from 2.00b
The group B clips are from 3.00

The clips that I'm posting aren't tweaked to sound identical between firmware. They are simply what was shipped in each firmware. As a result, it's not the best test of "which firmware sounds better". However, as a first start with the new firmware, I think Bank A presents a step backwards and probably could be reworked to highlight the strengths of 3.00. I think the brownface in group B is a good example of this as it's the only one I prefer over group A.

My experience with my own presets has been relatively more problematic. Of course, this doesn't mean that 3.00 can't sound better than 2.00. In fact, for the first 6 or so presets I was able to modify the presets to sound better in 3.0 with my material (I didn't try with this dry clip). I'm still having trouble with the AC30TB in combination with other effects. I'm about to compare each block independently in one of my presets so that I can narrow it down and I'll let you know what I find. Also, I recorded about 30 or so presets with the dry clip in 3.00 and was about to do it in 2.00 but goofed up all of my alignments... so either I'm not going to be able to do it or it will take some more time.

Here's a random find:

When downgrading to 2.00b I noticed that some blank and some present presets. 3.00 presets show as blank in 2.00 so I assume the following presets have not been modified in the 3.00 Bank A:
16,18,29,34,35,36,37,38,41,43-56,58-65,67,69,70,73,74,75,77-79,81-98,100-116,118-122,124-127
 
IMHO. Grape's Group A crush Group B. No contest.

But... Group B are not tweaked nor setup correctly just on how they sound and what I am hearing. Something's wrong with Group B; and it ain't the firmware.

No matter what firmware each is.

Here's my take on the same clip with Firmware 3.00 and my personal Bogner Red preset as I use it for 'reals':



Yummy Scotty. In a word....'agitated', in a good way. Love that tone!
 
Patience is a virtue...or so I'm told!

I can appreciate all that and thanks for sharing it. Context is EVERYTHING on the Internet. So many folks just ignore that fact. Thank you for not ignoring it.

Presets can be shared privately too. Remember that.

I'll also add that presets are collections of parameter settings. Nothing magic. Nothing personal. Nothing really at all. I understand where you are coming from; but we can do this privately too.

I'm trying to help you. If you end up with better sounds because someone helped you, then you are better off than when you started. I'm willing to help. PM me.

Scott,

You've been more than patient enough in trying to help "grape" with his struggles to get FW-3.00 to sound better than FW-2.01. Perhaps the way his ears hear FW-3.00 is different than most people's perception, and that's OK. However, if he were really looking to improve his sound, learn a bit more about the craft of Axe-FX patch-creation, etc, don't you think it would make a lot more sense to POST A FREAKIN' PRESET/PATCH?!? Last time I checked, Axe-Edit's screen-display (or the unit's on-screen Layout for that matter) never exposed pictures of someone's girlfriend/wife naked (or anything else to be afraid of) - LOL! In fact, a wise man once said:

"Presets are collections of parameter settings. Nothing magic. Nothing personal. Nothing really at all." Well put!

Would a defense-lawyer/attorney ever walk into a courtroom, make an opening-statement pleading the innocence of his client, and then proceed to present NO EVIDENCE on his client's behalf? Of course not...That would be ludicrous! ...I digress...

Once the signal leaves the output-jack of our respective instruments (or in some cases, a line-level re-amp signal) then the Axe-FX "patches" represent the "SONIC-DNA" of our electric-guitar/bass sounds! I suppose you can see where I'm going with this - LOL!

Scott, your patience and selflessness on this forum is very admirable. You're a good man...I just hope that someone like yourself who is so willing to help others is not taking time out of his own busy schedule in an attempt to help someone who might turn out to be more of a "contrarian" than a musician looking to improve his tone-making craft...I dunno...Maybe "grape" will surprise me and take a "leap-of-faith" by sharing a few of his patches with you, so that you can "take-a-peek-under-the-hood" so-to-speak! Until he shares a patch with you, he's just making extremely vague, judgemental, baseless/"evidence-less" claims while furnishing very little to absolutely NOTHING specific about his parameters/settings! I mean if I just wanted to "prove a point" about the (supposed) inferiority of FW-3.00, I could post-up some of the worst sounding shit you've EVER heard (using FW-3.00) in support of such an argument...Of course for me to actually make it sound THAT BAD, I'd have to make some ridiculous patch adjustments (a few key ones could do the trick - LOL!) Aaahhhh, but once you see the patch-in-question, then either my incompetence (if I was actually trying to make it sound good,) or my "sabotaging-motives" (if I were ONLY trying to prove a point) would be EXPOSED! I guess unless "grape" shares an Axe-FX II patch with you, we'll never know, will we?...Oh well!

Bottom-Line: (As Cliff basically said) It's OK to hear things differently than others, so if grape's happy with 2.01, then he should just use it (the down-revved Firmware) and be happy! There's nothing wrong with that course of action!

Bill
 
two of the biggest things soundwise that have been changed in 3.0 are
1) the mics have been redone (including Proximity effect)
2) the RW cabs have been remixed for far less bass.

if anyone ever changed a mic and cab in real life, they probably know what effect this is gonna have on the tone. comparing the two FWs by just using presets is of course not gonna give the same results and it's really gonna depend on taste. as for one's old presets...well, the same thing goes really. the best way to test how much improved and more organic 3.0 sounds (or different for that matter) would indeed be to use a thirdparty IR, no mic, no Proximity effect and run that on both FWs. every other test is simply gonna be down to taste.
 
After comparing each block in a preset independently between firmwares, the difference lies in the Cab's and the interaction of amp and cab. All other blocks sound identical. In fact the amp alone sounds slightly better in 3.0 (sounds like a slight eq change in the lo/mid) but as whole, 2.0 has a better sound.

@billmeedog
Don't really know how to respond to that... I read back the entire thread to check myself and do not see why you are responding that way. Early on people asked for clips not presets. I've done that. The presets that I am working on I simply do not want to share. This is not unique to me. There are those who freely share presets, clips, works in progress etc. and there are those (the majority) who don't. If I have time, I'll create preset with the dry sound, 2.0 wet, 3.0 wet and post it to illustrate the differences but for now I've been concentrating privately on recovering hours and hours of work on 2.0 to work properly in 3.0. Everyone else is free to do the same and to be clear, aside from hearing clips of 3.0, I have not heard direct comparisons (meaning same source A/B) of the two firmwares to back up the claim that it is better. That doesn't mean that it's NOT better, it just means that I haven't heard it. So you could apply your opinion to both sides of the fence but it appears that you're only attacking the one side that isn't hearing the greatness in 3.0. I'd love for someone to attack the hyperbole about 3.0 and ask them to really prove it (aside from posting a clip of 3.0 only)- not to be contrary but because I actually want to hear what 3.0 can do over 2.0.
 
Interesting, I've been trying to figure out why some people love 3.0 and some people are disappointed and find it a bit thin. I normally run through a cab with the cab sims off and 3.0 was a disappointment for me. Last night however I ran through my headphones with the cab sims on and there was a big difference. I wonder if the people loving 3.0 are using the cab sims and the people who are disappointed are turning them off?
 
After comparing each block in a preset independently between firmwares, the difference lies in the Cab's and the interaction of amp and cab. All other blocks sound identical. In fact the amp alone sounds slightly better in 3.0 (sounds like a slight eq change in the lo/mid) but as whole, 2.0 has a better sound.

There is no "interaction" between amp and cab. The cab block is a convolution processor. It is linear and therefore it can't influence the amp block in any way and vice-versa.

If you prefer 2.00 then you prefer the cabinet models in 2.00. My suggestion, therefore, is to purchase the Redwirez IRs and peruse the vast collection of IRs until you find one (or a mix) that gives you the desired sound.

In our testing, the beta testers unanimously preferred the more accurate and less bassy sound of the IRs used in 3.00. Everyone hears differently and has their own preference. Your preference is obviously towards the dark and bass heavy sound of the IRs used in 2.00, and that's fine. The amp modeling is vastly improved in 3.00 and you would be doing yourself a disservice by not taking advantage of that.

At this point I would consider the "issue" resolved and strongly suggest you experiment with IRs rather than making unfounded proclamations.
 
Hi Cliff,

Just curious if the beta testers were all FRFR users or if some of them also ran without using the cab sims? I don't use the cab sims so I know that is not the issue for me. Is it possible that the amp modifications "work" better with the cab sims on? I'd really like to keep the new features in 3.0x and try to get a sound closer to 2.0x without going back to 2.0x. I appreciate your suggestion to use Rewirez but do you have any suggestions for someone not using the cab sims?

Thanks,
Rich
 
Hi Cliff,

Just curious if the beta testers were all FRFR users or if some of them also ran without using the cab sims? I don't use the cab sims so I know that is not the issue for me. Is it possible that the amp modifications "work" better with the cab sims on? I'd really like to keep the new features in 3.0x and try to get a sound closer to 2.0x without going back to 2.0x. I appreciate your suggestion to use Rewirez but do you have any suggestions for someone not using the cab sims?

Thanks,
Rich

The amp modeling is far better in 3.0x regardless of whether you use the cab modeling or not. If you prefer 2.0x, use that.
 
Count me as a very satisfied non-cab sim user. I like to run most of my high gain stuff thru a power amp, and into a real cab. The improvement from 2.0 to 3.0 is substantial.
 
Interesting, I've been trying to figure out why some people love 3.0 and some people are disappointed and find it a bit thin. I normally run through a cab with the cab sims off and 3.0 was a disappointment for me. Last night however I ran through my headphones with the cab sims on and there was a big difference. I wonder if the people loving 3.0 are using the cab sims and the people who are disappointed are turning them off?


Thanks for the replies, maybe I should consider changing my setup...

I have both types of setup:
- studio monitors with cab sims On
- power amp and guitar speaker with cab sims Off

Yes, V3 sounds different from V2 through both rigs. In a good way.
But you may have to dial in your amp / preset settings again.

So far, in all the cases where somebody blames V3 for ruining his (haven't seen a female around here yet) tones, it has been user error.
 
There is no "interaction" between amp and cab. The cab block is a convolution processor. It is linear and therefore it can't influence the amp block in any way and vice-versa.

Literally "interaction" is a poor choice of words on my part. I understand the difference between the model and convolution. A more correct way of saying it is that the amp and cab together in this case or the cab alone are causing the difference in sound.

If you prefer 2.00 then you prefer the cabinet models in 2.00. My suggestion, therefore, is to purchase the Redwirez IRs and peruse the vast collection of IRs until you find one (or a mix) that gives you the desired sound.

My main reason for upgrading to 3.0 is the improved amp modeling and the ir capture feature. I don't know if you saw but I did say that in a preset that I'm working on, the amp in isolation sounds better in 3.0. I haven't gotten to the ir capture feature yet. I'm still in "migration" mode. As for purchasing Redwirez IRs, that's certainly an option but if you changed the mics (not sure if you did) and the proximity effect is not defeatable (not sure if 0 = pre-3.0 FW) I don't think they'd sound the same. But this is beside the fact. I've already compensated for the IR change with eq elsewhere and I've mentioned that in this thread. Some of the ones I'm wrestling with are not redwirez.

In our testing, the beta testers unanimously preferred the more accurate and less bassy sound of the IRs used in 3.00.
I don't doubt it. The change makes sense to me.

Your preference is obviously towards the dark and bass heavy sound of the IRs used in 2.00, and that's fine.
The context of the sound matters. In isolation I prefer a fuller range for the sound. In a heavy mix, this obviously will compete with other instrument's space. So part of my acknowledged shock was in the shift in eq in 3.00. As noted, I've compensated for that and am content with those changes.

The amp modeling is vastly improved in 3.00 and you would be doing yourself a disservice by not taking advantage of that.
This is where I'm really asking for proof - not a demand such as "PROVE IT!" but rather I genuinely want to hear what you and the beta testers are hearing. To hear it I believe there needs to be a same source A/B test as opposed to just clips recorded in 3.0. By the way, I HEAR the difference between the Ultra and the II. Remember when people were saying there wasn't a reason to get the II because they couldn't hear the difference? Well, I did A/B the Ultra with the II for awhile and that convinced me. I don't touch the Ultra anymore. With 2.0 vs. 3.0 from the beta testers feedback, I thought I'd have the same findings.

At this point I would consider the "issue" resolved and strongly suggest you experiment with IRs rather than making unfounded proclamations.
It's not resolved for me. I need the warm fuzzy feeling when I play. But I agree, the solution may be to experiment with IRs. I'm waiting for a flood of cab IRs from users to try out. If that doesn't happen, I'll have to find a few AC30TB's myself and start experimenting.

Cliff, Scott, and others, I'm not aiming to get people riled up. My posts may have had that affect but I'm am truly grateful for the work all of you have put in. The AxeFX II is now the only piece of guitar equipment that I use and it is the best one to date. I'm just posting what I thought would be a valuable discussion from an independent user.
 
Back
Top Bottom