shasha
Fractal Fanatic
While I absolutely respect your quest for knowledge (seriously I do, because its not often that anyone wants to learn more than the bare minumum is to do something these days) I think that you are are assuming a couple of things:
1. That there is someone out there that really knows how to explain every single parameter in a way that works for you.
2. That someone has all the answers (let alone answers for your specific needs and tastes).
3. That this someone has the time available to invest in an undertaking that large.
4. That when v5.05 comes out that half of it isn't thrown out the window.
5. That armed with this knowledge that you would no longer still have to experiment and tweak by ear to sound exactly how you want.
Any all-encompassing guide is going to be based on one person's knowledge, taste, and opinions. Just because someone writes a guide doesn't mean that it's the definitive way to do something either.
I don't know what to tell you, but from what I can tell, apart from sm, no one on here has shown an inclination to want to create such a guide. He said that he wanted to do it, but even he didn't accomplish it before he ran out of time. I write lesson plans and teach for a living and I can tell you right now that what you are asking for is not only an unreasonable request, but it's unrealiistic to expect it to be the solution to what ails you. If I was to speculate here as to where sm got all of his knowledge (because I didn't follow him that closely and only skimmed through his guide) most of it was gathered via personal hands on experience, a lot of research and a lot of trial and error.
You've got the internet, books, the gear, and the desire to learn (I am positive of this), you've got the manual and the wiki....everything that he had, you have as well except for the hands on and trial and error. Instead of asking him to do this for you, why don't you do it for yourself?
I'd love to do something like this. I just don't have the time and to be quite honest I don't concern myself with enough of the minutia that seems to be the standard measuring stick for gear these days. I just don't have the ability to get hung up on what I don't have and usually just take what I do have and do the best I can with it. I hear differences in the firmware and what I hear is something new to utilize. Most of what I do know is from a considerable amount of time 'dorking around' and what that afforded me was a general idea of what many of the parameters do. What it also did was confirm in my mind that no matter how many knobs are on something there is no magic button that is going to miraculously make it sound amazingly different if the general texture and tone isn't there and if it does there is usually something that it's being taken away from somewhere else.
I'm not going to bug you about this again, because I keep sounding like I'm telling you to quit whining or something as if what I said mattered to anyone and that isn't my intent and I definitely don't want you to ever stop asking for knowledge. What I'm trying to get across is that hanging onto this concept that sm had all the answers and that all is lost (because you put some reference to him in almost every post) is almost a defeatest attitude. You've got 70 amps, 50 cabs, tons of effects and the rest of your life to dial in all the patches that you could want....don't waste time waiting for someone to lead you, take the lead on it for yourself.
If I was you I'd start small with just an amp and cab and go with very small incremental changes and try to understand what the parameters do to the sound. Spend a week or two just messing with that amp with different cabs. Don't get obsessed with dialing in a specific tone, just try to absorb what you are hearing and feeling. I mean honestly, all the effects and stuff are great, but the core of any tone is coming from the amp and cab. Once you get that dialed in as well as you can then you can move on to EQ'ing it to get the final version of it and then you can start working on adding modulation and delays and stuff. I'm not saying that effects aren't important, but I don't think that they'll give you what you are looking for in terms of learning right now. I'd also recommend reading a lot about amps and get onto some of those sites that breakdown specific player's rigs. Only thing that I'd be weary of is to think that because so and so used a Plexi that you can only use a Plexi amp sim to get his tone. Half the time those guys are full of crap or speculating and the other half of the equation is that any recorded tone is going to be effected by a lot of offboard gear and mixing....heck, most of the time those amazing tones aren't even replicated by the artists that created them in the first place.
I suppose reasonable expectations is my point there.
As for the original topic here which was rolling back to v4 that's fine. I know plenty of people that were still on like v5 or 6 with the Ultra for years and just used it because it did what they wanted. That's the point I suppose because everyone is going to have different needs, styles and tastes. I will just say one small thing to think over about rolling back and sticking for a long time though. There is going to come a time in the future that you won't be able to use another person's patches and there will be something that is added or changed that you are going to really want and at that point you are going to have an even bigger task of getting familiar with the way that the unit works.
I'd just hate to see you get left behind because you're frustrated.
