On somewhat of a side-note, I just got sent an email from a fellow user here who is a long-time [ and still ] Eleven Rack 11R user ... but who also uses an AX8 .... he sent me the following from the Headrush Offical FAQ .... credit where credit is due .... at least Headrush are being open and honest ..... the key bits are in
blue underline ..... it reads as follows:-
" What is Eleven® HD Expanded™, and how is it different from the Eleven Rack/Plug-In?
Eleven HD Expanded is the name of the DSP software that powers the HeadRush Pedalboard™. When we were creating the HeadRush Pedalboard, we disassembled the legacy Eleven Rack/Plug-In code completely, then we reconstructed the whole architecture for our new DSP system. Our modeling now sounds more realistic than ever, there’s more flexibility for users in creating rigs, we’ve added new effects and features, and it has better overall performance.
During this process, we only took the values from the measurements that were calculated when creating the original models. Then the internal oversampling was renewed, and we disabled some previously required waveshaper downsampling, so that our models have a better sound quality with a more authentic realism and definition than the original code.
Even the most basic DSP units were rewritten this way, so we can now do parallel processing and fit it to our new DSP platform. In the original code, there were many restrictions on where you could place your effects in your signal chain. For example, the amp and the cab acted as one big block and you could only insert effects before or afterward. As a guitarist, you want to be able to insert effects wherever you want, including before the cabinet simulation like an effect loop in a real amp—and with Eleven HD Expanded, now you can put effects wherever you want.
Our new DSP platform also allowed us to expand the feature set with other popular user-requested features, including a faster and more guitarist-friendly UI, reverb/delay tail spill-over between presets, the ability to load custom/third-party impulse responses, a looper with 20 minutes of record time, and so much more "
As he noted to me, and I agree .... the absolute best possible reading of what HR have done is to take the original 7+ year old 11R code ..... decompress it ... clean it up ..... and as a result of more processing power, they have recompiled it with less data compression and re-arranged and isolated some of the efx/cab etc... blocks
So .... what does this mean ?
In short, as has been known all along and to
HR's credit and openness and honesty:-
- there has been
no remodelling of any Amps or EFX from the original 7+ year old code
- there have been
no new measurments made of any of the Amps or EFX
- all exisiting Amp and EFX
core / base measurments and modelling data
are unchanged from the same 7+ year old 11R technology
He cant belive all the "hype" ... or to more honelty quote him .... how much people are being "bedazzled" by the shiny new box and screen.
Yet .... despite all this, there are people here on TGP who are saying it sounds virtually as good as an Axe XL ..... hi Nick
...... and others who want us to belive it is at least as good [ or better ] than the Helix ....... the only thing left is for someone to do a Kemper vs HRush where - of course - the HR will "win"
Of course ...... 3 months or so ago ...... anyone who would have serioulsy suggested that an 11R running in to a Cab Loader was [essentially] on par with the Axe or Helix or Kemper would have righlty been "not taken too serioulsy" .....
mind you, an 11R running in to a Cab IR loader will sound like a really good 11R ... but its still an 11R .....
You want to pay $999 for re-packaged 7+ year old tech .... when you can pay $999 for the Helix LT [ state of the art that does everything more and better ] or only $300 more for the AX8 which some belive is "the best" [not me, but thats irrelevant] then spend your money and enjoy
... that to me would be
bizzare ... but its your money
Imagine if Fractal re-packed their 5+ year old Axe Std and Axe Ultra modelling and put it in to an " AX6 " .... mind you again, this would still be better than the HR .....
I cant stress this enough
again ..... if you
think all of the HR "good" demo's from PThorn, Rabea, Ola and Marco sound "great" ... do this:-
- take an audio-out feed from you PC
- run it in to your mixer or direct in to you FRFR of choice
- set up your FRFR of choice angled up to your ears
- turn it up to stage / live level
- hit play
- then do the same with some good Fractal or Helix or Kemper demo's
Once youve done that, then be honest / unbiased / "not commericially motivated" with yourself
Then again, its may be possible
* that in the last 7+ years, Avid had the modelling down perfectly and Fractal and L6 and Kemper and Atomic have just been wasting their time since then
Ben "
yes if you have read any of my posts you will know I am a Kemper Fanboi " Ifin
* - its not - they didnt