How accurate is Fractal's amp modeling?

[SacredGroove]

I think we are at the point that the question needs to be turned around. It's not how accurate the AxeFX is? It's can a tube amp sound as good as the AxeFX? You have considerable more control in the AxeFX to make it sounds any way you want. You don't with a tube amp.

Agreed 100%! I think it's about time the debate of authenticity and accuracy is put to bed. I'm sure Cliff will be the final judge of his own creations, regarding accuracy, however IMHO the tones I get out of the Axe III are better than any tube rig I've owned - not only amp tones, but FX and overall versatility.

 

[Joe Bfstplk]

TFW you realize that Edge's 196x AC30 will probably never get Fractalized :/

The Korg ones from '93/'94 were pretty good, too, actually, and the newer ones can be modded slightly to eliminate problems that make them less great....

 

[darrenw5094]

Preset or it didn't happen

 

[Feflicker]

Its better than the real equivalent. EVERY SINGLE TIME. The fractal is so clean, quiet, and versatile. Its simply not possible to fine tune a real tube amp like you can the fractal. Youd need a monster ped board and tons of outboard gear. It wouldnt be practical. I stopped chasing other peoples tone and creating what was in my imagination 4 or 5 years ago.

The "can we match player x" and "can you model amp x" threads crack me up. Earlier I was reading about how people want a klon pedal. Really? You can dial up a klon sound in 30 seconds using half the drives in the unit and your ears. The fractal is incredible, find YOUR tone and PLAY already!

 

[MisterE]

I'm also convinced the AxeFx is the best tone shaping piece of kit on the planet.
But I have no frame of reference.
I don't own any tube amps any more, not since I discovered Fractal some 10 years ago.
But I wonder what Cliffs' thoughts are about the statement that the AxeFx filters out the unique tone properties of a guitar so that is makes it hard to distinguish between similar guitars like you would on a single channel tube amp.

 

[FarleyUK]

I think something a lot of people keep forgetting is that it’s not ’just’ about sound and tone - a massive part is the feel, reaction and responsiveness of the modeller.

I’d say the Axe FX 3 certainly feels great, and it seems to respond very well. I haven’t played a valve amp for about 7 years now though, so can’t really directly compare...!

 

[Reaper]

I think we are at the point that the question needs to be turned around. It's not how accurate the AxeFX is? It's can a tube amp sound as good as the AxeFX? You have considerable more control in the AxeFX to make it sounds any way you want. You don't with a tube amp.

I arrived at this conclusion about 1.5 year ago, the moment I powered on my AF3 for the very first time. My back decided I had to go amp modelling but my head / heart was a little anxious: "wouldn't it sound and feel too digital?" ... Half a minute later I knew: the AF3 both felt and sounded more analogue than my real analogue tube amps! And over time FAS improved this analogness even more (which I thought, couldn't be done).
Eversince now every part of me is happy

 

[johnnypig]

TFW you realize that Edge's 196x AC30 will probably never get Fractalized :/

TFW you realize AC30s of every era were built like crap, worse than Marshalls.
The Edge has dozens of top boost AC30s, like Brian May and Tom Petty. You can find ones that sound like a Plexi, ones that never distort, ones that blow tubes, ones that blow speakers, all of which will likely have different phase inverter tail resistors and mismatched parts all over, not to mention different brand or different material capacitors.
Then there's all the non-top boost AC30s, the homebrew modded ones, the repaired ones with the wrong transformers....
This is the sort of "problem" profiling solves, to the extent of the developer's ability and why you may not care for one brand profiler over another.
Or, you could go for a well built Vox by problem solvers like Morgan or Matchless and many others already in the AxeFX.

 

[App12]

I need to try FW15 again. There is something about v14 that I really liked and went back to. Appreciate the commitment to improved accuracy though and these two samples could just as easily be the same amp with slightly different tweaks.

 

[Dave Merrill]

$0.0002 from the peanut gallery...

When I updated to 15, most of my presets were off in some subtle way I can't put my finger on. With 14, I had evolved them to where they sounded and felt organically pretty much like me, and that was noticeably less true with 15.

But after working with it for a bit, it's better than ever. Feel is so natural -- clean, reads-as-clean, crunch, drive, too much drive, all of it, just wonderful. My changes were ad hoc per preset, sometimes resetting the amp block and starting over, sometimes tweaking, no pattern really.

All of this is probably my neurosis, but it's how it seems to me.

 

[Mark-B]

What cabs did you use with that rig?

Good question.. had to look that up! ...I tend to copy over the bones from previous presets to create new ones, so these cabs get reused, ..like I say ..not much of a tweaker.. :0) ..But a 1x10 Prince Tone AT4047 panned left at -18.8 and a 4x12 Fractal GB M160 Panned Right 17.7

 

[Greg Ferguson]

I cancelled my Quad Cortex preorder today. I was interested in the capture functionality but I just can't believe that the results will be better and I know I prefer the Fractal way of routing so much to other things. I was going to try the QC and return it and decided "why go through this again and again? The dude has it nailed."

We start out chasing perfection, then realize it's not worth it and that "good enough" is a wonderful place to be.

To me, "good enough" is me recognizing the sound and feel of the model as being the particular amp I picked and getting a kick out of using it. If I walk away from playing through it and liked it throughout the session... yeah, I'm done looking and don't need to chase perfection and the resulting frustration.

 

[Greg Ferguson]

But after working with it for a bit, it's better than ever. Feel is so natural -- clean, reads-as-clean, crunch, drive, too much drive, all of it, just wonderful.

I was playing with the Fender models and the cleans sounded so much like my old Blackface Deluxes it was shocking. I wandered through a bunch of other models listening to them clean, and they sounded amazingly realistic also. Then switching to some of the Marshall models, especially the 50 and 100 Plexis... wow!

 

[verstamp]

I just updated to 15.01 and was ready to settle down for a nice day of chasing new clean tones. I routed the Double Verb Normal through @2112 's Marshall TV2 cab, then ran it through the multitap tape delay. Before I touched a single knob, I had one of the best tones of my entire life.

This FW is black magic.

 

[grandinq]

I just updated to 15.01 and was ready to settle down for a nice day of chasing new clean tones. I routed the Double Verb Normal through @2112 's Marshall TV2 cab, then ran it through the multitap tape delay. Before I touched a single knob, I had one of the best tones of my entire life.

This FW is black magic.

For the fun of it, I just did the exact same thing. Sweet!

 

[JWDubois]

$0.0002 from the peanut gallery...

When I updated to 15, most of my presets were off in some subtle way I can't put my finger on. With 14, I had evolved them to where they sounded and felt organically pretty much like me, and that was noticeably less true with 15.

But after working with it for a bit, it's better than ever. Feel is so natural -- clean, reads-as-clean, crunch, drive, too much drive, all of it, just wonderful. My changes were ad hoc per preset, sometimes resetting the amp block and starting over, sometimes tweaking, no pattern really.

All of this is probably my neurosis, but it's how it seems to me.

This was my experience as well. V15 seemed to really throw my presets for a loop. I started clean with some fresh presets. I've found I can use a lot less gain, and a lot more MV. Really smooths things out and compresses nicely. As an added bonus, several of the amps that I had no use for before are sounding great now.

 

[GaryMcT]

This is exactly why Fractal is a massive improvement over the many other modelers that I’ve tried. I can finally turn the volume down on the guitar with a model 50 watt plexi and have it to the right thing. I don’t have to tweak all the time to make my FM3 sound passable. . . it sounds great every time.

Which amp is PLEXI 50W HIGH1 based on? I have a late-68 Lead clone that I absolutely love that sounds quite a bit different compared to the model. I’m curious why the difference is so much. Could be that my amp doesn’t match the circuit of the one you modeled.

The good news is that if I tone match the plexi (using logic since I have an FM3) and bake the results into the speaker IR the amp and FM3 sound pretty darn similar.

I think I have the answer to my question. Looks like the plexi 50w high1 is based on a '72 50 watter, which sounds quite a bit different than a '68.

 

[yyz67]

Yeah but if FAS were to model every version/iteration/mod of every "famous" or user's favorite amp, the number of models would be in the 1000s (with less effort on all the other goodies). We probably have 95-99% amp topology coverage with the existing 200+ models.

You can probably track down the differences and emulate the '68 with the tweaks available, e.g. BMTPD, tone stack type/location, tubes/bias/etc, sag, cathode follower compression, etc. Could be an interesting learning curve. You can also tone match them.

 

[GaryMcT]

Yeah but if FAS were to model every version/iteration/mod of every "famous" or user's favorite amp, the number of models would be in the 1000s. We probably have 95-99% amp topology coverage with the existing 200+ models.

You can probably track down the differences and emulate the '68 with the tweaks available, e.g. BMTPD, tone stack type/location, tubes/bias/etc, sag, cathode follower compression, etc. Could be an interesting learning curve. You can also tone match them.

I’ve already tone matched and applied the match to the speaker IR since I’m on an FM3. Sounds fantastic.

 

[GaryMcT]

Yeah but if FAS were to model every version/iteration/mod of every "famous" or user's favorite amp, the number of models would be in the 1000s (with less effort on all the other goodies). We probably have 95-99% amp topology coverage with the existing 200+ models.

You can probably track down the differences and emulate the '68 with the tweaks available, e.g. BMTPD, tone stack type/location, tubes/bias/etc, sag, cathode follower compression, etc. Could be an interesting learning curve. You can also tone match them.

I will dig into the circuit differences and see what I can figure out that can be reconfigured to match a 68 as close as possible.