It's been an interesting run

benvigil said:
Actually, yes, bringing the amp compressor parameters into the mix makes a huge difference in bridging the gap between the Kemper profile and the AX8.
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Interesting. IIRC, the Kemper has a touch of multi-band compression across the board.
 
jlynnb1 said:
after reading up on it, it's not the profile itself that is great...the creator did some tweaks like cranking the amp compression etc to get it to where it was. even Don Peterson said as much. it does sound great but it's not the profile...so pull up the Ac20 and go crazy in the deep parameters and see if that gets you closer.

as to whether or not i've played it, yeah, but I'm not a big AC20 person anyway so it didn't do much for me.
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I had an Axe FX2, sold it got a Kemper and then sold that and came back. Both are great of course. The concept of the "revered" Kemper profiles such as the AC20 is interesting. None of those profiles worked for me. I'm sure they are great profiles and lots of reasons bla bla bla and it's my fingers that are the problem etc but fact remains. In fact, of the thousands (literally) of Kemper profiles I tried and bought, only a handful really got me there. And they were just random ones that I found that would never reach legend status on the KPA forum. Truly, the needles in the haystack. And thus, my issue with the KPA. I will say, there was this one profile, yes it was the one, and damn it was sweet. Coming back to the Axe, I've found that it is much better for me in every way. I still haven't found just that one sweet spot tone like I had with the KPA but I am really enjoying access to lots of tones and am confident as I have more time to spend I will get several I like as much.
 
benvigil said:
Dynamics
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I have just started playing around with that in the last couple days. I am not one to tweak that much in the deeper settings. I usually adjust the supply sag, dynamic present, and dynamic depth. The dynamics compressor seems to add a thickness. I found it works really well for clean sounds
 
man I love the amp block compressors, better than the compressor block.. (for the sound i'm going for - the compressor block has had it's merits in certain situations of course) - it's giving me more of what I was trying to get with the comp block.. and I've also been really brave lately.. twistin the variac a little, lowering the xformer match a tad.. and everything on the dynamics page are like the coolest knobs to turn on any of the pages. some of the most unique sounds ive gotten yet in just the last couple days, messing with the dynamics page. usually start with a div/13 cj or the other one, i just like those they are a good open clean place to start thats already 75% there for what I am goin for. dang I got some time, ima go tinker around now for a while. see what you've done. created a monster.
 
H13 said:
One thing that I think we all need to recognise is that no matter how much we'd like to think otherwise, the real thing will always be better.
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I can't agree with that. If you had said, "the real thing will always be different", I think you'd be closer to the mark.

For instance, I have a hand-made Dumble clone sitting in the corner about 3 feet away from my AxeFX. A friend built it for me on the chassis (and transformers) of an old Peavey Deuce, and it's a great sounding amp. Problem is, the Deuce, was a 130 watt amp, and the Dumble clone built on it is in about the same class. I can't turn either of the masters up past 0.5 unless I'm playing in a stadium, or if I want blood coming out of my ears -- and it doesn't have quite the same killer tone without letting the power amp breathe a little. I've put a dummy load on it, and it helps, but it's still not the same.

But with the AxeFX, no such problems. I'm not saying that I've even tried to dial in exactly the same tone on AxeFX as with my Dumble clone, but I've been able to dial in tones that I like every bit as much as that amp running at volume -- but at reasonable volume levels. So, from that respect, it's better than the real thing (in so much as my "real thing" not an actual Dumble - I'm not going to even imply that the AxeFX would be as good as a real Dumble).

There's other things, I like a little bit more sag, and a little bit more negative feedback than the default settings on most amp models. I have to assume that this is going to make my presets sound less like the real thing -- but better to my ears.

I saw your TS thread when it was active, and I get your point. If you are going for a very, very specific tone -- even if that tone is from a cheap stompbox from the 70's -- and you're not going to be happy with anything that's not exactly that tone; then any difference is worse.
 
I fail to see how you could argue that something built to imitate 200-ish amps could possibly be better than the actual thing. The AFX is great, but it's not the real thing.
 
H13 said:
I fail to see how you could argue that something built to imitate 200-ish amps could possibly be better than the actual thing. The AFX is great, but it's not the real thing.
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I find that to be one of the least compelling arguments you could make. Just because you don't understand how, doesn't mean it can't be so.

You still seem to be equating "different" with "worse". That's only true when your goal is to exactly mimic some other tone from a "real" amp or effect. Since our ears are so used to hearing tones made with those "real" things, that's naturally what we aim for. But who's to say that a Tube Screamer sound is theoretically the "best" tone for that kind of distortion. Actually, it's absurd to assume that any stompbox made with a few dollars of analog parts is going to nail the perfect tone -- the designers are limited by the parameters of the components and their physical charcteristics -- especially when you are talking about 40 year old designs. But, if you want to nail a SRV tone, that's what you need. In the end, though, you aren't going to get it exactly unless you use the actual vintage equipment and borrow Stevie's fingers.

Remember that since you can now tweak parameters inside the amp model - like the transformer/speaker matching, amount of sag and negative feedback - you can exit the world of pure emulation and enter one of invention. Make yourself a AC30 with negative feedback and 6L6 power tubes -- why not?
 
H13 said:
I fail to see how you could argue that something built to imitate 200-ish amps could possibly be better than the actual thing. The AFX is great, but it's not the real thing.
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A single amp can be modeled with exceptional accuracy. If you add in a second modeled amp, the first amp model doesn't get worse. When you add a third modeled amp, the first two models don't get worse. And when you add that 200th amp model, none of the previous amps gets any worse.

Remember that all 200 "real" amps are built from the same components: tubes, resistors, capacitors, transformers...there's no magic going on—just electronic parts and design choices. If you can model them accurately once, you can model them accurately a thousand times.
 
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I've been around, as I still have an FX8. That thing is pretty friggin' sweet. Still have to order some humbuster cables so I can set it up "right" but even just using regular TS cables gets pretty good results. Very quiet and transparent! And flexible to boot!

I want to point out that at no time in this thread did I ever say that one is objectively better than the other. From a very personal standpoint I like the results I'm getting better from a real amp. I have said, and will continue to say, that the dynamic feel and response of an actual amp is a significant improvement to the Axe-fx II. Playing a tube amp feels effortless by comparison, and I had to "overplay" to get the Axe to do things that the amp will perform naturally. This is not a volume thing, as I've also been playing direct with IRs and ran the Axe-fx at "extreme metal rehearsal" type volumes. I would even have friends plug into my rig because they wanted to try it and would witness them immediately start having to dig into it more to get what they were used to. This "feel" thing has improved since when I first got the unit (back in the ol' fw 1-2 days), but it does pale by comparison to playing a tube amp. I will not budge on it.

To those that would argue I don't know what I'm doing, don't understand the Axe, that I didn't delve deep enough into the thing, or that there's some parameter I'm missing that would have opened up the world to me, I must say as politely as I can: LOL. Quit being preposterous. If there's one thing that this forum suffers from it's this contingent of extremely vocal people who vociferously insist that modeling can't be improved upon, or that anybody who doesn't get along with the unit is obviously some kind of techno-phobic fool, is crazy, WANTS to believe it's crap, etc. The attitude of "I love it so you just don't know what you're talking about" is definitely a backward thinking sentiment.

I deep-dove into every parameter in the Axe at some point attempting to coax what I wasn't getting out of it. Did I get some cool sounds? Yep. But I still didn't get the experience I was looking for. I plugged into an ass kicking amp, turned it to the high gain channel, plugged it into an attenuator and loaded an IR into my DAW. BAM! Immediately what I'd been personally missing from my playing experience and the sound I want out of a high gain guitar. No, I can't change the tube bias with the click of a button. No, I can't change the xformer drive, impedance curve, amp compression rate/time/amount. Nope.

But I don't need to do any of that, either. Why is this so difficult for some people to understand?

If you're happy, bully for you! Continue to be happy. I'm happy where I'm at.
 
Speculum Speculorum said:
From a very personal standpoint I like the results I'm getting better from a real amp.
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Gotta go with what works for you.


Speculum Speculorum said:
I would even have friends plug into my rig because they wanted to try it and would witness them immediately start having to dig into it more to get what they were used to.
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Whenever I've seen that happen—on any rig: tube, transistor, digital—it boiled down to not cutting through the mix well enough, usually due to too much treble extension. Something to try if you decide to give the modeling another go.


Speculum Speculorum said:
If there's one thing that this forum suffers from it's this contingent of extremely vocal people who vociferously insist that modeling can't be improved upon, or that anybody who doesn't get along with the unit is obviously some kind of techno-phobic fool, is crazy, WANTS to believe it's crap, etc. The attitude of "I love it so you just don't know what you're talking about" is definitely a backward thinking sentiment.
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I haven't seen much of that contingent. If you look at recent posts by people who prefer something else, the response is usually a mixture of helpful hints and expressions of "live and let live."


In the end, the only things you need to satisfy are your ears and your hands.
 
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