Moving backward?

RifferMcDuck said:
OP, I did this recently too and... I agree. I play mostly high gain stuff, and 15.01 is just cleaner and more refined to me overall. And I started new presets from scratch for the downgrade and went by sound alone, so it had nothing to do with presets for me. I still love Cygnus though, so I may have to do a double-Axe situation if this becomes problematic in the future.

This opinion is likely blasphemy against the Cygnus orthodoxy, and because of that I hereby preemptively choose exile over death.
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As long as we can take our gear with us! And like I said, we can return to 18.03 anytime.

Joerg said:
Moving back instead of forward seems to me absurd :cool:
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Counter-intuitive for sure. Hence the post...
 
Man, if you like it, you like it. The hell with anyone else’s opinion. It’s not old versus new, it’s one sound versus another. The one you like better is the one.

You notice how much “vintage” equipment costs? New isn’t always better, and whether it’s perception or reality, there’s a reason those vintage pieces are being modeled or reissued. In the end, it’s the same thing. Do you like it? If you do, end of story. Enjoy it!
 
RifferMcDuck said:
OP, I did this recently too and... I agree. I play mostly high gain stuff, and 15.01 is just cleaner and more refined to me overall. And I started new presets from scratch for the downgrade and went by sound alone, so it had nothing to do with presets for me. I still love Cygnus though, so I may have to do a double-Axe situation if this becomes problematic in the future.

This opinion is likely blasphemy against the Cygnus orthodoxy, and because of that I hereby preemptively choose exile over death.
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No I'm pretty sure you're right regarding "more refined" - I believe Cliff said so himself. If that's what you seek, then pre-cygnus is where you want to be.
 
You like what you like, I knew a guy who got married three times, all three wives bordered on being obese. The only problem I had with that was that he was determined to show us the "honeymoon pics"."Here we are boarding the ship, here we are having dinner, here...WHOA!
 
I think your experience tracks broadly with the consensus view - the last of the pre-Cygnus updates were regarded as the most polished, smoothest, "carefully produced album" tones and the Cygnus tones were perceived as a step back towards a lively, raucous, real room amp sound. I have no interest in telling you which you should find more appealing or most appropriate for the job at hand. If I had the attention span I might be there switching back and forth with you, but it's all I can do to try and keep up with the changes and update my basic presets. The Cygnus transition has certainly taught me to dramatically reduce the core presets I maintain!
 
I miss cruises.....
Indeed, upgrades that change sounds will be liked by some, and some will prefer the old sounds. Nothing wrong with either. I like the newer FW at least partially because I am new to Fractal and so had not gotten used to the old sounds, love the flexibility and options in the current FW
 
Rick said:
Man, if you like it, you like it. The hell with anyone else’s opinion. It’s not old versus new, it’s one sound versus another. The one you like better is the one.

You notice how much “vintage” equipment costs? New isn’t always better, and whether it’s perception or reality, there’s a reason those vintage pieces are being modeled or reissued. In the end, it’s the same thing. Do you like it? If you do, end of story. Enjoy it!
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Your post reminds me of selling my 1969 Hiwatt DR103 on Ebay 15 years ago or so. It was very road-worn, but I knew the amp's history from when it was bought new, and 2 subsequent owners before me. It was impeccably maintained in terms of function.

The winning bidder collected in person, and was really surprised that it wasn't just clean sounding, it was almost like a hi-fi amp. Smooth, silent pot action, pretty much zero "hiss" even when cranked to silly volume, and squeaky clean cleans with a lot of headroom if you wanted it. He had driven a few hundred miles to collect, so stayed over in our spare room, and we had plenty of time to chat, compare with a few other amps of mine, and play a lot of different guitars through them.

What started as looking a little like buyer's remorse at such an old looking amp sounding so "new", slowly evaporated as he got his head round a vintage amp he had always wanted not sounding quite "vintage". At least not in the way he had expected. By the time we were putting the amp in his van he was questioning why the hell I would keep my Marshalls and Fenders and sell the Hiwatt.

Sometimes it's a question of learning to love something that doesn't quite match your original expectations. When you go backwards, that's never an issue, because you are matching memories rather than expectations.

Liam
 
Always go forward!

burning-rubber-dave-wilson.jpg
 
hey if you like it then you do you! We all have different ears.

Personally, I like Cygnus much more and think it was the most significant update since the afx3 came out. Haha!
 
Joerg said:
Moving back instead of forward seems to me absurd :cool:
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Imagine releasing a high tech machine, and don’t sleep to try to simulate 40 years old amps , and to play 80´s music with it 🤦 ! And some people are asking for boss pedals after spending 2000 !!!!

Maaannn , musicians are just a bunch of psychopaths 🤣

joking hm. Even if it’s funny when you think of it. Call it progress .
 
My name is mud said:
Imagine releasing a high tech machine, and don’t sleep to try to simulate 40 years old amps , and to play 80´s music with it 🤦 ! And some people are asking for boss pedals after spending 2000 !!!!

Maaannn , musicians are just a bunch of psychopaths 🤣

joking hm. Even if it’s funny when you think of it. Call it progress .
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Yup. 2022 technology to sound like a 1967 Marshall. I love it!
 
I really think we could use some guidance here. I WANT to update and take advantage of Cliff's work and new features but my live presets using mostly Engl and Thordendal amps are unusable in anything after Firmware 15. It is not just different, it is unlistenable in Firmware 18. I don't know where to start, what knobs to tweak, to move in the right direction. HELP! Does Cygnus just make amps totally new creations or is there a transform that was applied that can be tweaked out?
 
Found this in 18.00 Release Notes: Fixed Angle Severe models becoming unstable with certain speaker impedance curves. Note: the presence network for these models has been updated. Presets using these amp models should be auditioned as the tone may have changed.
And in 18.03: Fixed Angle Severe and Energyball amp models hanging on certain combinations of Presence and Depth.
I'll try again...
 
Cliff Chase: "For now if you don't like the changes go back to 15.01 or try some of the advanced tweaks. One of the things that Cygnus models more accurately is bias excursion and, in general, there is more bias excursion than before. You may not like the sound of bias excursion but it is part of what makes a real tube amp sound and feel the way it does. So one tweak to try is to reduce Master Bias Excursion or any of the individual bias excursion parameters. The other thing with Cygnus is the power tube bias. The previous firmware biased the virtual power tubes a bit hot in comparison to real amps. This was necessary because of the algorithm to prevent unwanted crossover distortion. The new algorithms are more accurate and, as a result, the power tube bias matches the real amps. If you want that old sound increase the Power Tube Grid Bias. Try around 0.6 to start."
 
Spent another few hours on the Axe-FX... think I'm going to leave it on 15.03 for a while longer. I may miss out on a few features, but nothing that’s gonna bother me too much.
 
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