New 18.00 Public Beta

The G3'd AFD Marshall sounds excellent as does the Splawn Quick Rod (I was using Gear 2). I was surprised how much gain is on tap with the Splawn even in Gear 2. I kept it around 5-6 on the gain and still sounds much gainier...almost like the Diezel VH 4 Channel 4 at similar gain settings.

The Quick Rod is a bit odd in that the Drive pot is linear taper. Most amps use an audio taper pot. This means that at noon the amp is nearly at full gain. Not sure why they did it that way but it is what it is.
 
The Quick Rod is a bit odd in that the Drive pot is linear taper. Most amps use an audio taper pot. This means that at noon the amp is nearly at full gain. Not sure why they did it that way but it is what it is.

If you run out of logarithmics you use whatever is at hand. (Murphys law in amp-making).
 
Could be. I was tempted to set the taper to log just because linear is so abrupt but in the interest of being exact...
FWIW, this is the kind of inaccuracy that I would gladly accept. No change in options or range—just an increase in usability.

I think this is a sales trick that amp manufacturers sometimes use. "Man, this amp is powerful! I've only got it turned up to 3, and look how loud it is!"
 
I have no idea as I am far from religious.


I hung out with him for a few hours in his NC shop and played a buncha amp prototypes(cab protos too) - great guy and way into amps, guitars and music.

That was 2010 and even then he said he was amazed how his amps had become popular all over the planet...


Sorry for the derail - lets get back to FW18 awesomeness.
 
Okay this is getting silly now. I loaded up one of the G3 Marshall Plexi models (I forget which now), and holy hell its awesome. I'm primarily a metal player and lower gain tones generally don't make me want to play for hours, but I could bang around on that amp with stock settings for days and never get bored. So fun.

I've also not changed the EQ settings on any of my new patches since I loaded the first fw18 beta, which is cool. Usually there's always something little I just want to tweak or play around with, but I really haven't felt the need at all.
 
The Quick Rod is a bit odd in that the Drive pot is linear taper. Most amps use an audio taper pot. This means that at noon the amp is nearly at full gain. Not sure why they did it that way but it is what it is.

So if 5 is really 10, does that mean 6 is 11? And does the splawn go to 20 then ;)
 
FWIW, this is the kind of inaccuracy that I would gladly accept. No change in options or range—just an increase in usability.

I think this is a sales trick that amp manufacturers sometimes use. "Man, this amp is powerful! I've only got it turned up to 3, and look how loud it is!"

I prefer the accuracy, TBH. As others have noted, it was probably a conscious choice by the designer and one of the awesome things about the AFX is you notice these quirks that happen with the physical specimens. That's part of the charm of real amps and having 200+ amp models, it's great the AFX can capture a lot of that interesting personality distinguishing them from one another. It's cool when someone says "when I turn my Splawn halfway up the gain sounds full bore" and then you go and try it on your AFX and it does the same darn thing. :D

In general, I think Cliff's track record has been great here when he has deviated or had "spare knobs" on the model vs the real deal.
 
Can anyone elaborate about the Recto presence controls of the real amps vs. the models?
I've read different things.
Some people say that setting the presence control to 5.00 is the same as 0.00 on the actual amps.
I've also read (I think CK said this somewhere, correct me if I'm wrong) that the full range of the real recto presence control is between somewhere around 0.00 to 2.00 and that the rest of the range (2.00 to 10.00) gives the amps more presence than the actual amps?
I don't mind any of the options but I'm just interested to know more about this. :)
 
On many amps, the Presence knob does almost nothing over a big portion of its range. In those cases, Cliff chose to change the control's taper to make it useful over its entire range. So for Presence, you can't assume that the settings will translate exactly from the original amp.

Bottom line: as with everything else, adjust Presence until it sounds best to you. That's true whether you wind up at 2 or 10 on the dial. :)
 
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