New Update sounds all different? Dyna Cab update?

[mr_fender]

It's also not unheard of for global parameters to get somehow reset during an update, so double check your global settings for things like power amp modeling, cab modeling, global EQ's etc. If any of those got flipped off somehow, it could pretty drastically change the sound.

 

[unix-guy]

did you do a "refresh after new firmware"?

That has NO effect on the sound...

 

[jaime136]

I saw an issue where all of my Chorus block widths were changed to 100%, making all my chorus/vibrato settings super seasick. I saw this going from the first beta for 23.00 to the official release. Same issue was still present upgrading to 23.02.

Mine did this, as well. I didn't do any of the betas but it was there with the official.

Took me a while to figure that one out.

 

[skydog]

FWIW, my ears hear differently day to day and it took me a long time to realize it. Some days I hear treble a hell of a lot more than others. I really wonder how many years I started tweaking amp settings thinking it was due to the gear and not me. I didn’t figure it out until I started mixing music and completely trashed a couple mixes due to it. I’d sit down and everything would sound muffled/murky, so I’d start making EQ changes to compensate then the next day it’d be a shrill mess.

Now I just don’t tweak on those days and accept the fact I’m hearing things differently.

The last time I heard treble was 1992…

 

[touch33]

Trick is, how do you recognize the days where your hearing is "right", and you should believe your tweaks?

Having spent some (a lot, actually) of my audio career as both a systech and a mixer, I used to occasionally wonder if my ears were “on”. My solution was a solid set of IEMs and a portable HD/FLAC audio player with balanced outputs — so I can IEM listen and send the same source to the system. I have a set of 10 songs I am super-intimately familiar with that I can play back as a musical hearing test and system reference source. I know EXACTLY what those tracks sound like (to the point of “the snare on this one should sound woody”, and this one has a vocal that’s “slightly too much sibilance”) so I know if my ears are working properly. FWIW , they usually are, but every now and then…

 

[Dave Merrill]

Having spent some (a lot, actually) of my audio career as both a systech and a mixer, I used to occasionally wonder if my ears were “on”. My solution was a solid set of IEMs and a portable HD/FLAC audio player with balanced outputs — so I can IEM listen and send the same source to the system. I have a set of 10 songs I am super-intimately familiar with that I can play back as a musical hearing test and system reference source. I know EXACTLY what those tracks sound like (to the point of “the snare on this one should sound woody”, and this one has a vocal that’s “slightly too much sibilance”) so I know if my ears are working properly. FWIW , they usually are, but every now and then…

Right. Ideally, maybe, those songs would be ones you're used to playing on, so you can hear yourself in those contexts, and calibrate both your ears and your tones at the same time.

What music player do you use?

What songs? (Of course that's personal, just curious.)

 

[RevDrucifer]

Trick is, how do you recognize the days where your hearing is "right", and you should believe your tweaks?

I'm not even slightly kidding. This is a real problem for me. I think I won't ever be a studio quality mixer/engineer (not that I'm going for that these days), because I have a poor sense of where "reality" is, I'm too variable.

Lately I've been backing down the high end on a lot of my tones. Am I right? Guess you'd have to hear it in the context of a full mix you wanted it to fit into.

Short version, f me.

Start looking for patterns; it's not every other day for me, I'll have 3-4 regular days and then 1 day it's off, or weeks of normal days and 2-3 days it's off. I know if I load up a session and when listening back for the first time my immediate reaction is to start making big EQ adjustments, I need to stop.

Fortunately, there's almost always editing work to be done! Or you can focus on other production stuff, tracking some ear candy that you can EQ later. Don't let it get ya down, just recognize it for what it is and find other things to do when those days arise!

 

[frankenbeans]

Trick is, how do you recognize the days where your hearing is "right", and you should believe your tweaks?

I'm not even slightly kidding. This is a real problem for me. I think I won't ever be a studio quality mixer/engineer (not that I'm going for that these days), because I have a poor sense of where "reality" is, I'm too variable.

Lately I've been backing down the high end on a lot of my tones. Am I right? Guess you'd have to hear it in the context of a full mix you wanted it to fit into.

Short version, f me.

I think the trick is to find a guitar tone you really, consistently like, and reference it as needed--whether that's while dialing a tone or after turning on the machine and thinking "wtf what I doing when I created this preset"? A fixed point of reference is probably the best way to combat the day-to-day shifts in perception.

 

[touch33]

Right. Ideally, maybe, those songs would be ones you're used to playing on, so you can hear yourself in those contexts, and calibrate both your ears and your tones at the same time.

What music player do you use?

What songs? (Of course that's personal, just curious.)

FiiO M11Plus player feeding FutureSonics MG5-HX IEMs. Screenshot of playlist below. You can see by the songs that I’ve been using them a VERY long time, and all are excellent-quality recordings. Each song has one (or more) audio “cues” that test certain aspects of system playback performance — and I know immediately if something isn’t right. Best part about really accurate IEMs is that they totally remove the room acoustics as a performance factor, sounding the same no matter the environment. If it doesn’t sound “right” in the IEMs then i know it’s probably my ears, and I can adjust accordingly.

 

[Aeser]

Don't underestimate the power of suggestion. Unless you've got recordings from the previous firmware to directly compare to, you're largely guessing.

I have recordings but they're of a random amp wih random settings i've most likely changed since then so they'd do me no good. i 100%was not expecting it to sound any different so i don't believe it's th power of suggestion which i do 100% believe in. i noticed things like the input blocks threshhold on all my presets changed to 50% when none of them were that before (i believe it defaulted to 60% (or i think it was -60%?) so i'm wondering what else changed across the board as that could possibly contribute to the presets all sounding different to me.

The UPSIDE is even though they were probably there before i found/started messing ith the pre amp section of the amp block which i never noticed the setings on before (for all i know they're new? or i just never noticed them) where you can change the boost type/boost level/saturation switch/saturation drive/preamp tube type/tube harshness/preamp bias/tonestack frequency, and then in the power supply clock change the Variac, as well as changing those cab block pre amp sections to type: tube and mode: high quality which overal i think made so far at least my shreddy death metal models sound WAY better to my ears than they did before when i initially thought my presets were sounding worse after all the updates.

So like i said that was all with my ESP and my metal amp models, now i gotta see what i can do with my Les Paul and all the non metal models and my metal and not metal bass models (always boggles my mind why no modelers have more than like 1-8 bass models when they have 379284584985 guitar models, like there's NO bass players out there, i mean if i were JUST a bass player there's no way i'd shell out $2500 for a modeler like this with as few amps and even fewer cabs modeled in it, i think they need to show the bass players some more love, but thats another topic).

But yea after messing around with it a lot i went from not digging it to digging it a lot.

 

[Aeser]

I can see a preset without Reverb, tremolo or tape delay. But I’m curious— if your presets don’t have an Amp block, what do they look like?

Obviously i was using an amp block i'm just saying i never messed with Triodes on any of my amp models, i did change tubes like specific 6L6's and EL34's that I liked but that's it and neither of those are triodes so i don't see how they could affect my particular models.

 

[unix-guy]

Obviously i was using an amp block i'm just saying i never messed with Triodes on any of my amp models, i did change tubes like specific 6L6's and EL34's that I liked but that's it and neither of those are triodes so i don't see how they could affect my particular models.

You can't mess with them... But they were updated in the firmware update.

Things did change and that can and will affect the sound.

 

[Aeser]

You can't mess with them... But they were updated in the firmware update.

Things did change and that can and will affect the sound.

I see

 

[Joe Bfstplk]

There is a post here by someone swearing that the unit sounds different after he’s eaten steak - and I believe him!

Do a backup and install an earlier firmware. It’s the only way to check something as subjective as sound perception.

TMJ can manifest in a number of ways. That joint is adjacent to the middle ear and inner ear. I can totally change the way my ears hear by clenching my jaw. Chewing steak may be irritating the joint and putting pressure on the middle and/or inner ear goodies....

 

[Rex]

Obviously i was using an amp block i'm just saying i never messed with Triodes on any of my amp models, i did change tubes like specific 6L6's and EL34's that I liked but that's it and neither of those are triodes so i don't see how they could affect my particular models.

Pretty much every amp in the world has triodes in it. Triode don't care whether you messed with him. He's still in there, doing his thing.

 

[tysonlt]

TMJ can manifest in a number of ways. That joint is adjacent to the middle ear and inner ear. I can totally change the way my ears hear by clenching my jaw. Chewing steak may be irritating the joint and putting pressure on the middle and/or inner ear goodies....

Interesting!

 

[Smilzo]

Obviously i was using an amp block i'm just saying i never messed with Triodes on any of my amp models, i did change tubes like specific 6L6's and EL34's that I liked but that's it and neither of those are triodes so i don't see how they could affect my particular models.

The new triode modeling feels more organic, alive, warmer. Taste the difference, adjust the eq and/or the gain towards your previous "brigher" sound and the amps should feel even better!

 

[Fjelltronen]

The new triode modeling feels more organic, alive, warmer. Taste the difference, adjust the eq and/or the gain towards your previous "brigher" sound and the amps should feel even better!

This is exactly my verdict. I think it is another big step forward in Fractal's modelling which has been overshadowed by all the other new features that have also been added. When I loaded the first beta firmware my reference high gain preset seemed to be immediately spongier/chewier and in terms of being more 'alive' it sounded like I had just put fresh strings on the guitar.

 

[Aeser]

Pretty much every amp in the world has triodes in it. Triode don't care whether you messed with him. He's still in there, doing his thing.

oh the pre amp tubes like 12AX7's are triodes? I did not know that I thought they were something else. aside from them in the pre amp and power tubes like the 6L6 and EL34, are there OTHER triodes still in a typical amp?

 

[Rex]

oh the pre amp tubes like 12AX7's are triodes? I did not know that I thought they were something else. aside from them in the pre amp and power tubes like the 6L6 and EL34, are there OTHER triodes still in a typical amp?

Yup. 12AX7s are triodes, as are most other preamp tubes. If your amp has a reverb tank, it’s probably being driven by a triode. The phase inverter that feeds a Class B or Class AB power amp is a pair of triodes.