NGD: Port City 2x12 OS Wave and Matrix GT800FX

I've had my Axe-FX II for a bit over a year now, and since I got it I've been having to monitor it for the most part through headphones and less-than-ideal computer speakers. (I can hear you all cringing from miles away) However, tonight I finally arrived home to the new gear that has been sitting, waiting for me for several weeks. My setup is finally complete.

It consists of a Schecter Guitars Hellraiser C-7 FR with Seymour Duncan Pegasus and Sentient pickups going into an Axe-FX II, a Matrix Amplification GT800FX power amp, and finally a Port City Amplification 2x12 OS Wave cabinet loaded with Celestion Speakers V30s.
This is all controlled by a Behringer FCB1010 modded with a EurekaSound EurekaPROM 2 chip and my own custom labels.

Unfortunately I've only been able to play through this setup for about an hour tonight at a relatively low volume, but my god; the dynamics and low end are incredible. I jammed mostly on the Friedman HBE, Mesa Mark IV and Fender Twin Reverb models and they were all just stunning without tweaking anything away from default settings. The cab has a very balanced and full character without being boomy or shrill in the high end. With the speaker page's low frequency resonance tweaked to what others have found to be correct for this cab (85.3Hz), the attack and response feels incredibly connected to your picking hand and volume knob in a way that is hard to explain. I can't recommend these cabs enough, and Daniel from Port City is great to deal with. Hopefully tomorrow I will get a chance to crank the volume a bit and rebuild all of my patches from scratch around this new setup. I would also like to get some UltraRes IRs shot of this for you all and myself to use as a direct out to a PA in live situations when I have the chance and means to.

That uncontrollable feeling you get when your tone is perfect to you and you are so inspired to play is my favourite feeling in the world, and I am sure as hell feeling that right now with a huge smile on my face. I can't wait to try out the upcoming G3 update through it! Thanks to Fractal, Matrix and Port City for creating this amazing gear.


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Yes, I like the PC cabs a lot too.

Better not copy the LFR value from others but measure it yourself.
It's not that difficult. You just need turn up the volume a lot to be able to "feel" it when adjusting.
If you don't feel it, increase the volume.

"One way to find the resonant frequency is to put a Filter block after the amp block. Set the type to Peaking, Q to 5 or so and Gain to 10 dB. Start with a Freq. of 50 Hz. Play some chugga-chugga and slowly adjust the Freq. until you hear and feel the cabinet resonate. Make a note of the frequency. Remove the filter block and set the amp block res. freq. to match."
 
I've had my Axe-FX II for a bit over a year now, and since I got it I've been having to monitor it for the most part through headphones and less-than-ideal computer speakers. (I can hear you all cringing from miles away) However, tonight I finally arrived home to the new gear that has been sitting, waiting for me for several weeks. My setup is finally complete.

It consists of a Schecter Guitars Hellraiser C-7 FR with Seymour Duncan Pegasus and Sentient pickups going into an Axe-FX II, a Matrix Amplification GT800FX power amp, and finally a Port City Amplification 2x12 OS Wave cabinet loaded with Celestion Speakers V30s.
This is all controlled by a Behringer FCB1010 modded with a EurekaSound EurekaPROM 2 chip and my own custom labels.

Unfortunately I've only been able to play through this setup for about an hour tonight at a relatively low volume, but my god; the dynamics and low end are incredible. I jammed mostly on the Friedman HBE, Mesa Mark IV and Fender Twin Reverb models and they were all just stunning without tweaking anything away from default settings. The cab has a very balanced and full character without being boomy or shrill in the high end. With the speaker page's low frequency resonance tweaked to what others have found to be correct for this cab (85.3Hz), the attack and response feels incredibly connected to your picking hand and volume knob in a way that is hard to explain. I can't recommend these cabs enough, and Daniel from Port City is great to deal with. Hopefully tomorrow I will get a chance to crank the volume a bit and rebuild all of my patches from scratch around this new setup. I would also like to get some UltraRes IRs shot of this for you all and myself to use as a direct out to a PA in live situations when I have the chance and means to.

That uncontrollable feeling you get when your tone is perfect to you and you are so inspired to play is my favourite feeling in the world, and I am sure as hell feeling that right now with a huge smile on my face. I can't wait to try out the upcoming G3 update through it! Thanks to Fractal, Matrix and Port City for creating this amazing gear.


View attachment 24708

Looks smart in white...
 
You can't go wrong with Port City. I have the same cab but black with the Bluesbreaker cloth. Bar none, the best 2x12 (and one of the best all around cabinets) I've tried. Someday, I'll get their monster 4x12, or try the Matrix nl12.

I need a band before any of that though.
 
QUESTIONS:
do you use cab block in the Axe with this rig?
do you go mono or stereo with this rig?

I am using a cab block with Clark Kent's Cab Pack 7 IRs sent to Output 1 for headphone usage as I'm a university student living in a flat, so I can't always be cranking a cab at full volume lol. I haven't gigged with this setup yet, but I would like to run Output 1 direct to the board when I do.

Below is my current patch that I've been using, so that you can see how I'm routing everything. I use scenes to engage/disengage everything.

Untitled.jpg

I'm running it in mono. I actually ordered the cab with a stereo jackplate, but there must have been a mixup as it was shipped with a mono jackplate. The cab is amazing and Daniel was kind enough to waive the custom tolex fee for me since the shipping cost to get it to New Zealand was enormous, so I'm not worried about it. It sounds huge regardless.
 
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What i know is that is wrong to run a cab (block) into a real guitar cab (you put a speaker sound into another speaker).
Well... you are not breacking any federal law... but ;)
 
What i know is that is wrong to run a cab (block) into a real guitar cab (you put a speaker sound into another speaker).
Well... you are not breacking any federal law... but ;)

He's using a cab for OUT1.
And OUT2 (FXL) for OUT2.
 
As it happens, I have an very similar rig (same cab, similar but different speakers). Regarding the comment(s) about the CAB block running into a real cabinet: Obviously do whatever sounds good - there are no rules here.

That said, I would suggest that you spend some time building a few CAB-less patches from scratch with your new setup. It will give you a much better feel for the (real) cabinet and how it interacts with various amps. I also found that it really opens up cleans in a beautiful way. On the flip side, for high gain stuff, I always need to roll off the top end with a filter or PEQ block because it can be quite harsh up there without the CAB block, but the rest of the spectrum comes through beautifully (brutally?).

Getting the cabinet was my fist real impetus to dig in and learn some of the deeper parameters kicking around in the AMP block, which also a lot of fun. That said, this stuff may all be about to change with G3...

At any rate, enjoy, and please share your experiences/questions so that we may all learn from them!

-DrNick
 
What i know is that is wrong to run a cab (block) into a real guitar cab (you put a speaker sound into another speaker).
Well... you are not breacking any federal law... but ;)

As it happens, I have an very similar rig (same cab, similar but different speakers). Regarding the comment(s) about the CAB block running into a real cabinet: Obviously do whatever sounds good - there are no rules here.

That said, I would suggest that you spend some time building a few CAB-less patches from scratch with your new setup. It will give you a much better feel for the (real) cabinet and how it interacts with various amps. I also found that it really opens up cleans in a beautiful way. On the flip side, for high gain stuff, I always need to roll off the top end with a filter or PEQ block because it can be quite harsh up there without the CAB block, but the rest of the spectrum comes through beautifully (brutally?).

Getting the cabinet was my fist real impetus to dig in and learn some of the deeper parameters kicking around in the AMP block, which also a lot of fun. That said, this stuff may all be about to change with G3...

At any rate, enjoy, and please share your experiences/questions so that we may all learn from them!

-DrNick

I think that something has gotten lost in translation. If you look at my preset layout that I attached to my previous post, you'll see that I've got the FX Loop block running a parallel chain off to the side before the cab block. That is sending a signal that hasn't been processed by the cab block to Output 2, which is connected to the 2x12, while still sending a processed signal to Output 1 for headphones, going direct live, and silent USB recording.

It's funny that you said the cabinet got you into tweaking the advanced parameters more. I've been a tweak-addict since I got the Axe-FX II while I was strictly using IRs, but I haven't tweaked anything in my current patch beyond the real world amp parameters. I haven't felt that I needed to use a dedicated EQ block on my high-gain sound either. The filter block you can see at the beginning of my chain is just a neutral 4dB boost for if I'm using the coil-split and feel like I need a bit more input gain.

It's amazing that the Axe-FX II allows us all to so easily take our different approaches to everything. 'Tis a great time to be a guitarist.
 
I see. I hadn't looked at your patch - I was more responding to comments and relaying my own experience with this fantastic piece of equipment.

Another thing you might play with is trying to capture an IR of the cab that approximates the character of your "live" sound when recording. I played around capturing a number of IRs and blending with cablab with some success. I thought about posting some of the results, but frankly I'm not sure if they're very good or not - I'm quite new to this stuff.
 
Would love to hear a recording of your new rig. :D
I'm going to look into getting some IRs and recordings done with this setup when I get a chance. I'm pretty busy at the moment with moving into a new flat and university starting up again, but look out for a new thread in the User IRs section within the next couple of months.
 
I think that something has gotten lost in translation. If you look at my preset layout that I attached to my previous post, you'll see that I've got the FX Loop block running a parallel chain off to the side before the cab block. That is sending a signal that hasn't been processed by the cab block to Output 2, which is connected to the 2x12, while still sending a processed signal to Output 1 for headphones, going direct live, and silent USB recording.

opsss!!! got it!!! wasn't logged... so missed the pic! :encouragement:
 
I think that something has gotten lost in translation. If you look at my preset layout that I attached to my previous post, you'll see that I've got the FX Loop block running a parallel chain off to the side before the cab block. That is sending a signal that hasn't been processed by the cab block to Output 2, which is connected to the 2x12, while still sending a processed signal to Output 1 for headphones, going direct live, and silent USB recording.

opsss!!! got it!!! wasn't logged... so missed the pic! :encouragement:

plz... can you post that patch?
 
opsss!!! got it!!! wasn't logged... so missed the pic! :encouragement:

plz... can you post that patch?

Sure thing. Here you go: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0io5636y792pwke/Live Preset (Mark IV) v17.04.syx?dl=0

There isn't really anything special about it though, to be honest. I can't guarantee that it will sound any good with your guitar and monitoring setup either; I haven't had much luck using presets that others have made.

A few things to note about the way I set all of my patches up: Output 1 is designed for FRFR monitoring and Output 2 is designed for a solid-state power amp and cab setup. The volume pedal controller is assigned to external 2, and the wah pedal controller is assigned to external 1. Scenes 1 and 2 are my clean tones, scenes 3-4 are my rhythm tones, scene 5 is my lead tone, scene 6 is my ambient/shimmer tone, and scenes 7-8 are any other variations that I need. The cab IR that I'm using is the SM57-R121 01 IR from Clark Kent's Cab Pack 7. I cannot share this IR with the patch so you'll have to switch it to another of your choice. I tried it out with the Cab Pack 8 IRs that are included in the factory firmware and it still sounds great to me, so give that a try. Other than that, everything should be pretty straightforward.

Let me know what you think if you give it a try. I'm thinking of dialing in another patch tonight that is the same but with the Friedman amps instead of the Mark IV. Should be a bit of fun.
 
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