Not much love for bass regarding amps and effects?

Bushy

Inspired
I'd love to see Headrush put out an effect pedal for bassists as well as an FRFR amp (if their sole up and coming one isn't adequate for bass guitars).

Does Fractal not have gear for bassists too?
 
It's called Axe Fx... Or AX-8. There is not a distinction between using them for guitar or bass.

Or violin, or hurdy gurdy, or pedal steel, etc... All have been reported by forum members.

There are bass amps and cabs, even a bass specific Drive pedal (DarkGlass B7k). Some of the bassists here seem to feel less love than they think is appropriate, but there's good tone in there. My bassist loves his... He also uses it for Chapman Stick and Mandolin.
 
There is a very limited subset of gear in Fractal products. The third party purchased cabs are wonderful - from Dr Bonkers, OwnHammer, and 3Sigma. But if you want some of the more iconic bass amps and pedals, they are not presently in there and there has been extremely soft support from Fractal over time in adding new bass-centric models. It took years to get the B7K in there.
 
Is there actually a difference between "just a pedal" vs. whatever it is they are marketing now?
I'm not sure I follow your question.
The appeal of the Fractal products is that it is "all in" - you have your amp, cab, effects chain all in one spot, one device. You can switch between different presets on the fly to drastically change your sound as well. Your setup is relatively easy - plug instrument in, plug output to (often) a powered cab, and another to front of house, and you're done. Every night you'll sound the same.

When I say that there has been "extremely soft support" from Fractal, what I'm saying is that us bass players will sometimes make a bit of a rukus about not having more modeled bass gear. On some occasion, one of the Fractal employees will step in with words of encouragement that bass players are supported and there's more to come. The "soft" part of that is, very little ever actually comes. We don't even know what model SVT or 400 was modeled, or where any of the settings were when modeled.

All of that said, it's still a pretty good solution for bass players. I still use mine, but, I'm not about to dish out a lot more money for an Axe-Fx III until things drastically change with regards to bass gear modeling. And I've been vocal about that on talkbass, the annual large bass player get together I run, and with anyone who asks me about Fractal gear for bass. My AX8 and Axe-Fx II are pretty alright, but they could be so much more.
 
Maybe its my limited knowledge, but as a AX8 -> RCF Bassist, I find my set up usually works well. I have had instances where diff rooms muck up my sound, but I am guessing this is also the case for ye olde amps and cabs. Happy to be told otherwise as I am still a learner.
 
Hi,
I've found that something happened when Quantum firmware was introduced that the Bass amps and IRs became close to usable - I struggled with the Axe FX for bass before that firmware. I'm looking forward to trying 10.01 on bass! Maybe tonight :)
Thanks
Pauly
 
Aren't most effect pedals set like that even before Fractal came into existence? I owned a BOSS multitrack that had the so called COSM effect where the effects themselves have the amp and cab emulation. I'm not sure how this is a new thing with the Fractal products?

I'm not sure I follow your question.
The appeal of the Fractal products is that it is "all in" - you have your amp, cab, effects chain all in one spot, one device. You can switch between different presets on the fly to drastically change your sound as well. Your setup is relatively easy - plug instrument in, plug output to (often) a powered cab, and another to front of house, and you're done. Every night you'll sound the same.

When I say that there has been "extremely soft support" from Fractal, what I'm saying is that us bass players will sometimes make a bit of a rukus about not having more modeled bass gear. On some occasion, one of the Fractal employees will step in with words of encouragement that bass players are supported and there's more to come. The "soft" part of that is, very little ever actually comes. We don't even know what model SVT or 400 was modeled, or where any of the settings were when modeled.

All of that said, it's still a pretty good solution for bass players. I still use mine, but, I'm not about to dish out a lot more money for an Axe-Fx III until things drastically change with regards to bass gear modeling. And I've been vocal about that on talkbass, the annual large bass player get together I run, and with anyone who asks me about Fractal gear for bass. My AX8 and Axe-Fx II are pretty alright, but they could be so much more.
 
Aren't most effect pedals set like that even before Fractal came into existence? I owned a BOSS multitrack that had the so called COSM effect where the effects themselves have the amp and cab emulation. I'm not sure how this is a new thing with the Fractal products?
Which part are you talking about specifically? The "complete rig in one box"? Yeah, it's not a brand new concept by any means, but Fractal's is the best solution so far in terms of quality and reliability. Years past the processing power available just wasn't plentiful enough to achieve what can be done today. Hopefully, some day, us bass players get tossed a bone... for now, it's a lot of fancy presets with using things in unusual manners to get close-ish to the tone we want.
 
I was just setting up a preset on the III for bass. I noticed I couldn’t find an 8x10, but there were quite a few new ones there that weren’t on my AX8. I also saw that the old 8x10 wasn’t ultra res, so I guess all the lower quality ir’s werent Transferred over to the 3. Digging the cabinet mixing!
 
I was just setting up a preset on the III for bass. I noticed I couldn’t find an 8x10, but there were quite a few new ones there that weren’t on my AX8. I also saw that the old 8x10 wasn’t ultra res, so I guess all the lower quality ir’s werent Transferred over to the 3. Digging the cabinet mixing!
If you need 8X10's, you can find some here along with bundled AX-8 presets and accompanying WAV files in the Combo Packs:
https://www.drbonkerssoundlab.com/product-category/bass-guitar-cabinet-files/

Click on the greyed tabs and pull down menus for more info on each cab on the site.
 
Are multi effects pedal also a modelling effects pedal? Are they one in the same?

Which part are you talking about specifically? The "complete rig in one box"? Yeah, it's not a brand new concept by any means, but Fractal's is the best solution so far in terms of quality and reliability. Years past the processing power available just wasn't plentiful enough to achieve what can be done today. Hopefully, some day, us bass players get tossed a bone... for now, it's a lot of fancy presets with using things in unusual manners to get close-ish to the tone we want.
 
Modelling is used in the context of amp and maybe drive simulation to simulate every single electronic component of a circuit and its interaction with the other components following the rules of physical laws, spec curves, and observed behaviour. For cabs we use IRs or in case of cheap pedals some sort of EQ. Most effects are more or less simple delay and filter algorithms except for reverb which is sometimes implemented using IRs or algorithms or both.
 
I've been pretty vocal about asking for more bass amps over the past few years.

For studio and "pro" work, the Axe-FX platform delivers pretty much everything needed. With studio bass you're often just laying down dry tracks via DI. As others have said, there are plenty of great tones to be had in this scenario, not just as simple DI + FX but in using the existing amps as "starting points" with extensive EQ manipulation to get tones that sit well in a mix.

For non-pro live, average gigging, etc. I think the Axe-FX platform comes up short on bass. In these scenarios, I'm personally looking for replicating existing and defined bass tones that accurately model real preamps/amps/cabs/speakers. We've got the cabs/speaker part well along now (thanks Dr.!), but we are still missing the wide array of bass preamps that give us those recognizable tones easily (GK/Fender/Eden/Aguilar/Hartke/Ashdown/Trace for example - I mean seriously look at that list of missing bass amp "staples"). And every time a new guitar amp is added (that's .1% different than the other 3 versions of that same amp already there), some of us bassists get a bit salty.

My hope is that one day we get a big "Bass Love" firmware update that someone at Fractal has been working on behind the scenes. On that day, I'll be able to make my Axe-III my primary (sole?) modeling device, but until then I'm using other modelers for bass work because I can get the results I need faster.
 
I've been pretty vocal about asking for more bass amps over the past few years.

For studio and "pro" work, the Axe-FX platform delivers pretty much everything needed. With studio bass you're often just laying down dry tracks via DI. As others have said, there are plenty of great tones to be had in this scenario, not just as simple DI + FX but in using the existing amps as "starting points" with extensive EQ manipulation to get tones that sit well in a mix.

For non-pro live, average gigging, etc. I think the Axe-FX platform comes up short on bass. In these scenarios, I'm personally looking for replicating existing and defined bass tones that accurately model real preamps/amps/cabs/speakers. We've got the cabs/speaker part well along now (thanks Dr.!), but we are still missing the wide array of bass preamps that give us those recognizable tones easily (GK/Fender/Eden/Aguilar/Hartke/Ashdown/Trace for example - I mean seriously look at that list of missing bass amp "staples"). And every time a new guitar amp is added (that's .1% different than the other 3 versions of that same amp already there), some of us bassists get a bit salty.

My hope is that one day we get a big "Bass Love" firmware update that someone at Fractal has been working on behind the scenes. On that day, I'll be able to make my Axe-III my primary (sole?) modeling device, but until then I'm using other modelers for bass work because I can get the results I need faster.
I agree with pretty much all of this. I often take lengthy breaks from these forums in part because I get a LOT of "What bassists have is good enough, I (often a guitarist) get good enough bass tone so you should too". That attitude is toxic, unwelcoming, and unproductive. If someone tells you something hurts, the last thing you should do is say "well, it doesn't hurt me!".
Granted, yes, with extensive tweaking and knob turning I can likely get most of the way towards a tone I want (rarely the whole way). But, it's generally lacking and takes an incredible amount of effort to get even that far. I've pretty much given up any hope that a bass specific, or even new bass amps/pres will come ever. There's another Axe-Fx III firmware out there that has, as you so perfectly put, a 0.1% difference amp out there for guitarists.
 
I'm sure guitarists appreciate the subtle differences in the various popular and esoteric amp models that are forever being tweaked and added. Unfortunately, they've not afforded bassists anything that remotely resembles this consideration, demonstrated by the fact that there are so few bass amp models, and other than the Darkglass drive model, virtually no added bass stuff in about 5 years.

When it became clear that I no longer had much need for more complex programming of sounds, switches and pedals, I became much more interested in the core sound of the bass amp models and cabinets. Thus, the AxeFx became overkill for me since it was only OK in what it offered as STOCK items for bassists. No doubt it is a killer guitar amp modeler and effects processor. I moved on my AxeFx to a guitarist who loves it, while I moved on to use other pedals that are designed for bassists, from companies who are more actively involved in catering to bassists...for a LOT less financial outlay, too.
 
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