Only Use 1 Amp Block At A Time?

This. Gotta love people using a very precise term incorrectly.

So is the audio gap between X/Y/etc changes and scenes non-existent on Axe-Fx III? Even if switching amp models? What about preset changes?
There is no audio gap on scene changes with the Axe Fx II... As long as you don't change X/Y states on the Amp block (and maybe a couple other blocks).

The Axe Fx III has been optimized to reduce this for Channels (the replacement for X/Y), and further optimize preset load time.

I pretty much use kitchen sink presets based on a single amp channel, so I can't personally comment on the difference as I haven't had a need to test it yet. Others have given very positive feedback, though.
 
I haven't finished my coffee yet so I'm not going to try and understand your signal flow :)

I play bass with the FM3 from time to time. So I created a bass preset that has something that you may find interesting.

First, a quick note - the bass player in my main band often used a Fishman bass pedal that could produce an octave + fifth signal to a separate output and we'd run that into a Tech 21 Plexi pedal and later an Atomic Amplifirebox. Then he got an HX stomp and we created a single patch with a pitch block and two amp blocks to do the same thing. The reason for this is that we have usually just been a 1 guitar band and he would kick in the faux guitar during solos when the bass is pumping 8ths or something similar.

So I wanted to do the same thing with the FM3. But there's just one amp block and I use that for an SVT amp. And there's just one cab block that has a matching 8x10 IR. The solution for the Amp block in my case was to use a Tube Drive (I think I ended up with the 3-knob version). For the cab block, there's two ways I could have done this.
  1. Take advantage of the fact that the cab block is stereo and you can use two IRs. Pan the SVT hard left and Pan the Tube Drive hard right - then adjust the balance in the cab block (this happens after the IR have been applied.
  2. Use a technique that @FractalAudio shared a while back that uses a filter and a parametric EQ to do a faux cabinet. I'm guessing it's a similar approach to what something like a Palmer PDI-09 does.
The filter and EQ uses less CPU and it's already being fed a very dramatically pitch-shifted signal so it's not exactly going to sound like a real guitar anyhow.

With the faux guitar and amp mixed just enough to be heard but not dominant, the end result is actually pretty good in a live mix - obviously this isn't something you'd do if you were recording.

So the tl;dr reason I shared this, is that you may be able to do a similar thing with the FM3 to produce your sound. Run the lows through an SVT amp/cab block and then run the highs into a Tube drive with either the filter or stereo cab technique. Since you're using a 5150, I'd use the 4-knob tube drive - it has a lot of gain on tap.

How do you split your highs/lows? Crossover? Low/high pass filters? Or?

Thats a very interesting approach that probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind since I’m new to modeling. Thanks for sharing and will definitely keep that technique in mind. 😉 Upon doing a bit more research in comparison between the AFIII and FM3 I’m convinced to go the AFIII route to get all the functionality as well as being able to mount it in the rack and just use the FC12 out front for control. To answer your question I always run a HPF set at 60Hz and a LPF set at 6khz. The SVT cabs roll off naturally at 5khz so it works well at getting the high overtones without stepping on the guitarist.
 
Thats a very interesting approach that probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind since I’m new to modeling. Thanks for sharing and will definitely keep that technique in mind. 😉 Upon doing a bit more research in comparison between the AFIII and FM3 I’m convinced to go the AFIII route to get all the functionality as well as being able to mount it in the rack and just use the FC12 out front for control. To answer your question I always run a HPF set at 60Hz and a LPF set at 6khz. The SVT cabs roll off naturally at 5khz so it works well at getting the high overtones without stepping on the guitarist.

The Axe-Fx III is a fantastic choice. You're going to have a killer bass rig!
 
The Axe-Fx III is a fantastic choice. You're going to have a killer bass rig!

To be honest I’ve always been happy with my rig but when I saw a video of Adam “Nolly” Getgood explaining his rig with the AFXIII I was blown away. Have always loved his tone, as well as Doug Pinnicks, and the Fractal products make for a smaller stage footprint while giving the same tone and better controllability. With a 16U rack I can get the AFXIII, Behringer X32, QSC power amp, IEM and guitars wireless systems and power conditioner with FOH outputs. That’s pretty friggin amazing especially having access to any tone I want right at my feet. For almost 40 years I’ve been a tube amp and pedal guy but Adam is the one that got me to looking at Fractal and make the decision to go digital. I’m pretty excited to get my hands on it and start tweaking. 😉
 
How could so many guitarists in the last decades just life with playing, recording and gigging with only ONE real amp? And would all famous records sound better with a two amp setup? 😀

What I really like on the first official fm 3 video: just hear how the modeling reacts when Keven plays the Vox AC 20 on the lower strings in the first frets area. You can really hear it breathing with kind of a sag of the power amp when he really digs in 🤩

So, go for the Axe FX 3 if you need a two amp setup but for me is it enough to have such a mindblowing realism of amp simulation in 2020 😎

There was a guy from Texas, Stevie something.... used a few different amps at once and apparently lots of people really liked his tone....

just might be something to this dual amp rig thing....
 
There was a guy from Texas, Stevie something.... used a few different amps at once and apparently lots of people really liked his tone....

just might be something to this dual amp rig thing....
Every word of what you just said was wrong.
“Luke Skywalker”
 
Ok...here's one of them that lets you hear when he came up with their new bass tone on the AXE FX II and it has a link to the patches as well which ironically are on the front page of the Axe-Change site under popular downloads. There's another one where he explains how he set up the AFX II to get the tone so will see if I can find it.

 
So does that mean I can simultaneously use 4 channels with 1 amp on each? Forgive me guys I'm new to Fractal and doing my homework and research right now to make sure what I need to buy. Here's my situation: I'm a bass player that uses the Dub Pinnick dual amp/cab tone. On stage I use a QSC power amp into my Ampeg SVT-810AV cab. So in my chain I need to use an SVT-VR amp for the lows and EVH 5150 III for the highs and distortion. But I also need to split that of for FOH but include the associated cabs. So if I'm understanding how the FM3 works I need to take 1 instrument input and create the low end chain and high end chain with amps out to my stage rig on output 2 and then do the same thing for FOH with input 1 and output 1 but add the cabs in the modelling?

Here is a Picture of my Distorted Bass Preset without any Amp! I make a EQ Preshape with the PEQ and then process the Signal in 4 different Paths:

Row 1: Low Pass Filter at 160Hz followed by a compressor and a Octaver to taste
Row 2: Bandpassfilter at 400Hz, followed by a Drive
Row 3: Hi Pass Filter at 800Hz, followed by a Drive and a chorus to taste
Row 4: Dry Bass Signal, can be mixed in before the multiband compressor

The 3 first signals are summed in the Mixer, which is also the Main Sound control. With the Balance Control i can send maybe the Lows of Row 1 to the Cab 1L Cabinet and the other three passes to the Cab 1R, if i Like, so mybe the Bass to a 1x15" and the mid and treble to a 4x10".
This Signal is than mixed to mono and reaches the multiband compressor, for final shaping there is finaly a graphic EQ.
So there are so manny options with different crossover frequencies, drives or path levels - no limits even without an amp!

This Preset is maxed out (83%)!!!

4way Bass.PNG
 
Here is a Picture of my Distorted Bass Preset without any Amp! I make a EQ Preshape with the PEQ and then process the Signal in 4 different Paths:

Row 1: Low Pass Filter at 160Hz followed by a compressor and a Octaver to taste
Row 2: Bandpassfilter at 400Hz, followed by a Drive
Row 3: Hi Pass Filter at 800Hz, followed by a Drive and a chorus to taste
Row 4: Dry Bass Signal, can be mixed in before the multiband compressor

The 3 first signals are summed in the Mixer, which is also the Main Sound control. With the Balance Control i can send maybe the Lows of Row 1 to the Cab 1L Cabinet and the other three passes to the Cab 1R, if i Like, so mybe the Bass to a 1x15" and the mid and treble to a 4x10".
This Signal is than mixed to mono and reaches the multiband compressor, for final shaping there is finaly a graphic EQ.
So there are so manny options with different crossover frequencies, drives or path levels - no limits even without an amp!

This Preset is maxed out (83%)!!!

View attachment 78155

This is something similar to what I've been working on. Care to share your patch? Mine is still in the beginning stage, but my thought is to use controllers on the mixer & effects depending on which scene I'm using. I have my compression at the front of my chain, but maybe where you have yours may work better. Thanks for at least posting the screenshot & basic info.
 
Yeah I would love to try that distorted bass preset if you don’t mind sharing it. Looks awesome.
 
Most people here know this but for the newbies, I explained channels to my GF the other day.

Just like a regular amp usually has a clean and a dirty channel, your amp block has 4 channels. Like a real amp, you can't play two channels at the same time. You can however switch between them seamlessly. The difference is that channel A can be a fender clean, channel B can be a Marshall stack, C can be a Mesa Boogie, and D can be a block letter 5150. The most common way to change channels would be through scenes. It's virtually instantaneous if not actually instant. I can't tell. If you switch presets the gap is there but split second. I for one won't have any issues with it.
Sure you can. On some amps. I jumper my Deluxe Reverb main channel into the 2nd channel all the time with a short patch cable. If there’s a button or switch to change channels then yeah, that won’t work.
 
To be honest I’ve always been happy with my rig but when I saw a video of Adam “Nolly” Getgood explaining his rig with the AFXIII I was blown away. Have always loved his tone, as well as Doug Pinnicks, and the Fractal products make for a smaller stage footprint while giving the same tone and better controllability. With a 16U rack I can get the AFXIII, Behringer X32, QSC power amp, IEM and guitars wireless systems and power conditioner with FOH outputs. That’s pretty friggin amazing especially having access to any tone I want right at my feet. For almost 40 years I’ve been a tube amp and pedal guy but Adam is the one that got me to looking at Fractal and make the decision to go digital. I’m pretty excited to get my hands on it and start tweaking. 😉
I also love Dug Pinnick's tone(s). For anywhere where I don't want to bring my full board I use my Tech 21 DP-3X pedal. Such a fantastic pedal to keep in your bass case. I highly recommend grabbing one for back-up or stuff where you don't want to bring your full rack. And the way I use it really doesn't sound like Dug (although you can if you want) but it grinds like no other. For my sound I preferred it over my Darkglass X-7 as well.
 
This is something similar to what I've been working on. Care to share your patch? Mine is still in the beginning stage, but my thought is to use controllers on the mixer & effects depending on which scene I'm using. I have my compression at the front of my chain, but maybe where you have yours may work better. Thanks for at least posting the screenshot & basic info.
Yeah I would love to try that distorted bass preset if you don’t mind sharing it. Looks awesome.

Hey Guys, here is my Bass Preset, i hope you have fun with it!
Dial it in basicaly with the first three gain knobs of the mixer and the level of the fourths row filter block for the dry signal.
The Filter Blocks are muted when bypassed, so you can simply hear what each row is doing.
Also look at the phase switches in the filter blocks, its important to allign the phase correctly. You can also try to remove a drive block with another type or against a gainy guitar or bass amplifier, so you have more processing power for other blocks, because the amp block uses the other FM3 processor!
Hope you enjoy it!
 

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