Pick the real amp...

AlbertA said:
Yeah hard to describe but I think I hear it.. yeah...


Curious, do all the patches you used in the recording have one amp block only? or two?

Also could we have the DI? I Think I hear what you are talking about, like a "ggrrhg" sort of sound.
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All are really simple, usually a filter, a drive but only mixed 50% or less(or no drive), amp, cab.


I could provide stems, if folks are interested but if you make fun of my sloppy playing, then I quit! :D
 
mikeyg said:
Describing sounds sucks doesnt it? I have no clue what the grrgh sound is....

The first 4 for me were splitting hairs so much that they were virtually a tie for me. I guess the diezel stood out as having a different base tone.... as it likely does.

Where was the presence setting on these? I find that control is arguably the most important to nailing the original amp's tone. They were several patches on my axe (bought used) that sounded just plain dull, and it was always the presence being set way low. I typically set presence now BEFORE the treble and bright controls, which was just the reverse on real tube amps
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I set presence around noon usually but it totally depends on the amp and cab. I look to the cab IR to get me as close to the balance as I want and then add from there.
 
RoshRoslin said:
Out of curiosity. What did you do EQ-wise on the real amp vs the Axefx. Did you hi-cut anywhere in the Cab blocks?
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I don't usually use the cab block to cut as I rely on the cab to give me an accurate representation of the high end. Artificially cutting at the cab block now seems counter-intuitive to me. I used to do it, but now I do it in the daw for more control and for a workflow that more closely mimics how I'd work on a mic'd amp. See logical to me.

I used Fab Filter's Q2 to do a little high and low pass here and there and to bump a touch of low end here and there. I was mainly just trying to get a similar balance between all samples.
 
ML SOUND LAB said:
The thing here is, if no one told you #3 was the real amp you wouldn't have heard it am I right? This is what I mean with Reverse-Placebo. Now that you know which clip is real you start listening and maybe even imagining things. The blindfold test gave you the real answer. Changing your opinion after getting the results is psychology messing with you.
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I think this is valid but I also think if you know where to focus your attention, it's easier to critically listen.
 
brianv4 said:
all the clips sound really good. if they were mixed in a track you'd never know whether the amp was real or modeled. for recording the axefx can't be beat. i love it live too but a musician at one of my shows last week (without seeing what i was using) immediately commented i wasn't using a real amp.
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agreed!
 
5150 said:
Regarding this "scratchy-ness" and whether it can be heard in solo'd tracks/stems. Well, there's the interesting question, and would require the use of the same IR, no post-recording treatment, and an effort to make the real amp and the modeled amp sound as close as possible. We would also need a range of gain settings, and would need to use a loop or pre-recorded guitar track to eliminate the effects of the variables of performance.

.
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I looked at this a different way... use varied chains to single out the AFX itself. If we use the same IR across all, then the IR could be blamed and we'd get nowhere. Same with a Drive block, or Bright Switch being enabled on models that have no such circuit. I randomly dialed... to my preference... amps in varied ways to see if the Axe sonic imprint was able to be heard. While I personally think it's there, albeit subtle, in the context of a mix it really doesn't matter much. The only constant here was the AFX and the Guitar.
 
5150 said:
I tend to think if you used the same IR and it sounded scratchy with both the Axe and the real amp, that would be far more revealing.
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People would say the model is just off unless I had several amps and their exact AFX counterpart.

The idea here is that this sound is present across all models regardless of IR (in my experience, it's only mid to high gain amps).
 
vangrieg said:
I don't think that scratchiness is a linear effect, so no, IR shouldn't matter much.
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I'm not saying that scratchy-ness (or whatever other "sonic imprint" people hear) is caused by IR's.

If you are testing for an audible difference between the Axe and a real amp, you would want to set up a signal chain where the only difference between the test samples is the change from Axe to amp. In other words, you don't change multiple variables between tests.

If, between tests, you change the amp/model, and also changed the IR, you would have no way of knowing if any difference you hear would be caused by the swap of the amp/model, or the change in IR between the tests.
 
erockomania said:
The idea here is that this sound is present across all models regardless of IR (in my experience, it's only mid to high gain amps).
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Well, if you (not you specifically) didn't have a real world test to compare the model(s) to, any speculation that there is add'l or unwanted sounds/tones is nothing but pure speculation, especially if it's not immediately noticeable to the majority of people.
 
5150 said:
I'm not saying that scratchy-ness (or whatever other "sonic imprint" people hear) is caused by IR's.

If you are testing for an audible difference between the Axe and a real amp, you would want to set up a signal chain where the only difference between the test samples is the change from Axe to amp. In other words, you don't change multiple variables between tests.

If, between tests, you change the amp/model, and also changed the IR, you would have no way of knowing if any difference you hear would be caused by the swap of the amp/model, or the change in IR between the tests.
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That completely misses the point of THIS particular test.

The point is to disprove the notion that the AxeFX imparts a sonic imprint or character. If every variable is changed among each sample (except one), then the single constant (the AxeFX) should be detectible among each sample that contains it.
 
brianv4 said:
all the clips sound really good. if they were mixed in a track you'd never know whether the amp was real or modeled. for recording the axefx can't be beat. i love it live too but a musician at one of my shows last week (without seeing what i was using) immediately commented i wasn't using a real amp.
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That was because it sounded too good.
 
5150 said:
If, between tests, you change the amp/model, and also changed the IR, you would have no way of knowing if any difference you hear would be caused by the swap of the amp/model, or the change in IR between the tests.
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You'd know due to the supposed sonic imprint that would go with it no matter what changes you made.

If you isolate one thing in any test and know what you are listening for, you are bound to hear it.
 
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