Power Amp Off in Global Settings

A

ashenriff

Member
Hello all, I've lurked and read here for a long time and have owned an Ultra for almost 2 years. I did a CD using only the Ultra and love it, I think I got some good sounds.

HOWEVER, funny story, I was messing with patches and settings last night and realized the Power Amp setting in my global settings were Off. I play strictly through Adam monitors and a pair of QSC K12's and I guess at some point last year or before I turned off the Power Amp setting. So I have been using it all this time without it and got some good sounds. Now when I enable it, all my patches are really boomy because I've tweaked them so long to over compensate I guess.

While I enjoy my current patches, I got the itch to go back through and enable the Power Amp sim and redo them to see if it's even better. So no real question or anything, I just can't believe I have been playing all this time without it, thinking it was enabled. Now I can't wait to see what it does for some of my Uber and Das patches.

Anyway, just wanted to share and I guess see if anyone else has done this type thing.
 
ashenriff said:
realized the Power Amp setting in my global settings were Off.

I just can't believe I have been playing all this time without it, thinking it was enabled.
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On the upside, it must be like getting the Ultra all over again! Or at least realising it's just your glasses had steamed up rather than The Fog rolling in....
 
It's funny. I run my Ultra into a Mesa 2:90 tube power amp and I still run my power amp sims on with no thump. I just think it sounds better that way.
 
Ben Randolph said:
Interesting. I use 2 Atomic powered cabs and I always found that power amp off made my tone thin and weedy.
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Yeah, I honestly don't remember exactly the sound before I started tweaking. I guess having 3 EQ's in each patch plus an extra one for a boost should have clued me in something wasn't right, but to me I did get a good full sound with it that I liked. You can give a listen to some streaming stuff here: http://www.musicxray.com/artists/ashenreign/375065 (I don't mean to plug my little one man project) NOTE: "The Sparrow" as it was done with a Line 6, but the others were all AxeFx straight into pro tools with no power amp sim.

Now for the re-tweak...
 
So I figured out what I was doing to compensate, I had the presence turned way down. there were a few other things, but that was the main one. With the power amp sim disabled, I was able to get a decent sound by turning the presence way down. I really only had 8 presets that I ever played with (not much of a tweaker once I get a sound I like) and they were matches, 4 for my PGM 301 with BKP Holydivers and 4 for my Carvin with Painkillers/Nailbomb and Jackson soloist with blackouts. The presets were either Uber or DAS and I always wondered how/why the others were hard to mess with, now I know.

Anyway, it definitely opened the box for me. I got my presets sounding better than before and now the other amps are easy to work with and sound good too. I created a Mk V and soldano patch that sounded great.
 
Nice tone on the clips.

So, I guess it's like a free "upgrade" for the Axe-FX for you. Since you're into metal, the power amp sims will definitely give you more "fire" to you sound.
 
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