Profiling. Is it in the future for the AFIII?

Status
Not open for further replies.
W

woodbutcher65

Inspired
I know, this is a "big can of worms" topic. It has to be.

The only thing that would have ever made me consider buying a modern competing modelling amplifier instead of an AFIII would be its ability to capture a profile of any other amplifier I already have access to.

Since all Axe-FX models already can profile a speaker cabinet (IR), then I'd have to think that it should be technically feasible to give at least the AFIII the same profiling capability of the Kemper, which was released back at the dawn of history in 2012.

I'd expect that the AFIII would be orders of magnitude more capable than that first generation Kemper, but that old green brick still offers something an AF user doesn't get.

So, does anyone know, are there any plans to add profiling capability to at least the AFIII? I think I'd be asking too much to hope for it to be added to an earlier model like the AFII, but that would be a desirable bonus.

I have not YET purchased an AFIII but it's on my radar. I still think I've barely scratched the surface of what the AFII can do. But I'd be all over a III when I can spare the cost.
 
This is only my opinion, and I realize that building an effective and accurate profiling system is not exactly a simple process, but I think it SHOULD be added at some point. The selling feature of the Kemper is its profiling ability. To not match that important feature is, in my opinion, an oversight that needs to be addressed. Or maybe it's already in the works and will be released when it's truly ready. I'd be good with that. There's nothing another modeller can do that an Axe-FX III shouldn't be able to do and do it better.
 
All boils down to Patents.

Expiration date for profiling technology patent is 06.15.2022 (found on TGP).
 
There's a big difference between "Demanding" and asking if a thing is possible and if it might be under consideration for the future.

Well, 2022 is not far away.

Without the ability to make my own profiles via Fractal, I'm at the mercy of the Fractal development team with regard to when, and if, I ever see certain models of amps that I like that have not yet been selected for modelling. While they've been great and given us a lot of great models to work with, they're not going to be able to model every amp that ever was, or inclined to do so. But I have two amps sitting at home that have no equivalent Fractal model and I wish they did.
 
woodbutcher65 said:
This is only my opinion, and I realize that building an effective and accurate profiling system is not exactly a simple process, but I think it SHOULD be added at some point. The selling feature of the Kemper is its profiling ability. To not match that important feature is, in my opinion, an oversight that needs to be addressed. Or maybe it's already in the works and will be released when it's truly ready. I'd be good with that. There's nothing another modeller can do that an Axe-FX III shouldn't be able to do and do it better.
Click to expand...
You may want to research the modeling methodology used by both products.

The Axe Fx models the actual circuitry of the amps... The Kemper creates profiles based off of the sound/response of an amp.

Completely different...
 
lqdsnddist said:
Saying the III needs to become a KPA sounds as silly to me as saying the Kemper should also start to offer circuit level modeling of a few hundred amps in addition to the profiles of a given rig.

It’s two different technologies and approaches
Click to expand...
Profiling is not that substantially different as a technology; it is a different approach though. IMHO.

People often trot the notion out that they are mutually exclusive to keep flame wars from getting out of control, so they try to represent it as if a product that implements one work flow could not do the other...

Profiling is basically an automated, measurement based, method of dialing in virtual 'amp models' to match the gain/distortion/compression characteristics of the incoming signal while simultaneously measuring/matching the frequency response (essentially IR capture/tone matching) of the input signal. A skilled amp dialer with the TM block can essentially do a profile by hand already this has been demonstrated numerous times here. The AxeFx is perfectly capable of profiling from a hardware standpoint, but the patent is the only thing standing in the way.

Agreed that it is an entirely different work flow, though. I would rather build rigs with great component models so I have passed on the KPA twice; but I would welcome the option to mess with it for certain scenarios if it was being added to the FAS products.

I would think that it might make the devices feel even more complex to noobs though. Hopefully the III will still be the AxeFx du jour when the patent expires.
 
If the KPA had a spring reverb effect and the Axe didn’t, then yeah, that could be called an oversight.

When a totally unique profiling technology that costs $2200 isn’t included in a completely different product I don’t think it’s an “oversight”
 
I owned a KpA for a while, did some really good tones. “Problem” was if you had a profile for a cranked Marshall sound, you couldn’t go and dial it in totally clean. You needed a different profile taken with the amp settings changed.

On the Axe model, the interactions of every knob and part of the circuit respond correctly so you can crank it and it sounds right, or back everything off and it still sounds right.

I found myself going through hundreds of profiles to find what I liked where with the axe I can just twist a few knobs on models I like and find a range of tones I’m after. I think modeling is a bit better concept overall, BUT, if you want to just have a good copy of a hardware rig for live use etc, the KPA works great.
 
Well, we have Tone Match....isn't it fair to say that that can be considered to be a "lite" version of profiling, in a functional sense?
 
zenaxe said:
Profiling is not that substantially different as a technology; it is a different approach though. IMHO.

People often trot the notion out that they are mutually exclusive to keep flame wars from getting out of control, so they try to represent it as if a product that implements one work flow could not do the other...

Profiling is basically an automated, measurement based, method of dialing in virtual 'amp models' to match the gain/distortion/compression characteristics of the incoming signal while simultaneously measuring/matching the frequency response (essentially IR capture/tone matching) of the input signal. A skilled amp dialer with the TM block can essentially do a profile by hand already this has been demonstrated numerous times here. The AxeFx is perfectly capable of profiling from a hardware standpoint, but the patent is the only thing standing in the way.

Agreed that it is an entirely different work flow, though. I would rather build rigs with great component models so I have passed on the KPA twice; but I would welcome the option to mess with it for certain scenarios if it was being added to the FAS products.

I would think that it might make the devices feel even more complex to noobs though. Hopefully the III will still be the AxeFx du jour when the patent expires.
Click to expand...

Agree!
From my understanding, Cliff already does a kind of a manual "profiling" (after his circuit level modelling), by measuring and comparing his own amps with the model in a circuit level to fine tune the internal parameters.
Cliff is doing a white box profiling while the Kemper does it in a black box approuch.

For me, Cliff's white box method seems to be far more accurate.

BUT, would be nice the have a "auto-settings" from amp block to set the amp params to get the best approximation of a reference. For me, doesn't matter the way you call it...
 
woodbutcher65 said:
Without the ability to make my own profiles via Fractal, I'm at the mercy of the Fractal development team with regard to when, and if, I ever see certain models of amps that I like that have not yet been selected for modelling. While they've been great and given us a lot of great models to work with, they're not going to be able to model every amp that ever was, or inclined to do so. But I have two amps sitting at home that have no equivalent Fractal model and I wish they did.
Click to expand...
Regardless of what folks may believe/say, the Kemper works via a combination of measurement based deep dialed amplification stage matching applied to a finite set of base amp models and frequency spectrum matching as per IRs to align its output to a reference signal.

It is pretty clearly spelled out in the patent.

TLDR: It essentially picks an amp model and deep dials it in for you and then does a tone match.

There is nothing preventing you from doing this yourself and if you own the amp and have it readily available, you have absolutely no reason to not tone match them, then, IMHO (in lieu of switching to KPA of course). *Many* amps are extremely similar which is why the KPA can get away with a small set of references. Research your amps and pick the most similar amp and then learn to tone match... the results might be better because the Fractal models are much more accurate to their original reference amp (i.e. tone stacks, etc).

I love new amp models too. I hope they keep them coming for a long time. But it is sort of icing.
 
I don't think it needs amp profiling so much as an easier to use ability to copy a tone. It doesn't need to model an amp like the kemper, just an easy procedure for "here comes a tone, copy it". I'm a rather technical person (comp sci degree, used to be a programmer, now tell programmers what to do), and setting up the pink noise or sine gen profiling stuff was more complicated than I think it needs to be. Of course this is coming from the customer not the engineer, so it's definitely not a knock on FAS, just perspective from the types of concerns I have to deal with from my customers.

Feels like the tonematch is shoehorned in (not saying it was, just that the UX/procedure doesn't seem like it was part of the original design). It certainly works and sounds great, but if you compare the user base of each product, FAS users typically are OK with a technical procedure, whereas the KPA crowd wants that dummy-button. Reading PDFs, forum posts, etc. just doesn't seem like something that a lot of the KPA users are interested in going through.

Perhaps given that the III has a much improved interface via the better screen and controls, maybe they could implement a wizard-based tone matcher into the unit. I'm not really sure what the technical limitations are of the GUI, but a step-by-step walkthrough type tone matcher (step 1, do this, step 2 do that, ok how does this sound, etc.) built right into the unit, it may absolve some of the profiler vs tonematch concerns that non-FAS users have. You're not violating their profiling patent for mimic tech, you're creating a similar *process* for achieving the same (or in FAS's case, better) result.

It might not work for 100% of scenarios, but would likely be a great feature for selling customers on FAS over Kemper. Seems like the only real reason why people choose KPA over FAS in the first place... "I can easily copy my other amps on KPA!" Well you can do that on FAS, just takes some know-how and it's not exactly copying the amp but the sound, here's the PDF and some forum links. Flip the narrative on it so instead of "well we have tonematch which is kind of sorta similar" you get "FAS also can copy your amp tones, hit this button"
 
Last edited:
I kind of miss the good old days sometimes, where you and an amp, and maybe the previous owner had sometime tweak soemthing, you don’t know what even, and it just sounds great. Then you had your cabinet, and maybe you didn’t even know what was in it, but it sounded great. You then had some pedals in front, some brand names, maybe some plain boxes, not sure the circuit but it sounded great.

Net result ? Your unique tone. People would say you have a great tone, but didn’t know how to get it, no one knew the “mods”

These days, for better or worse, it’s kind of like “I love such and such’s tone on this record, what button can I press to get it?”

I mean, yeah it’s cool, and I use that tech as much as anyone, but it kind of takes the uniqueness away from a given artist, at least to some extent ?

Used to be that artist had the only amp that could do that sound, seeing them live was as much about hearing that amp as it was seeing them lol.

BUT, if anyone can have a near identical profile or model of said amp, suddenly it’s not nearly as cool since hundreds of guys can get that sound on YouTube vids. Can’t match the playing maybe, but the unique gear suddenly has become common.

I used to chase Gilmour’s rig, and Gilmour himself obviously spent tons of time trying different stuff etc to get what he likes. End product is something special for him, and not many of use have an old EM flanger etc. BUT if he was using a model, someone can get his preset and have the exact same thing he’s playing, minus his technique etc.

Again, cool in many ways, but also uncool in that the gear, previously unique and rare, now is just lines of code that anyone has access to.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just a bit odd, but sometimes the thing I liked most about a certain piece of hardware was that no one else had one like it.
 
Kent said:
That's not how patents work. One can do the same thing without trespassing upon the specifics of a patent.
Click to expand...

Back with tone matching happened in v6 of axe II I thought I remembered it was the answer to the profiler and all he could do without stepping on the patent.
 
There is a fundamental difference in the philosophy behind the two products. Profiling is a completely different direction. It works too. I like the Fractal way of getting it done.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom