Speaker Compression and Speaker Constant Settings Sweet Spots.

Mark Al

Inspired
Speaker Compression and Speaker Constants have quite obvious influence on "feel". From the manual I quote:

Speaker Compression – Even if you never touch most advanced parameters in the Amp block, don’t overlook Speaker Compression, aka the “chunka chunka” parameter. It models the interaction of the power amp with the power compression of a virtual speaker. Typical guitar speakers compress between 3 and 6 dB depending upon construction, age, volume, etc. The default value is conservative and yields about 3 dB of compression. Master, Presence, and Depth will interact considerably with Speaker Compression, with higher causing more compression. A gain reduction meter shows the amount of Speaker Compression when this parameter row is selected. Note that this parameter does not reset to its default value when changing the Amp Type.

However, according to the Gain meter, the default settings (usually between 1 and 2) rarely yields nearly as much as -3DB compressions, as a result, the amp by default often feels a bit stiff especially on the clean and edge of breakup tones. Patches which would have volumes quite high in real-world likely would have caused much more compression than the default settings here, and that seems an obvious mis-match. After dialing up the Speaker compression, I found some of my patches much less stiff and reacts more spongy-ly, again especially more obvious on clean, and crunch tones.

What's your sweet spot settings on these two params, e.g for clean, crunch, drive and lead tones? :)





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I’ve thought frequently how nice it would be to have the speaker compression relative to amp volume to compress more as volume increases, as well as interactive to dynamics.
 
I’ve thought frequently how nice it would be to have the speaker compression relative to amp volume to compress more as volume increases, as well as interactive to dynamics.

Isnt that a current wish?
 
I generally go for about 5-6 dB of speaker compression. I also use the same IR for all my sounds (4x12 with V30s), so I try to make it feel like such a cab in realistic way.

On clean sounds, I generally use a pedal compressor before the amp like on a pedalboard, and a studio compressor after the cab like when mixing. I'm a firm believer in adding smaller amounts of compression at various parts of the signal chain, rather than having all the compression happening at the same spot. It just sounds and feels more natural.
 
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I generally go for about 5-6 dB of speaker compression. I also use the same IR for all my sounds (4x12 with V30s), so I try to make it feel like such a cab in realistic way.

On clean sounds, I generally use a pedal compressor before the amp like on a pedalboard, and a studio compressor after the cab like when mixing. I'm a firm believer in adding smaller amounts of compression at various parts of the signal chain, rather than having all the compression happening at the same spot. It just sounds and feels more natural.
I love the natural compression from a cranked amp, but generally I do not like using compression pedals as I like dynamics ;-)
 
according to the Gain meter, the default settings (usually between 1 and 2) rarely yields nearly as much as -3DB compressions, as a result, the amp by default often feels a bit stiff especially on the clean and edge of breakup tones. Patches which would have volumes quite high in real-world likely would have caused much more compression than the default settings here, and that seems an obvious mis-match. After dialing up the Speaker compression, I found some of my patches much less stiff and reacts more spongy-ly, again especially more obvious on clean, and crunch tones.

As far as feeling, I can't tell a difference between a setting of 1.0 and 6.0 with clean signals, and the Speaker Compression parameter has no audible impact on clean signals, either.
 
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As far as feeling, I can't really tell a difference between a setting of 1.0 and 6.0 with clean signals, but that's me, and the Speaker Compression parameter obviously has no audible impact on clean signals.
Don't look at the value of this setting which doesn't mean much, but pay attention to the Gain meter on the right in Axe III Edit.

For clean tones, some amps exhibit little speaker compression despite you turn this knob up to 6, e.g. the compression likely remains under -1DB, which is barely noticeble.

For example, my Deluxe Reverb patch have volume around 7 and the Speaker Compression all the way up to 10, which adds a familiar spongy feeling of Deluxe Reverb.

Furthermore, the recorded tone of the patch doesn't change with this setting, but it is feel/response of the real-time playing that it affects.

Lastly, it's the contrary, clean tones often has the most obvious change of feel with this setting, while high gain tones would just have a constant compression/deduction by a few DB with this setting high.
 
Don't look at the value of this setting which doesn't mean much, but pay attention to the Gain meter on the right in Axe III Edit.

For clean tones, some amps exhibit little speaker compression despite you turn this knob up to 6, e.g. the compression likely remains under -1DB, which is barely noticeble.

For example, my Deluxe Reverb patch have volume around 7 and the Speaker Compression all the way up to 10.00, which adds a familiar spongy feeling of Deluxe Reverb.

The Deluxe Reverb model set to clean with the Speaker Compression cranked to 10 averages less than -1 dB of compression, which to me isn't really perceptible. Now, using a reverse polarity test, the audible differences are approx. -35 to -40dB down, which, if perceptible, is going to be extremely subtle.

Furthermore, the recorded tone of the patch doesn't change with this setting, but it is feel/response of the real-time playing that it affects.

Compression will impact the recorded signal.

Lastly, it's the contrary, clean tones often has the most obvious change of feel with this setting, while high gain tones would just have a constant compression/deduction by a few DB with this setting high.

The difference between a clean tone and one that's distorted with Speaker Compression set to 10.00 vs. 1.00 is absolutely night and day, both in playing response and audibility.
 
As with any kind of compression, whether you yield 3 dB of compression or not would depend on the input level you're feeding to it... which in this case depends on your amp settings, input level settings, guitar, etc. And also as with any kind of compression, compression would be most noticeable when applied to a non-compressed signal... which in this case is a clean tone as opposed to high gain tones.

IOW basic compression knowledge applies here :p
 
As with any kind of compression, whether you yield 3 dB of compression or not would depend on the input level you're feeding to it... which in this case depends on your amp settings, input level settings, guitar, etc.

And also as with any kind of compression, compression would be most noticeable when applied to a non-compressed signal... which in this case is a clean tone as opposed to high gain tones.

Try comparing the Deluxe Reverb model with the Input Drive set to 2 or 3 and the Speaker Compression set to 1.00 and then 10.00. Then compare the same model with the Input Gain set to 8 and the Speaker Compression set to 1.00, then cranked to 10.00. The differences between the two (the higher gain being more noticeable) are stark, especially the audible differences.
 
The Deluxe Reverb model set to clean with the Speaker Compression cranked to 10 averages less than -1 dB of compression, which to me isn't really perceptible. Now, using a reverse polarity test, the audible differences are approx. -35 to -40dB down, which, if perceptible, is going to be extremely subtle.
Yeah, that depends on your amp volume setting, crank your Deluxe up, you will get more noticeable speaker compression and sponginess ;-)

The difference between a clean tone and one that's distorted with Speaker Compression set to 10.00 vs. 1.00 is absolutely night and day, both in playing response and audibility.
I was referring to high gain tones, for high gain tones, once I adjusted/normalized it to similar peak volume, they sounds and feels quite similar with more or less compression. However, I am not a picky/discerned high-gain player ;-)
 
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Try comparing the Deluxe Reverb model with the Input Drive set to 2 or 3 and the Speaker Compression set to 1.00 and then 10.00. Then compare the same model with the Input Gain set to 8 and the Speaker Compression set to 1.00, then cranked to 10.00. The differences between the two (the higher gain being more noticeable) are stark, especially the audible differences.
Well yeah, you're sending a bigger signal to the compressor, I'd expect more compression.
 
Yeah, that depends on your amp volume setting, crank your Deluxe up, you will get more noticeable speaker compression and sponginess ;-)

Yes, if you crank the volume to the point of the signal not really being clean. To me, the effect is a lot less perceptible with clean tones, though.

Not to me, that is after I compensate/normalize the volume after the compression settings. Once adjusted to similar peak volume, they sounds and feels quite similar with more or less compression. However, I am not a picky/discerned high-gain player either ;-)

In my very limited testing, there was a 5 dB difference compared to the clean signal in a null test even after level matching, and I can audibly hear a difference in the distorted signal, as well.
 
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The reason I open this thread is that I am curious how many folks paid attention to these two awesome config. And for those who does, what is their typical settings for them and why.

I found tuning them for my clean, edge of break-up tones quite rewarding, after I push the compression above 3DB.
 
The reason I open this thread is that I am curious how many folks paid attention to these two awesome config. And for those who does, what is their typical settings for them and why.

I found tuning them for my clean, edge of break-up tones quite rewarding, after I push the compression above 3DB.

For me, it's useful for crunch and gainier tones, and I generally like what I hear with Speaker Compression set to around 3.00 or 4.00, but it depends.
 
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Fwiw, shortly after I got my III, I posted here with title "Compressed" I think. It's my first Fractal device, and I really felt like everything was compressed. Cliff said to turn down speaker compression, he was considering defaulting it to 0, asked if many people were using it.

I think in general it probably is compressed relative to a live amp, but not relative to recordings. I've apparently gotten used to it :)

EDIT: It was unwise of me to pass on what Cliff said without providing a link to his actual post, so there you go.
 
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