Starting to think more freely about using parameters

parlopower

Inspired
I am sure I am not the only one, but until recently, I hardly scratched the surface of what the Axe Fx III can do tonally. The reason was partly that my thinking was too stuck on trying to recreate "real" amp sounds. Somewhere along the lines of "there is a reason why everybody loves Vox AC30s, JCM800s etc. for that and that sound, so I must strive to recreate these tones as closely as possible". Which meant I limited myself to the authentic controls and never touched advanced parameters, and always selected cabs where I thought they are kind of a must for that amp.

I slowly started to rethink this when I read Cliffs comments here about the limitations of the analog realm that amp designers actually try to overcome. Things like undesirable blocking distortion etc. Then I also watched a few good Youtube videos about music production where great mix engineers spoke about how both analog gear and digital plugins both have their advantages and how digital can sometimes overcome the limitations of analog gear to a better result.

So finally I started to try around more with the FAS amps, I tried amp-cab combinations that seemed - at least to me - counterintuitive, and I started to experiment with the advanced parameters. And I really like the results. I just finished a patch I attached here. The sound I tried to create initially is the one in scene 2 with the chorus. The key to getting it to sound the way I like was first to combine the JCM 800 with a 1x12 / 2x12 cab combination in the cab block (aaaaalways used a 4x12 with the JCM 800), but then I still missed a bit of transparency that I could not achieve by changing the cab or dialing back the bass or mids etc. So I finally played around with the impedance curves, and when I tried the 2x12 Lead curve (hope I recall the name correctly) instead of the default Brit 4x12, it was exactly what I was looking for. Once I had that edge-of-breakup + chorus sound, I played around a bit further and built the other scenes.

Check it out and let me know what you think. I play at quite low volume at home, so if you play loud it might be too bright and you may want to roll the treble and presence back (or use a filter or whatever).
 

Attachments

  • Marshall JCM 800 2204.syx
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