Taming the Monster - Series and Parallel Routing

simeon said:
single notes, mostly. i think i played a couple of triads at one point
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Very nice.

Do you have a lead-tone signal running in a path parallel to your ethereal effects path?

If so it would be nice to hear them together and see a screen shot of the blocks and paths at some point.
 
smcrosby said:
Very nice.

Do you have a lead-tone signal running in a path parallel to your ethereal effects path?
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yes, like i said in my post - there is a clean sound parallel to the processed path. you can clearly hear me playing it throughout the clip
 
simeon said:
yes, like i said in my post - there is a clean sound parallel to the processed path. you can clearly hear me playing it throughout the clip
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Unfortunately, I can't hear the clean tone at all - or I don't recognize it - I don't hear any pick attack at all, only a processed note bloom.

I think its a problem with our network at work today. The sound clip - while beautiful - is sounding a little choppy by the time it reaches my little desk speakers.

I'll be sure to check out the clip on my mac and studio monitors when I get home. Thanks again.
 
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Scott - thank you so much for another great video. These are treasures!

I've had a thought (dangerous) ... in your video you show two effects in parallel Chorus and Flanger with a connecting line in the middle. After these is the Phaser. I think that you can stack two or more effects with no connecting line as long as one of them does have the 'Thru' mode on. The other would need to be as you say 'anything but the Thru mode' i.e. Mute Out and Mute Fx Out. Theoretically you could stack four effects, all in parallel this way. Is this correct?

Cheers, Mike
 
mferrand said:
Scott - thank you so much for another great video. These are treasures!

I've had a thought (dangerous) ... in your video you show two effects in parallel Chorus and Flanger with a connecting line in the middle. After these is the Phaser. I think that you can stack two or more effects with no connecting line as long as one of them does have the 'Thru' mode on. The other would need to be as you say 'anything but the Thru mode' i.e. Mute Out and Mute Fx Out. Theoretically you could stack four effects, all in parallel this way. Is this correct?

Cheers, Mike
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Yes, it is fine and works. The whole point of it is working with the grid to do things YOU want to do, the way YOU want to do them. The design of the grid in the Axe-FX allows you to create your OWN thing and you don't have to bend to the gear. The key is understanding and exploring what the gear offers; one step at a time.

On my preset grid, notice the routing - even as is, the phaser does NOT interact with the Flanger or Chorus, even though it isn't 'stacked' in the grid. It'd be the same (as I show in the video) if I did stack it; the point is flexibility and personal preference. Once you understand the basic concepts of what and how these things work; you can then get to imagining something, trying it and creating your personal stamp on it.

It's great stuff once you fire up your imagination.
 
I already posted message for this video, but I'm doing another. The first was really just for the effort, which I always appreciate.

Today I actually put some of the things into practice and wow! I tried putting the delay in parallel and adding a pitch effect after the delay. The change was subtle, but it's those subtleties that can be the difference between a sound that's kind of cool, and a sound that makes you want to play until your fingers bleed.

It just seems so obvious now, but it never occurred to me to try it before.
 
Scott-

Thanks alot for this video and your other work. It is really helpful, even for experienced players/Axe users.

One question I have though relating to series vs. parallel is: if you place an effect in series and set the mix to 10%, is 90% of the signal going through the block dry - just as it would be if you routed it parallel to the dry signal?

I guess I am trying to determine if it is tonally "better" to have parallel vs. series with some effects. I suppose in the end you just have to let your ears make the choice.
 
Ventanaman said:
Scott-

Thanks alot for this video and your other work. It is really helpful, even for experienced players/Axe users.

One question I have though relating to series vs. parallel is: if you place an effect in series and set the mix to 10%, is 90% of the signal going through the block dry - just as it would be if you routed it parallel to the dry signal?

I guess I am trying to determine if it is tonally "better" to have parallel vs. series with some effects. I suppose in the end you just have to let your ears make the choice.
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Glad to help people.

Yes to your question. The issue can be that some effects can sound louder or softer overall when engaged or bypassed; you need to use your ear. With Parallel routing, you are only adding effect so the dry tone is never 'mixed' more than it is added to only. It is not tonally better in any way if you are strictly in the digital domain. The result is different; but not better or worse.
 
simeon said:
in the meantime, here's a little glimpse at what you can do with parallel routing...all the processing here is happening in parallel to the main line, which is just a basic clean sound with a little phaser, reverb and delay...

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Nice clip! I love hearing what the AxeFX can do in the hands of creative guitarists. It's so fun to experiment with blocks/routings and creating interesting soundscapes.

Scott Peterson said:
And one of the major points that I find so much fun in the Axe-FX; you make it your own.
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Yes, exactly...the flexibility of the AxeFX is incredible. I never feel limited in constructing chains of FX and it's great to let the imagination run wild. Cool video too; nice work!
 
Hi Scott, what do you think, are the subtle differences between serial-parallel to be heard while playing live via real poweramp-cab or via PA?
 
norbert said:
Hi Scott, what do you think, are the subtle differences between serial-parallel to be heard while playing live via real poweramp-cab or via PA?
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Neither assuming you are doing everything within the Axe-FX grid. There is no 'sonic' difference really; it is more a routing convention to allow for more flexibility and different possibilities.

In other words, one is no 'better' than the other.

In general, to hear subtle details you will need to use high quality monitoring setup that allows for enough resolution that you can hear subtle details.
 
Scott Peterson said:
Neither assuming you are doing everything within the Axe-FX grid. There is no 'sonic' difference really; it is more a routing convention to allow for more flexibility and different possibilities.

In other words, one is no 'better' than the other.

In general, to hear subtle details you will need to use high quality monitoring setup that allows for enough resolution that you can hear subtle details.
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finally got to really spend some time with this video and the Axe 2 and WOW!

when I used amps I usually only put a delay in the effects loop (if the amp I was using even had one) and that was about it, I don't use many effects in general... by putting mostly everything in parallel... my patches sound better.. using the Axe 2 with Scott's suggestions I find my raw tone retains more of it's brightness, hotness and rawness... very cool stuff!!

So I'm just reading your post above Scott... do you think if I've been running serial all this time that I could here the difference in my raw tone running parallel?? I feel like my patches sound better with parallel placement??
 
tvegas99 said:
finally got to really spend some time with this video and the Axe 2 and WOW!

when I used amps I usually only put a delay in the effects loop (if the amp I was using even had one) and that was about it, I don't use many effects in general... by putting mostly everything in parallel... my patches sound better.. using the Axe 2 with Scott's suggestions I find my raw tone retains more of it's brightness, hotness and rawness... very cool stuff!!

So I'm just reading your post above Scott... do you think if I've been running serial all this time that I could here the difference in my raw tone running parallel?? I feel like my patches sound better with parallel placement??
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Well, the science says it isn't exact - you have a sum of a transfer function in a series routed 'mix/wet' effect versus a straight sum of ONLY adding effect in parallel. I feel it is easier to understand and personally feel that the difference is mostly moot if you keep everything in the digital domain - especially with the Axe-FX.

However, I do what I do because I truly feel it works best for me and I'm a guitar tone geek and always have been. I'm less about science and more about the science for learning and in the end just trusting my ears. I've spent my whole life obsessing over my own tone and I've tried to learn as much as possible; some of what I do (like the wah in parallel) doesn't really make any sense to the science; but it sure feels and sounds good to me.

So, IMHO, what I am discussing and the way I do what I do sounds best to me. And in the end, if it does what you want it to, the way you want it to... you are doing it right.
 
simeon said:
yup, another good vid.

i'll add my tuppence, as well

one of the cool things you can do with parallel paths is use fx to effect other fx, but leave your dry signal intact. an example....say you put a delay in parallel at 100% wet. now no dry signal is passing through that effect, so if you put a flanger behind the delay and then join back to the main line, the delay repeats will be flanged, but your dry signal won't. you can set up chains of stuff which you can enable simply by unmuting the first effect in the chain (if the bypass mode is set correctly).
multidelays running into pitch shifters...reverbs running into lfo controlled filters...pitch shifters running into multidelays...i have patches with 7 or 8 effects in a parallel path (which may even have it's own parallel sub-path), to create huge ambient scapes which appear "behind" a simple unaffected clean sound (which i can bring in or out as i wish). it's a very powerful technique! :)
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My feeble brain is incapable of these thoughts but would love some of those patches you are talking about!
 
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