The Quest for amp clarity and sizzle

CAGOPOCO said:
In my experience it's common to all the amps. I'm seriously sad to say that NAM profiles (the good ones anyway) do not have the same problem and retain that immediacy, sizzle and openness.
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While I believe NAM can be very accurate, usually I've been able to get close with fractal sims by lowering the master vol considerably. There's always some difference, but to the point where it's easy to fail blind tests, at least for me.
 
CAGOPOCO said:
In my experience it's common to all the amps. I'm seriously sad to say that NAM profiles (the good ones anyway) do not have the same problem and retain that immediacy, sizzle and openness.
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The FM3 can be dialed ear piercingly bright if needed. The issue here is more people using terms like "sizzle" and "open" which can only be described in relative terms and really mean nothing in terms of analysis. But really...these things only absolutely matter to someone with an amp trying to exactly match a target. Great tone is a sliding scale relative to the needs at the moment. FM3 certainly isn't for everyone. I'd actually agree if one is the type to buy presets might as well shift over to a profile/capture system and never look back. But for those who are trying to match tones in their head, I'll take a more traditional modeler all day.
 
Will Chen said:
The FM3 can be dialed ear piercingly bright if needed. The issue here is more people using terms like "sizzle" and "open" which can only be described in relative terms and really mean nothing in terms of analysis. But really...these things only absolutely matter to someone with an amp trying to exactly match a target. Great tone is a sliding scale relative to the needs at the moment. FM3 certainly isn't for everyone. I'd actually agree if one is the type to buy presets might as well shift over to a profile/capture system and never look back. But for those who are trying to match tones in their head, I'll take a more traditional modeler all day.
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No I will never buy any preset, it's totally nonsense to me, how anyone can be so lazy?
And I vastly prefer Fractal approach to Tonex, NAM or any other profiler.

What I'm hearing (and OP as well I guess) is a sort of smear inherent to the product (i.e. common to all the amp models) that you cannot eq in or out, similar to the infamous Kemper mids.

I know it's hard to explain and maybe I'm particularly picky, but there is something missing that makes it sounds less open and immediate compared to real amps or NAM, you can hear it but more than that you can feel it.

I do not intend to bash Fractal in any way, but IMO there is still room for improvements.
 
CAGOPOCO said:
No I will never buy any preset, it's totally nonsense to me, how anyone can be so lazy?
And I vastly prefer Fractal approach to Tonex, NAM or any other profiler.

What I'm hearing (and OP as well I guess) is a sort of smear inherent to the product (i.e. common to all the amp models) that you cannot eq in or out, similar to the infamous Kemper mids.

I know it's hard to explain and maybe I'm particularly picky, but there is something missing that makes it sounds less open and immediate compared to real amps or NAM, you can hear it but more than that you can feel it.

I do not intend to bash Fractal in any way, but IMO there is still room for improvements.
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I can't speak to "smear"...in the op's example, run the 2 clips from the 1st attempt through a spectral analyzer and you will see the differences in notches at ~7K in the real amp vs ~10K in the FM3. These are deep notches which have a very distinct tonal impact on the end tone. Considering we're not even comparing a real amp vs a model of that specific amp, there are going to be differences.

But honestly...I don't have a dog in this fight. I use an FM3 now, but maybe not forever. But one thing is certain, I'll never play a traditional amp again. I'm a 100% convert to digital modeling and have been for years. I think Fractal along with several other companies have exceeded the point of diminishing returns in terms of delivering great tones.
 
Will Chen said:
Considering we're not even comparing a real amp vs a model of that specific amp, there are going to be differences.
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By that specific amp, you mean that it's not the exact same physical amp that Cliff modelled? Because it is a 50W EVH 5150 III, so the 50W blue channel should be an exact match, though the red channel's closest match would be the 100w which might have slight differences.
 
IronSean said:
The final notch EQ being in such a different spot feels like a large difference for part tolerences
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Wouldn't be surprised if there is some "second revision" of the board which is not advertised as an updated model cause the difference is hard to hear anyway
 
CAGOPOCO said:
In my experience it's common to all the amps. I'm seriously sad to say that NAM profiles (the good ones anyway) do not have the same problem and retain that immediacy, sizzle and openness.
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You have to work with what you have, and if you are using a Two Notes IR loader instead of the Axe's Cab Block, you're missing some tools that allow you to bring in some open-ness and sizzle.

On the flip side, the generic gain stages of any profiler do not come near to the Axe in duplicating tube amp behaviors over time, and responses to dissonance and string induced noise, vibratos etc over time with any gain setting, so while profilers do get the freq response quite well they miss on other accounts.

So, "if it sounds good it is good", use what you like LOL!
 
IronSean said:
Yeah that's all well and good, I just wanted to clarify if he meant because of this, or because of different amp models. The final notch EQ being in such a different spot feels like a large difference for part tolerences, though I guess whatever circuit is controling that could have some wide swings depending on how the tolerences all fall.
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Yes, the 2 clear differences in comparing the OP's first attempt was the real amp's ~250hz prominent peak when palm muting which was lower and broader in the FM3 and the real amp's 7K notch vs the FM3 10k notch. The op was comparing his 50W red channel vs the FM3 100W red channel, and sure that's super close, but not exact plus the 5150 has gone though a ton of revisions and then there's parts tolerances and what not. Maybe I'll give it another go trying to match the OP, but without his IR and guitar I didn't have much luck and just didn't want to spend too much time on it.
 
CAGOPOCO said:
No I will never buy any preset, it's totally nonsense to me, how anyone can be so lazy?
And I vastly prefer Fractal approach to Tonex, NAM or any other profiler.

What I'm hearing (and OP as well I guess) is a sort of smear inherent to the product (i.e. common to all the amp models) that you cannot eq in or out, similar to the infamous Kemper mids.

I know it's hard to explain and maybe I'm particularly picky, but there is something missing that makes it sounds less open and immediate compared to real amps or NAM, you can hear it but more than that you can feel it.

I do not intend to bash Fractal in any way, but IMO there is still room for improvements.
Click to expand...
I actually find the Fractal more open and dynamic compared to profilers like NAM and Amperium and in order to match I have to apply changes in the more advance parameters such as speaker drive/breakup and Cathode Follower (really powerful).

Having said that I do think there is extra harmonic content in the mid range of the Fractal that I don't hear generally in the profiles I've tried. With things like NAM I can hear harmonic content right at the top end that I don't hear in the Fractal. Perhaps each platform deals with digital artifacts differently.

I much prefer the Fractal way and agree there will be improvements much like we saw when Cygnus was introduced.
 
Hey all! Sorry for the late reply on this.

To me, there is just this buzzy and squishy tone in the Fractal version (any of the 5150 models) that I’m not getting in my real amp. I can post more comparison clips later.

It’s really hard to describe but buzzy/squishy and sizzle are not the same to me. I’m so sorry, I wish I was much better equipped to describe these things. I think some people in the chat have attempted to describe it as “openness,” which I agree with.

To me, it ALMOST sounds like with the FM3 models, you can sort of hear the different distortions/harmonic crossing over as separate. In the real amp, it feels like it blends together really well and the distortions interact and synergize with each other. I’m just taking a shot at describing it — it’s the best I can do, but I know something is off. I also recognize that even with all the amazing improvements Cliff and team have made to the FM3, there is still room for improvement, so it might not be something I can necessarily “unhear” with any amount of tweaking right now.



Side note: Here is the IR I’m using, if anyone wants to try :)
 

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beteasta351 said:
Hey all! Sorry for the late reply on this.

To me, there is just this buzzy and squishy tone in the Fractal version (any of the 5150 models) that I’m not getting in my real amp. I can post more comparison clips later.

It’s really hard to describe but buzzy/squishy and sizzle are not the same to me. I’m so sorry, I wish I was much better equipped to describe these things. I think some people in the chat have attempted to describe it as “openness,” which I agree with.

To me, it ALMOST sounds like with the FM3 models, you can sort of hear the different distortions/harmonic crossing over as separate. In the real amp, it feels like it blends together really well and the distortions interact and synergize with each other. I’m just taking a shot at describing it — it’s the best I can do, but I know something is off. I also recognize that even with all the amazing improvements Cliff and team have made to the FM3, there is still room for improvement, so it might not be something I can necessarily “unhear” with any amount of tweaking right now.



Side note: Here is the IR I’m using, if anyone wants to try :)
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Did you tinker with master vol?
 
TheloniusJ said:
Not sure if you have played with the input EQ section on the amp block. I recently got hipped to that and have been pretty surprised at how much it can help the amp cut. Particularly the Definition parameter.
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This and the Marco Sfogli comment made me experiment more... Definition parameter gives drastic changes to the tone!

In the light of this revelation I'm refining every preset I made!
 
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