i'm just fascinated by the complexity of how everything works, AFX3 is like a playground and gets me obnoxiously inquisitive to how/why/what in the circuits and how they interact/feel, FAS is as direct as it gets when it comes to customer interaction and feedback, i use all the modelers at the same time but AFX3 is a lot more than just a modeller, way more, cause of all the circuit adjustment that's open to the user
I think you would really enjoy (if you don't already) doing some tinkering with analogue tube amps and effects units. You might be quite amazed how little difference some component substitutions make. Well-designed analogue electronic circuits (and, ahem,
some classic Marshalls
) are incredibly tolerant of big drifts in component value away from the designer's intent, simply because that is in itself good design intent. If you want to make noticeable differences in tone, you are generally talking about making pretty major changes in component value. Way bigger even than pot and electrolytic cap tolerances (Fender mid pot change to Marshall values for the "big mid" sound goes from 10k ohm mid pot to 25k ohm, for instance, but when Marshall dropped from 25k to 22k mid pot due to component availability, I'm not sure anyone really noticed).
Similarly for the "stacking" of complexity of tone, amp designers design to avoid this happening. Believe it or not most of the circuits around tubes or transistors aim to make the tone as
invariable as possible when different tube makes are used, and are then coupled through capacitors to make sure close to ideal bias points are preserved as much as possible from stage to stage. And OK, I guess a lot of classic Fender and Marshall designs kind of pushed the limits of the intent of standard circuits published to help audio electronics pioneers get some designs made and products produced. Fender's and Marshall's interest was in musicians making themselves heard on stage, and it turned out the distortion produced by pushing the envelope was interesting sounding enough that we're all still reinventing that wheel 60-70 years on.
I've enjoyed your posts. I am still inquisitive, and was definitely obnoxiously so 25-30 years ago. I have also enjoyed Cliff's replies to them. Might be short, but there are some nuggets of very useful information in there.
Liam