Chris Hurley
Power User
I bought an ultra hoping to eventually use it at shows instead of a guitar amp, preferably direct to board, but possibly augmented with something else onstage. I normally use a single channel amp with a few pedals and thats what I'm trying to replace for now. At home I'm wanting to do some rehearsing with headphones when the kids are asleep. I've used the computer and plugins for this duty before, and have had a fair bit of luck using the preamp from my homebrew amp into impulses on the computer, but I'm hoping to consolidate down to the axe-fx and a minimal headphone amp rig.
I'm on day 2 with my Ultra and I'm really struggling with getting convincing amp sounds out of it- either direct or into a power amp and cabinet (tube or solid state, with the cabs in axe-fx disabled). I've heard clips here that I thought sounded great, so I believe that the Axe-FX has the capability, I'm just not having much luck turning that into reality for me.
Its hard to say what is really wrong with the sounds I'm getting- compared to my regular gigging amp at similar volumes through the same cabinet and even through the gigging amps poweramp, my axe-fx sounds have been dull, dark, flat and the distortion seems sort of garbled. When I switch back to my regular amp and preamp, the sound just seems to be more open and lively. Its sort of weasly to say that it sounds more three-dimensional in the room, but that's what I'm experiencing. Disabling the power amp simulation seems to relieve that garble, but I've yet to nail down which parameters in that section are involved in this issue.
For you folks who use your axe-fx for similar duty and love it, I'd appreciate any advice that you care to share. I've read most of the wiki and manual at least twice, and have read a lot of threads here, at other forums, and on the old forum before I bought the Ultra. I build tube amps in meat-space, but reconciling that experience with the virtual world has been a challenge.
To give an example of the sort of sounds that I might gravitate towards, the Voodoo Amps MP-1 clips get in the ballpark:
http://www.voodooamps.com/sounds/ADAMultiClip1.mp3
http://www.voodooamps.com/sounds/ADAMulti-Clip.mp3
I thank you in advance for any suggestions, and I hope to be turning the corner soon with this unit.
I'm on day 2 with my Ultra and I'm really struggling with getting convincing amp sounds out of it- either direct or into a power amp and cabinet (tube or solid state, with the cabs in axe-fx disabled). I've heard clips here that I thought sounded great, so I believe that the Axe-FX has the capability, I'm just not having much luck turning that into reality for me.
Its hard to say what is really wrong with the sounds I'm getting- compared to my regular gigging amp at similar volumes through the same cabinet and even through the gigging amps poweramp, my axe-fx sounds have been dull, dark, flat and the distortion seems sort of garbled. When I switch back to my regular amp and preamp, the sound just seems to be more open and lively. Its sort of weasly to say that it sounds more three-dimensional in the room, but that's what I'm experiencing. Disabling the power amp simulation seems to relieve that garble, but I've yet to nail down which parameters in that section are involved in this issue.
For you folks who use your axe-fx for similar duty and love it, I'd appreciate any advice that you care to share. I've read most of the wiki and manual at least twice, and have read a lot of threads here, at other forums, and on the old forum before I bought the Ultra. I build tube amps in meat-space, but reconciling that experience with the virtual world has been a challenge.
To give an example of the sort of sounds that I might gravitate towards, the Voodoo Amps MP-1 clips get in the ballpark:
http://www.voodooamps.com/sounds/ADAMultiClip1.mp3
http://www.voodooamps.com/sounds/ADAMulti-Clip.mp3
I thank you in advance for any suggestions, and I hope to be turning the corner soon with this unit.