Tim Henson needs an upgrade

blastbeatdown said:
Last I checked Periphery still uses Axe Fx II live. Misha said in a live stream less than a year ago that he would like to change everything over, but it would take about a week to do it, just to make it sound “about 10% better”. Kind of a “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” scenario for them. They’re great units still. I couldn’t see myself going back though personally.
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This brings up an interesting point:

In my experience, moving from Ares to Cygnus (especially most recent FW) was an 80-90% improvement in tone quality, user experience, feel and inspiration.

Contrasting to Misha's comment (which, understood is probably a bit hyperbolic), I wonder if all the goodness I'm hearing/experiencing is perceptible to the same degree in a band setting. Is the mix "swallowing" up some of what I'm enjoying at home, playing alone? Perhaps only 10% improvement truly is cutting through. In ears would surely be more noticeable, but not sure if Misha is referring to "his mix" or "the mix" to gauge the level of improvement.

Do any players here with consistent live experience have thoughts on the perceptible improvement of Cygnus over Ares in a mix?

Better yet, any engineers here who have been mixing bands that have switched from Ares to Cygnus have any thoughts regarding improvements?
 
CactusTone said:
This brings up an interesting point:

In my experience, moving from Ares to Cygnus (especially most recent FW) was an 80-90% improvement in tone quality, user experience, feel and inspiration.

Contrasting to Misha's comment (which, understood is probably a bit hyperbolic), I wonder if all the goodness I'm hearing/experiencing is perceptible to the same degree in a band setting. Is the mix "swallowing" up some of what I'm enjoying at home, playing alone? Perhaps only 10% improvement truly is cutting through. In ears would surely be more noticeable, but not sure if Misha is referring to "his mix" or "the mix" to gauge the level of improvement.

Do any players here with consistent live experience have thoughts on the perceptible improvement of Cygnus over Ares in a mix?

Better yet, any engineers here who have been mixing bands that have switched from Ares to Cygnus have any thoughts regarding improvements?
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I'm pretty sure Misha said that before Cygnus even came out. If I remember correctly, it was years ago that he said that. I'm curious if they are still touring with II's.
 
CactusTone said:
This brings up an interesting point:

In my experience, moving from Ares to Cygnus (especially most recent FW) was an 80-90% improvement in tone quality, user experience, feel and inspiration.

Contrasting to Misha's comment (which, understood is probably a bit hyperbolic), I wonder if all the goodness I'm hearing/experiencing is perceptible to the same degree in a band setting. Is the mix "swallowing" up some of what I'm enjoying at home, playing alone? Perhaps only 10% improvement truly is cutting through. In ears would surely be more noticeable, but not sure if Misha is referring to "his mix" or "the mix" to gauge the level of improvement.

Do any players here with consistent live experience have thoughts on the perceptible improvement of Cygnus over Ares in a mix?

Better yet, any engineers here who have been mixing bands that have switched from Ares to Cygnus have any thoughts regarding improvements?
Click to expand...

A big part of Ares versus Cygnus is that Ares was cleaner and more mix-ready. The selling point of Cygnus during its release was that it was far more raw and realistic. It could be that in a studio setting, the appeal of a more refined albeit slightly less accurate tone is more preferable to the alternative.

For me, I often enjoy switching back to Ares for this exact reason; it's a cleaner sound that is easier to manage with progressive riffs. Most people here equate quality in sound/feel with accuracy with no middle ground or nuance whatsoever, and I don't personally see it that way.
 
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CactusTone said:
This brings up an interesting point:

In my experience, moving from Ares to Cygnus (especially most recent FW) was an 80-90% improvement in tone quality, user experience, feel and inspiration.

Contrasting to Misha's comment (which, understood is probably a bit hyperbolic), I wonder if all the goodness I'm hearing/experiencing is perceptible to the same degree in a band setting. Is the mix "swallowing" up some of what I'm enjoying at home, playing alone? Perhaps only 10% improvement truly is cutting through. In ears would surely be more noticeable, but not sure if Misha is referring to "his mix" or "the mix" to gauge the level of improvement.

Do any players here with consistent live experience have thoughts on the perceptible improvement of Cygnus over Ares in a mix?

Better yet, any engineers here who have been mixing bands that have switched from Ares to Cygnus have any thoughts regarding improvements?
Click to expand...
With guitar tone in general, I think it matters more to us than it does to the average audience. Sure Cygnus absolutely sounds better, and in my experience the amp models take far less tweaking to sound good, but as always it’s mostly a “feel” thing for us - the guitar players. They without a doubt have those things dialed in great. Not to mention many great albums and tours were done with them in the past. It doesn’t shock me that they’re still using II’s. I think Deftones still are too, and possibly After the Burial.
 
RifferMcDuck said:
A big part of Ares versus Cygnus is that Ares was cleaner and more mix-ready. The selling point of Cygnus during its release was that it was far more raw and realistic. It could be that in a studio setting, the appeal of a more refined albeit slightly less accurate tone is more preferable to the alternative.

For me, I often enjoy switching back to Ares for this exact reason; it's a cleaner sound that is easier to manage with progressive riffs. Most people here equate quality in sound/feel with accuracy with no middle ground or nuance whatsoever, and I don't personally see it that way.
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I've never switched back, but I still have an Axe FX II, so I'll no doubt use Ares again in future. Ares was the first time that I felt like I was comfortably cutting through the mix in a live situation without any deep dives and tweaks into the amp model. I also found the "feel" to be pretty good in a live band scenario with acoustic drums. Cymbals tend to take out a lot of the top end response of my guitar listening experience, so the nuances of Cygnus are often wasted.

Cygnus definitely marched everything forward by a country mile in terms of accuracy and feel. It's great fun "nerding out" over the relatively improved models and improved feel and more accurate compression and dynamics. But if Fractal had never developed beyond the final Ares development in the Axe FX III, I'm pretty sure it would still be what I use now. "Mix ready" is a great term for it, it was never less than completely usable for my purposes.

Having said that, I really love everything that has happened since, and would never go back unless I had to. I cannot see any scenario where I would, aside from breaking the Axe Fx II out of retirement, which will most likely see it in a bass guitar rig.

Liam

[And yes, thinking back, I'd really miss the amazing improvements in "edge of breakup" tone/feel that Cygnus brought. However, once there's a snare, high hat and cymbals being bashed away on in my left ear, the audience might well sense the difference, but personally as the guitarist, I'd struggle I think!]
 
CactusTone said:
This brings up an interesting point:

In my experience, moving from Ares to Cygnus (especially most recent FW) was an 80-90% improvement in tone quality, user experience, feel and inspiration.

Contrasting to Misha's comment (which, understood is probably a bit hyperbolic), I wonder if all the goodness I'm hearing/experiencing is perceptible to the same degree in a band setting. Is the mix "swallowing" up some of what I'm enjoying at home, playing alone? Perhaps only 10% improvement truly is cutting through. In ears would surely be more noticeable, but not sure if Misha is referring to "his mix" or "the mix" to gauge the level of improvement.

Do any players here with consistent live experience have thoughts on the perceptible improvement of Cygnus over Ares in a mix?

Better yet, any engineers here who have been mixing bands that have switched from Ares to Cygnus have any thoughts regarding improvements?
Click to expand...

For me, the end result was the same before/after Cygnus, it just takes me far less time to get there and doesn’t require PEQ’s and deeper tweaking. That’s been consistent for each update since Cygnus, bit by bit it just becomes easier for me to get to the end goal.
 
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