Tone Match is awesome (step aside, Kemper and Quad Cortex)

[Jason Scott]

There is one major difference - and before I start - my comments here are meant to be constructive, not defensive (or offensive).

Tone Matching a recorded guitar tone (via Axe) works awesome. Sounds perfect. Love it.
Tone Matching a raw amp (to then play through a SS amp and 4x12 cab) - VERY different outcome. The Axe still needs 'tweaking' to accommodate for some unknowns (which is the power amp's reaction with the cab). So you must dial in the Speaker Impedance Curve settings to get the Tone Match to sound right. I have spent hours playing with advanced Amp features to try and get my Marshall rig sounded identical in the Axe. Its VERY close, but I've put a lot of time in.

The QC and Kemper somehow 'guess' on the Speaker Impedance and they seem to get it closer. I know that is going to trigger some folks, but that has been my experience. I mentioned earlier - the Wizard capture I did. The QC capture with a quick adjustment to gain and low end, was near perfect. I could not get the Axe to respond the same way.
Is it pilot error? Probably - but that's the point. I consider myself a very experienced pilot. I've been a Fractal Fanboi, and have gigged with nothing other than Fractal, since I got the Ultra. I absolutely love the products....but if I'm being as unbiased as I can - the Tone Match is not very good for matching a raw amp, UNLESS you plan on spending some time in the advanced amp features, filling in the blanks that cannot be captured during the Tone Match process.

Without hearing the end result, it's difficult to say what the issue is and/or what needs to be tweaked/changed; however, some users, such as Marco Fanton, seem to be fairly effective at accurately matching the real amp through an actual cab.

 

[nicolasrivera]

Tone Match is EQ only. You still have to choose an appropriate amp, and adjust it appropriately.

Yes. The capture/profile thing need to evolve into the next step, the full capture of the tone stack with a proper gain stage in the preamp and poweramp section at how the tone stack interacts with them.

No one is doing this with this approach.

 

[BBN]

Yes. The capture/profile thing need to evolve into the next step, the full capture of the tone stack with a proper gain stage in the preamp and poweramp section at how the tone stack interacts with them.

No one is doing this with this approach.

(just to be humorous....but partially serious)

Isn't this what the Axe does with it's built in models?


But I do agree, I would love to capture MY amps perfectly, with all the same controls.

 

[[Nathan]]

I dont know why this topic always has so much mystery and hocus pocus around it

1) Tone match is just EQ'ing your fractal tone to the source tone.
2) Profiling is running a signal through the hardware to replicate its various responses

I like tone matching when I've dialed in a patch and things are sounding at least 80% close, it lifts it to the end goal. Profiling is more beneficial when you've got an existing amp rig that you've dialed in and you go "I want this captured digitally". The axe can't do #2 and the profilers cant do #1, its apples and oranges.

My simplistic take on it is the axe is tone building/recreation and the profilers are tone stealing hehe.

 

[Brian Wahl]

My comment here is probably just a matter of semantics, but the accuracy of Tone Match does not change. It is as accurate as it is—period. The final result can be deemed better in a certain light. I might re-word your paraphrase above as follows:

If you can make an IR of the speaker for the amp you are tone matching first, and then apply the tone match (if it is even still required) the result will be separate IR and preset files. This not only makes the data more "portable" but potentially more flexible.

Taking this one step further: studying the resulting tone match plot can provide useful information about dialing in the amp block. Is tone match trying to cut lows? Increase one of the Low Cut options in the amp. Does it show a bell-shaped hill or valley? See if you can compensate for this. "The flatter the match, the better the patch."

Thanks Matt! Yeah that's much more clear than how I worded it, ha.

 

[Brian Wahl]

For me captures/profiles are for taking my favorite real amp, setting it to my preferred tone, then piping it into a digital box like the QC and having a close enough replica that I could use anywhere and get that same sound. Doesn't matter if it's recording or just jamming. The QC does not need to be set for anything but doing captures, which it runs through with its easy on screen tutorial.

Doing that same thing with Tone Match would be a more laborious process like BBN described.

Both are very useful tools but should not be regarded as the same thing which OP implies in the thread title. The way they work is different, the process to make them is different, the drawbacks are different.

That's all true for sure. But to me the end result is more or less the same (I'm playing a digital re-creation of an amp that I own and love). Hence the title. My other excuse is that YouTube has essentially been my day job for the past 5 or 6 years. The click-bait title has become my life, ha. Probably not always a good thing

 

[Brian Wahl]

I own Kemper, QC, and Axe-FX. For the profiling/capturing side of things, I think I prefer Kemper to QC. Mostly because I love all the controls they give you to tweak a profile (definition, clarity, etc). I even prefer the squish that is inherent to Kemper - although I know some hate it. I feel like I can get a better end product even though the initial capture/profile sounds pretty much identical. QC's ability to capture a drive pedal is really cool, though.

Ultimately, I also prefer the modeling approach to the profiling approach. I'd rather have the amp and all its controls at my fingertips than a snapshot of an amp at specific settings.

But with all the vintage amps out there and unique offerings (like the Laurel Canyon), being able to essentially have both modeling and a capture/profile (or tone match) function as well is ideal in my opinion.