"Tone Matching" Preview

Deaj said:
I've been thinking about what practical use I might have for this upcoming feature set. It just occured to me that 'Tone Matching' might be very useful in the completion of unfinished recording projects where matching the tone of tracks already recorded would allow one to continue tracking on nearly any incomplete song (assuming it works this way). My brother and I have a project like this - one interrupted some time ago. We have known for some time now that the inability to duplicate the captured tones in these recordings (the amps are gone as are some of our notes) means that we would have to scrap some excellent tracks and re-track them. If we could match the sound of isolated guitar and bass tracks it would save some really great performances and a bunch of re-work. This would be pretty d@mn cool! :)
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Exactly! :)
 
From a marketing standpoint I think "tone-clone" sounds cooler. Just saying...

Great news though. I still plan to get a kemper anyway, if only because folks are going to profile a gazillion amps. Though now, I could take those gazillion amps and add them into the axe2...even better. I've been a little bummed at the axe lately. After the last firmware, I have a handful of my most-used patches that lock up the unit. Between that and goofy drummer issues, I just left the whole rig at the practice space.

I can imagine, from the FAS end, this might rid them of the endless "please add this amp" requests. Sure you still have to get GOOD grabs done, but the public domain might be able to take that workload over. Very cool.
 
B. Ste said:
Awesome Idea, but i see a couple of problems in the Idea itself. As the Kemper seems to not find out his way to profile amps without taking the cabinet sound into the equation (thus the complaining about the inability to go into a power amp and then into a real cab), i see that with this tone-matching feature we're talking about matching a single amp block with a WHOLE guitar rig!! so it will be impossible to take out of the equation A LOT of equipment: cabs, mic, outboard AND (!!!) the GUITAR!! yes because recorded tracks are made from guitars....am i wrong??

I have an AXE FX2 coming inbound and i'm really happy that some competition is coming through, my comment was made just to help cliff thinking about the weak points of this feature.
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no one ever thought about this?
 
B. Ste said:
no one ever thought about this?
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Doing this with tracks, I think it is pretty self-evident that it will have that limitation. I think many people have thought about it and take it as a given. None the less from the sounds of it, capturing the overall tonal foot print can be very useful. tone matching like this has been in practice for some time now. This will just make it really easy inside the Axe-fx II.
 
This would be awesome to capture external guitar and mic preamps. You can also capture a head without the cab if it has a line out option, then use your choice of cab configuration. Gettin excited...
 
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AdamCook said:
Is 5 = 3 +2 or is 5 = 4 + 1?

Doesn't really matter as long as you end up at 5.
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Are you kidding me? is it a serious answer for real?

How are you supposed to Tone match an amp behaviour when you're matching a guitar+amp behaviour then adding another guitar??

Or as you would answer, it's not always a linear equation.

I'm not gonna say it's not a bad idea, just the "match an audio track tone"-idea. When you tone match a guitar track played with a maple fingerboard kramer with bolt on neck with an amp block, are you sure you're gonna have a pleasent sound when played with a gibson SG?

PLEASE: don't shut down your brain when Cliff talks....I repeat myself, i do have an axe fx 2 inbound, but all this faboyism is making me mad!! it's just a suggestion...let's say a de-bug help from a user...how are you gonna help your favourite piece of gear acting like asserting zombies??
 
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B. Ste said:
Are you kidding me? is it a serious answer for real?

How are you supposed to Tone match an amp behaviour when you're matching a guitar+amp behaviour then adding another guitar??

Or as you would answer, it's not always a linear equation.
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So profile without a cab. Run it through a Palmer PGA-04 or similar box, remove their cab filter tech so you get a full frequency signal, and go to town. Problem solved. It's even silent when profiling.
 
iaresee said:
So profile without a cab. Run it through a Palmer PGA-04 or similar box, remove their cab filter tech so you get a full frequency signal, and go to town. Problem solved. It's even silent when profiling.
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i thought about that too! but that it would require another outboard gear ($$$ and less efficient). The palmer signal also has another type of cabinet symulation, so it's not eliminating the problem. I thought taking "line out" raw signal would be the best solution cause that's the same "low power" signal that's going into the actual cabinet.

But even with this you're not eliminating the guitar-tone-in-the-track factor. I think Cliff should think about that. I don't know....if you can take one of the output of the Axe fx, going into the input of an amp, taking the line out of the amp, run that into one of the Axe fx Input and then tone matching it. THAT would be the perfect AMP BLOCK tone matching, as it's taking only the amp as reference.

You won't need any tipe of recording gear to tone-match the amp you want, if an amp does not have a line out you have to buy a line out device (such as suhr line out box which is 100$) and you're ready to go!
 
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javajunkie said:
With these youtube clips:
matching to a compressed audio format would be less than ideal, I would think.
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Thankfully isolated tracks don't just come in youtube format ;)

The full FLAC versions of this song and all of Black clouds and silver linings are on my harddrive.
Surely that will do.

Maybe even use the bass tracks :)
 
B. Ste said:
I'm not gonna say it's not a bad idea, just the "match an audio track tone"-idea. When you tone match a guitar track played with a maple fingerboard kramer with bolt on neck with an amp block, are you sure you're gonna have a pleasent sound when played with a gibson SG?
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Whether or not it is a "pleasant" sound is subjective. But it will definitely sound different if you matched the tone using one guitar and then switch to a wildly different one.

I think most of our customers kind of like the fact that the Axe-FX II sounds different when you play it with a different guitar. But hey, you can't please everybody.

B. Ste said:
PLEASE: don't shut down your brain when Cliff talks....I repeat myself, i do have an axe fx 2 inbound, but all this faboyism is making me mad!! it's just a suggestion...let's say a de-bug help from a user...how are you gonna help your favourite piece of gear acting like asserting zombies??
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I don't see any fanboyism. I see a lot of people focusing on what the new tool IS and what it will allow them to do. Which is to get tones that are incredibly close to those achieved by their favorite guitar players.

You on the other hand are focused on what the tool IS NOT capable of doing. Which apparently is defy the laws of math and physics.
 
AdamCook said:
Whether or not it is a "pleasant" sound is subjective. But it will definitely sound different if you matched the tone using one guitar and then switch to a wildly different one.

I think most of our customers kind of like the fact that the Axe-FX II sounds different when you play it with a different guitar. But hey, you can't please everybody.
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I like that too! but here we are talking on another level....here we are talking about taking the tone of a WHOLE RIG (guitar+amp+cab+mic+outboard) putting that into an amp block and then playing that with your guitar, adding another cabinet and so on....



AdamCook said:
I don't see any fanboyism. I see a lot of people focusing on what the new tool IS and what it will allow them to do. Which is to get tones that are incredibly close to those achieved by their favorite guitar players.

You on the other hand are focused on what the tool IS NOT capable of doing. Which apparently is defy the laws of math and physics.
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i think that's the base for a really GOOD brainstorming process, which is always the starting point for A LOT of groundbreaking ideas. Sometimes to make a product (or a feature) right you have to take the work back a couple of steps, maybe as far as the design process, rather than taking the "go-ahead it can't be wrong, I made it!" approach....
 
B. Ste said:
no one ever thought about this?
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I really don't care about that. I can take the time do dial in the whole rig by ear, or instantly match it with one amp block ( faster process but less flexibility). Fine by me. I can't wait!
 
B. Ste said:
...but that it would require another outboard gear ($$$ and less efficient)...
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You can´t expect the AxeII being a box that would end all needs for outboard gear? A feature added doesn´t necessarily means that outboard gear won´t be needed.
Do you ever want to IR-match cabs, grab a good mic (outboard gear) and get to it.

A wish of mine and others (side-thread) is that ADSRs are triggerable by CC#. But still we do all need those midi foot controllers to be able to use it, no one complains about that?

It´s a good thing to ask questions regarding what´s possible or not. But as about it sounding good... well, as Adam says, the end result is very subjective.
Fanboyism or not, I see a lot of excitement from people here when FAS keeps on adding features long time after their purchase. Features many probably never thought would get inside this black box. Features that may help people save some money when they realize they don´t need a certain software. When Cliff is giving away some cool features for free, and me saving money on software purchases (that would do the same thing). If that is me being/becoming a fanboy... well I don´t see anything wrong with that.

/Mike
 
B. Ste said:
PLEASE: don't shut down your brain when Cliff talks....I repeat myself, i do have an axe fx 2 inbound, but all this faboyism is making me mad!! it's just a suggestion...let's say a de-bug help from a user...how are you gonna help your favourite piece of gear acting like asserting zombies??
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Haha, have to agree here! Nobody really knows what's coming up, but are already in awe of what this unknown is capable of. Without knowing what it is capable of...
"Matching" an already recorded track may analyze some frequency content and a few other parameters (which of course would be a nice addition!) but there is an enormous amount of parameters involved in the creation of the sound that will not be available. Obviously. Just a reality check! ;)
 
miketheman said:
You can´t expect the AxeII being a box that would end all needs for outboard gear? A feature added doesn´t necessarily means that outboard gear won´t be needed.
Do you ever want to IR-match cabs, grab a good mic (outboard gear) and get to it.

A wish of mine and others (side-thread) is that ADSRs are triggerable by CC#. But still we do all need those midi foot controllers to be able to use it, no one complains about that?

It´s a good thing to ask questions regarding what´s possible or not. But as about it sounding good... well, as Adam says, the end result is very subjective.
Fanboyism or not, I see a lot of excitement from people here when FAS keeps on adding features long time after their purchase. Features many probably never thought would get inside this black box. Features that may help people save some money when they realize they don´t need a certain software. When Cliff is giving away some cool features for free, and me saving money on software purchases (that would do the same thing). If that is me being/becoming a fanboy... well I don´t see anything wrong with that.

/Mike
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I think that's awesome too! i bought my axe fx2 for the free upgrade treatment also (i can't stand continuos paying upgrade devices as 11r), but i'm talking about critical point in the architecture of this feature. I'm not saying that this type of profiling would work only without buying gear (I think that if you managed to afford an axe fx 2 you can spend some other $) but that there's a problem in the plain and simple concept of tone matching guitar tracks...understand that? same as the kemper one! which is lacking on flexibility (you cannot take out effectively the cab and mic sound on the profile). So if cliff wants to "destroy em all" LOL has a lot of opportunities....just help him out...how are you supposed to help only saying OMG THAT's awesome LOL.

I may add that I wrote that you need to buy outboard gear which is $$$ just because the palmer solution said earlier was a lot more costly and less effective than the line out solution which i mentioned (more $ and it would have not solved the problem as the palmer it's also a cabinet simulator).
 
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