Hi all,
Today I've been doing some deep dive comparisons between an upgraded FM3 v9 and a ToneX pedal.
I was wondering why many users declare that ToneX is very immediate under the fingers whereas Fractal seems more processed.
Well, today after thorough testing I think I've found the culprit.
The majority of ToneX captures, I assume, are done at "humanly bearable" volume. It doesn't make any sense to capture a Slo100 at 5-6 MV it will destroy any SM57 or 121 in front of the cab, which are not capable od handling such SPL.
The immediate consequence of that capture approach is that the power amp acts in a linear range, and doesn't apply any perceivable compression.
In that range any guitar will enjoy a full dynamic range with the pick attack conveyed to the speakers; this is much more evident with high power/volume amps like Friedmans Bogners and Soldanos.
If the assumption is true, if on the FM3 we disable the power amp modeling or either we keep MV at 1-2, we obtain pretty much the same result under the fingers. That's what I did comparing the models with the captures.
This is moreover very true on clean amp models, or edge of breakups models, where the poweramp stage is less modifying the sound.
Avoiding high gain amps, I tried pretty much any Dumble on Tonex net and realized that the MV on Tonex is just a digital raise in level, and I wanted to replicate the "feeling" disabling on FM3 the power amp in any ODS amp blocks... that created pretty much the same Tonex experience.
Furthermore, disabling input noise gates and lowering the guitar volume to 2-3 created the (in)famous dynamics all the profiler aficionados are claiming for.
My setup is FM3 into a couple of Yamahas HS8, I'll try to repeat the approach with other headphone/frfr/ssd+cab combos in the near future.
Any thoughts, reflections or experiments on similar topics on your side?
Thanks a ton
Fausto
