Vai saying Modeling is not there yet :)

Project Mayhem said:
Not sure why you would hope this is satire...Vai has alluded to his many times over the years. Same as EJ with being able to hear battery brands. Just because many of us can't perceive the same thing doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We are all the same thing but not at the same levels.
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Gobbledygook
 
If amp modeling isn't there yet for Vai, then it's simply not there yet for Vai. Perhaps in a couple years from today we will agree with him that it wasn't:p
 
shemihazazel said:
Show me waveforms, or that's exactly what it is.
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I don't want to derail the thread but I'd be happy to discuss elsewhere. However, my general point as it relates Mr. Vai,is that to dismiss information that he claims to hear (as do many others)...Because "you" can't perceive it...in no ways invalidates his experience. For years, I couldn't clearly pick up harmonic content....other would always discuss it.. and I couldn't understand it (gobbdygook... Spelling?) because I didn't hear it at that point in my life... since I had no reference it didn't exist to "me"....you can't know what you don't know. Then one day out of the blue, my hearing suddenly changed, and it was dramatic and then I knew.
 
I guess I never believe any artist who's paid to be on a stage for a product (or has existing endorsements), and runs down <insert other gear>. Most of these guys use a million different products in any given week, it's a bit natural that they would be sick of the carousel and just go back to what 'works'. If they spend the time, they see the value or figure that it just doesn't work for them.

Let it go folks. Gear's just a tool to an end.
 
People saying “gobbledygook” are missing the point. It’s not what you “hear” that really matters. It’s what you choose to believe. You could be playing the greatest rig in the world, yet if you believe it’s garbage, it’ll sound as such _to you_. The opposite is also true. Don’t underestimate the power of belief.
 
plexi59 said:
People saying “gobbledygook” are missing the point. It’s not what you “hear” that really matters. It’s what you choose to believe. You could be playing the greatest rig in the world, yet if you believe it’s garbage, it’ll sound as such _to you_. The opposite is also true. Don’t underestimate the power of belief.
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:rolleyes:
 
don_joe said:
Modeling isn't there for Vai, cause he has other guys to carry his gear around. If he had to do it himself, the modeling would be there.
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It reminds me of what Jordan Peterson once said, that being rich can be a curse because it takes away the one thing that inhibits most people's obsessions and behaviors, lack of money. In that sense we all suffer from GAS, but the one thing that keeps us sane is money. We either have to save up or sell to enable our behavior. Throw in enough money and suddenly the sky is the limit and your house will look like a combo between a music store and a warehouse. So yeah, throw in enough money, guitar roadies to carry your shit around for you and a guitar roadie to manage it for you and then suddenly modeling isn't quite there yet and you absofragginlutely have to have more rack gear on stage in Twin Towers of Sonic Doom. I myself have one sonic rack tower of Doom in my basement. Haven't used it for years, hell I probably never used it, other then to test to see if everything works. And its been sitting in my basement for over a year now. And why is that you would ask? Because when I moved into my current building, on the 3rd floor (4th floor for you Americans), my friends who were helping me move in said fuck this, you want it up there? Do it yourself. And I can't say I blame them.
 
Better fire up that tube gear every now and then. Caps deteriorate sooner otherwise. Once every few months should be fine.
 
With all sincerity I say this, belief is a helluva drug that can will you to many choices beyond empirical evidence and reason.

For me, tube amps are great, but like a classic car or anything vintage, there is a finite supply of NOS replacement parts whose population will reduce with use and whose quality will become more suspect as time causes degradation of the materials in existing NOS parts- especially tubes where for the last 20 years people have been picking the best of the worst.

When do we get to the worst of the worst of NOS parts or is the belief that older is always going to be better?

If the new parts are not as good from a sonic perspective, at some point a model of the amp with original or NOS parts is going to outperform a physical amp using new parts that people currently say are inferior.

Both physical amps and modeling are moving targets. Modeling a 1970 Marshall Super Lead in 1989 was comparing a model using 1989 tech to a physical amp that might have had all original parts still within spec on a 19 year old used amp. Doing modeling with upgraded tech in 2019, unless the amp was put in archival conditions for 30 years, will be a model of a 49 year old amp with various parts changed out due to age and failure with different tolerances. Both the amp and model are not going to sound the same between the 19 year old and 49 year old.

It isn't about what is empirically better, it's about what you believe to be better for you to make your art at any given time.

If Mr. Vai believes the Synergy is better for him than the Fractal , we can agree to disagree with him. But, like arguing with people that have a deeply held belief who don't accept data that challenges their belief system, it's wasted effort trying to give empirical and practical counter-arguments to people who won't give them a fair evaluation.

If he really believed in the Fractal for amp tones, money from endorsements be damned, he would have dumped his Carvin line years ago and saved himself the cartage and maintenance costs. The Legato modeling I thought would mark the end of his physical amp addiction, but it did not seem to happen.

After the DLR and Whitesnake experiences, you never saw Vai do lucrative side man gigs for other artists that would generate pop culture mega dollars for him again. So that speaks to the fact there has to be some belief component to his choices at some level rather than just pure dollars driving those decisions. .
 
Project Mayhem said:
I don't want to derail the thread but I'd be happy to discuss elsewhere. However, my general point as it relates Mr. Vai,is that to dismiss information that he claims to hear (as do many others)...Because "you" can't perceive it...in no ways invalidates his experience. For years, I couldn't clearly pick up harmonic content....other would always discuss it.. and I couldn't understand it (gobbdygook... Spelling?) because I didn't hear it at that point in my life... since I had no reference it didn't exist to "me"....you can't know what you don't know. Then one day out of the blue, my hearing suddenly changed, and it was dramatic and then I knew.
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It's not about what he claims he can hear! It's about what he claims he can NOT, like power amp does not matter and it does not add to the sound, only makes it louder!
 
Project Mayhem said:
To my point, is that not still perception?
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Your earlier comment:
"I don't want to derail the thread but I'd be happy to discuss elsewhere. However, my general point as it relates Mr. Vai,is that to dismiss information that he claims to hear (as do many others)...Because "you" can't perceive it...in no ways invalidates his experience. For years, I couldn't clearly pick up harmonic content....other would always discuss it.. and I couldn't understand it (gobbdygook... Spelling?) because I didn't hear it at that point in my life... since I had no reference it didn't exist to "me"....you can't know what you don't know. Then one day out of the blue, my hearing suddenly changed, and it was dramatic and then I knew."

So are you saying, that he needs to train his ears to hear what the power amp does to the tone?

The issue, that most of us have is, that we can hear it and he can't hear what the power-amp does to the tone! It kind of discredits him as an expert.
 
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Then there's the other scenario. How many of you struggled when you first got your Fractal gear? I wouldn't say I struggled, but it took me quite a bit to warm up to it for my particular needs. Let's go back to AxeII firmware 13 before quantum.

What we had in MY opinion, was one heck of a killer processor. But to me, it was lacking the tube sounds we get out of it today. I think Cliff and others have had power amp sounds down for years. Where I've always felt things were a little weak...the 12AX7 pre-amp sounds.

I think today, WE offer one of the best pre-amp sounds in the industry without an actual tube. However what if Vai didn't dick around for long enough to make a decision? It's really easy to jump on the "we're not there yet" band wagon if you only tried us for 2 hours back then. What if he tried us when we actually WEREN'T quite there?

I have always had a killer tone from my AxeII. On day one I was happy, but, there was something that wasn't tube to me in the feel, response and the sound I crave just wasn't quite there yet.

By fw 15 and 16, this thing in my opinion was on the road to excellence. Quantum comes along and is a little bumpy, but from version 2 on up, we have tube sounds that no one can deny unless....you're simply "in denial". Lol!

Add in where we are today with even our Ax8 using fw 10.1, and c'mon, if you can't find 10-20 of our stock sounds that sound like tubes, feel like tubes and rip your face off, something is just wrong with you. To this day, it is the only pre-amp I have EVER used that had usable presets right out of the box with little to no tweaking.

I get a client in here looking for guitar tones. I turn on the ax8 or the AxeII and show them how to switch through, leave them to have some fun and tell them to text me when they've found a tone. Others find one in less than 5 minutes. We tweak and we're recording. Some serious tube snobs have recorded here that didn't miss their amps and went and bought Fractal gear after being here.

I love Vai as a player and think he's one of the best alive with insurmountable expression and technique. But I'd take my tone in any of my Ax units as well as some of the presets you guys have created, over his tube amp tone any day. Hey, we use what we like and what works. I just wonder how extensively he may have tried us with all the right stuff.
 
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Danny Danzi said:
Then there's the other scenario. How many of you struggled when you first got your Fractal gear?
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Absolutely. Took me about a year, I think.

It wasn't the amp modeling though. It was getting accustomed to cab modeling, close miking, getting the right amplification etc.
 
yek said:
Absolutely. Took me about a year, I think.

It wasn't the amp modeling though. It was getting accustomed to cab modeling, close miking, getting the right amplification etc.
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Exactly the same for me, first year I thought I had it nailed.

Now - so much better and quicker and what's changed? Apart from the firmware, I am much more aware and focussed on the cab than before.

The amp kind of takes care of itself
 
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