What Amp Blocks Are Affected By The "Cold-Biased" Stage?

CudBucket

Inspired
I'm not clear on whether the change in v9 affects all or just some amp sims. After I loaded v9, my IIC+ and Mark IV sims sound like they have less gain and dynamics. It seems after reading the release notes that only the "cold biased" change would affect these sims.

Dave
 
I would really recommend defaulting all the amp block settings by holding the bypass button for 1 second (or double or triple click it works sometimes too, not clear on what the official "click" is supposed to be)... then adjust your gain. In going through all the amps I noticed the Mark sims didn't have as much gain as most of the other high gain amps... you could click the drive boost and that will definitely give it life!
 
FractalAudio said:
Neither of those amps were affected. Those models were not changed in any way.
I thought the cold biasing was a feature that affected all amps across the board...That's why everything sounded better... damn psycho acoustics!
 
The cold-biased modeling affects only those amps with a cold-biased preamp stage.

ALL amps have the new power amp modeling. So I shouldn't have said those models were unaffected. What I meant was they were unaffected by the cold-bias change and the pre-amp models for those were unchanged.
 
javajunkie said:
FractalAudio said:
Neither of those amps were affected. Those models were not changed in any way.

Could the amp block control taper change be what he is experiencing?

+1 IMHO.

I think folks are scared to adjust their settings because they have things so dialed in. But 9.0 necessitates that you do so, even just because of the new audio taper change. Don't fear the change, it's well worth a few knobs spinning.
 
javajunkie said:
FractalAudio said:
Neither of those amps were affected. Those models were not changed in any way.

Could the amp block control taper change be what he is experiencing?

Quite possibly. If so then adjust the tone controls would be all that's necessary. The Drive control is unaffected by the taper change.
 
CudBucket said:
I'm not clear on whether the change in v9 affects all or just some amp sims. After I loaded v9, my IIC+ and Mark IV sims sound like they have less gain and dynamics. It seems after reading the release notes that only the "cold biased" change would affect these sims.

Dave


I was initially disappointed with this update. My beloved ( :lol: ) Mark IV patch also had less gain and seemed kind of flat. A bit watered down and just not sounding as good as before. The change is in the power amp modeling. I turned the Amp sim's Master up a little bit more than where I had it (from 3.23 to 3.50) and it came alive (I of course turned the patch's overall level down to compensate for the increase in volume from turning the Master up). The gain was back and sounded very rich, dynamic (relatively speaking considering how much gain I use :p ) and 3-D, even better than before. I can really tell a difference when digging in on single notes, especially high up on the neck.

Turning up the Master any more on that patch used to just make it sound muddy to my ears, but not now. I think I played that one patch for 3 hours straight last night after I re-tweaked because it sounded so good.

So to start, you might try turning it up about .25, and see if that doesn't give your patches a good kick. :D



EDIT- To my ears, the USA Lead amp sim's tone controls seemed unaffected by the taper change. I tried turning the Bass, Mid, & Treble up/down one degree across the board (I was assuming if they were changed, they would be all changed by the same amount), and also one at a time. Where I already had them set originally just sounded "right", where as I didn't think it sounded as good when altered them.
 
In general you will need slightly higher Master settings to get the same power amp overdrive.
 
Scott Peterson said:
javajunkie said:
FractalAudio said:
Neither of those amps were affected. Those models were not changed in any way.

Could the amp block control taper change be what he is experiencing?

+1 IMHO.

I think folks are scared to adjust their settings because they have things so dialed in. But 9.0 necessitates that you do so, even just because of the new audio taper change. Don't fear the change, it's well worth a few knobs spinning.
Yeah, several of my patches now don't sound as good as before, since they were dialed in perfectly the way I wanted them. I've already determined that I'm just going to scrap everything and start over, I just need several hours to do so.

Amp + Cab + Reverb never sounded so good.
 
Even on the HEAVIEST of the amps with MV's on them, I am now running the master volume in the Axe-FX at 5.0 or higher (ending up around 6.50 a lot).

I think it is KEY to throw out your 'normal' conventions to approaching your amp block with 9.x. I would also like to suggest that everyone save their beloved preset; but then also reset the amp block TOTALLY and try to dial it in again. Turn all all your PEQ and GEQ blocks, Filters, OD and everything else too. Just dial it up anew. Then see if you can't totally get better results without ANY tricks. I am finding this to be VERY true.

It's inspiring and fun!
 
Thanks guys. Lots of input here to digest and test. I re-loaded 8.09 with the intentions of seeing if my Mark presets "came back" but I never got to test it. One of my daughters turns 7 on Saturday so we were busy with the whole party planning thing. I'll follow up later this weekend.

Thanks again.

Dave
 
Hey Shredi, Do my eyes deceive me? Is it true that you've only posted 435 times on this board?!?!?!?! What!?!?!?!?!
 
I actually found myself increasing Sag. It's almost like it filled a hole in the sound if that makes any sense. It still doesn't sound overly or unnaturally compressed, it's just 'rounder'. On some of my Marshalls I actually took master down a bit and preferred it to 'open up' a bit more. By down I mean I'm still around 5 to 5.50.
 
mortega76 said:
Hey Shredi, Do my eyes deceive me? Is it true that you've only posted 435 times on this board?!?!?!?! What!?!?!?!?!

Hmm, that does seem kind of low. Maybe the counter is only keeping track of my posts that have some substance to them, and disregarding all my smart-a$$ replies (in that case, the count seems way too high :mrgreen: ).





EDIT - Never mind that theory, it just counted this post.
 
shredi knight said:
mortega76 said:
Hey Shredi, Do my eyes deceive me? Is it true that you've only posted 435 times on this board?!?!?!?! What!?!?!?!?!

Hmm, that does seem kind of low. Maybe the counter is only keeping track of my posts that have some substance to them, and disregarding all my smart-a$$ replies (in that case, the count seems way too high :mrgreen: ).

If the forum worked that way, my post count would be 2. :)

See what I mean?
 
Well I finally got to compare 8.09 to 9.00 as far as the IIC+ and IV sims are concerned. They definitely sound better to me on 8.09. Not a small difference either. It's not just less gain but sounds like the Axe is seeing less signal at the input jack. As if the volume is slightly rolled back on the guitar. Of course it's not.

I'm not sure I'm interested in trying to re-build the patches till they sound the same. I'll probably stick with 8.09 for now.
 
CudBucket said:
Well I finally got to compare 8.09 to 9.00 as far as the IIC+ and IV sims are concerned. They definitely sound better to me on 8.09. Not a small difference either. It's not just less gain but sounds like the Axe is seeing less signal at the input jack. As if the volume is slightly rolled back on the guitar. Of course it's not.

I'm not sure I'm interested in trying to re-build the patches till they sound the same. I'll probably stick with 8.09 for now.


Actually, I found the same thing and went back (for the time being anyway) to 8.09. I think I was having a good "ear day" (where everything just seems to sound extra good) that first night, and fooling myself into thinking my Mark presets sounded better after I turned up the Amp sim's Master control some. The next couple of days, I wasn't enjoying the tone nearly as much, no mater how much I tweaked. I finally decided to reload 8.09 and see how far off I was from what I had before, and the difference was obvious. 8.09 sounded much better. 9.00's Mark tones just sounded watered down and flat and didn't have the same punch to them. There was a nice kind of gooey, compressed, warm sub-bass thud thing (don't know how else to describe it) going on in the tone with 8.09 that 9.00 didn't have.

It would be nice if Cliff made the new Power Amp algorithm optional (he did this a long time ago when he added the "Stabilizer" to the Amp block after Armin complained about not liking the then reworked Power Amp modeling), but since we seem to be in the vast minority here, that's not likely to happen.
 
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