What do you guys think of the audio quality using the 4CM method?

J

JazzMac251

Inspired
I've spent a lot of time and money over the years getting my pedalboard to sound as transparent as possible. I think I'm currently extremely close to achieving that with my current setup. Now that I have an Axe2, I'm interested in ditching my current board and using the Axe instead. In the past, I've discovered that running my dirty amp through any kind of DSP really robs a lot of clarity from my sound. I'm sure it has something to do with the whole AD/DA process.

So, along those lines, what do you guys think of the transparency of the Axe2 FX bypassed and setup using the 4cm method?
 
No outside opinion can (and should) sway you. The converters are top notch, but everyone has their own standards.

It might take some work (I tried 4CM for awhile, and 'getting things right' with each amp was so painful for me, I went FRFR so I could play my guitar...), but it is certainly within the black box.

Try it...see how it goes.

R
 
I've used the two amp version of 4CM and it's the best sound I've ever gotten out of the Axe or any other amp for that matter. But as other's have mentioned, you have to decide for yourself. Try it, you'll like it. I'd recommend you use the humbuster cables to reduce the noise.
 
I have been trying it, but it's difficult to tell. I don't have all the right gear with me right now and I'm having to jury rig a setup to get a half-decent A/B thing going. I have some Line6 Stompbox modelers on my board and I absolutely cannot stand how my guitar sounds going through those things. Of course, the Axe2 is leaps and bounds beyond those boxes, but upon going back to just my pedalboard, my first response was that there was quite a noticeable loss of responsiveness and lack of clarity similar to the line6 units. I can't A/B at gigging volumes just yet, so that could have a lot to do it. Just wanted to get some other opinions.

I'm having noise issues too. Not so much ground-loop humming, but more along "frying-pan" sizzling sort of lines. I suspect that will get ironed out as I work with the device. My primary concern is how it's going to interact with my amp. It's nice to know so many people are happy with it.



EDIT: The noise I described above was due to my having interfaced the Axe2 with my PC via USB while it was hooked up to my amp. Removing the USB cable solved the problem. The USB noise was probably due to the fact that the computer and the Axe were not plugged into to the same socket. Since I'm not planning on using USB live, once I removed the cable and the noise stopped, I didn't care enough to experiment with moving power cables.
 
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I would make sure you have a strong direct guitar amp sound at level and then blend your FX alone side. I think if your going to use it as an FX processor only I would think about some type of mixer CAE,Rjm something to blend the direct signal and the FX
 
I've been swapping back and forth for a while. I really do feel like there's a difference. With the Axe in the mix, I feel like the high end is more muddled and there's less girth in the lower end of the spectrum.

It's hard to draw a comparison with this kind of thing, though. It's not really an apples to apples comparison. Obviously I'm running significantly more cable with the Axe inline in addition to bringing the FX loop into the equation, too. Even with my pedalboard my signal is going into AD/DA converters at least once as it passes through my Strymon Timeline. I'm sure the converters in the Axe are at the very least as good as the ones in the Timeline.

A lot of this is nitpicky, but I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm going to dismantle and sell my current pedalboard in favor of using the AxeFX for all my stompbox needs. I'm really happy with my current rig (for once), so I'm really worried about getting myself into a regretful situation.
 
Be careful not to be biased. When you think you will hear a difference with the axe in the chain, you probably will! If possible you should do some blind testing: have a friend come over, and let him hook things up and switch around. See if you can tell the difference then.
 
MarcoB said:
Be careful not to be biased. When you think you will hear a difference with the axe in the chain, you probably will! If possible you should do some blind testing: have a friend come over, and let him hook things up and switch around. See if you can tell the difference then.
Click to expand...

That's true! However, if I am biased, I'm probably biased in favor the the Axe. I really want to use it as my FX processor...haha
 
So, I've been swapping back and for forth several hours the past couple days - Axe2 in my amp's loop, Axe2 4CM, pedalboard, straight into amp - and I've come to a conclusion.

Using the AxeFX2 with my amp via the 4 cable method produces a tone with a significantly muddied harmonic structure. What does that nonsense mean? Let me explain.

So, I'm not talking about "brighter" or "darker" tone. As far as I can tell, the frequency content is mostly the same - or near enough to not make much difference to me. What I'm talking about is the fidelity of the gain coming from the amp. If you plug directly into a nice amp with nice tubes, guitar tuned, and you hammer out a thick open-string chord with open-sounding harmonies (think power chords or 2 chords), you're going to hear some beautiful harmonic resonance. Depending on how nice your amp is, you'll be able to practically hear each string and its overtones ring individually (rather than just a mess of noise), and the overdrive, while hairy, shouldn't blend all that harmonic information into unrecognizable sludge. In my experience, the more cable you run, the more times your signal is passed through a DSP, the cheaper your amp is, the more that harmonic information is smeared and the more the fidelity (clarity) of your tone is diminished. It's the kind of thing that makes you look at your amp, go "hmm...", and start reaching to turn your Bass knob down even though you don't feel like there's too much Bass in your sound.

In my opinion, using the Axe2 significantly decreases the fidelity of my overdrive sound - more so than my pedalboard. I was hoping to have the Axe's far superior effects supplant my pedalboard entirely (maybe I'd keep a drive or two), but, now that I've heard what it's doing to my clarity of my sound, I think I'll be sticking to my board. At least that stuff can be removed from the signal chain when I'm not using it.

Ahh well. It's still an awesome recording resource and digital rig!
 
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Hi all,

I don't own an AxeFx (yet) but I've been running my TC G-System with 4CM for a few years now. (GTR -> TC -> JVM410H Gtr-In -> FX)
It took me a while to get the quality I was aiming for and knew should be possible with the G-System.
A lot has to do with setting the right/optimal levels and of course the quality and compatibility of the amp fx loop.
Only taking the time to set up the levels made a world of difference for me. I'd be surprised if 4CM with the AxeFX would behave any different.

I found that using balanced cables and hum eliminators (EbTech) helped me a lot too.

For the G-System there is this whitepaper about setting it up. The general information in it is usefull for other FX units as well.
g-system-configuration-and-troubleshooting-guide.pdf

Kind regards!
 
I have been using the axe not in 4cm but straight in to my amp. The reason is my amp is set on clean and I get all my gain from the axe. I have been getting very good results that way but there is definitely some loss of tone from the converters. I got used to it and used the eq to get it as close as possible. I will be looking to purchase a pedalpro from vintage revolution to be my virtual pedal board instead. It's an all analog unit that's is digitally controlled and programmable. The unit doesn't do as many fx as the axe but what it does sounds better. The drives, filter fx, chorus, analog delay, phaser,flange all sound better to my ears and there is no digital conversion so the tone remains clear. The other thing it has is a built in mixer for outside fx including digital to blend with analog and no tone loss. The draw back is it doesn't have reverb but I will purchase a pedal to run through the mixer. Also for gigs where I need more of the fx I will be running the axe into the mixer as well so I can have everything I need. That's my solution to the virtual pedal board. I don't wanna go back to an actual board again.
 
I've found with my Ultra that there can be variations in the front input's analog "special sauce", i.e emphasis/de-emphasis noise reduction scheme when the Axe is set to "front" that can have this effect, so try your setup with the rear input set to "rear" (rear input has no analog "special sauce").

Also note that using the rear input with the Axe set to "front" it will sound too bright.

JazzMac251 said:
So, I've been swapping back and for forth several hours the past couple days - Axe2 in my amp's loop, Axe2 4CM, pedalboard, straight into amp - and I've come to a conclusion.

Using the AxeFX2 with my amp via the 4 cable method produces a tone with a significantly muddied harmonic structure. What does that nonsense mean? Let me explain.

So, I'm not talking about "brighter" or "darker" tone. As far as I can tell, the frequency content is mostly the same - or near enough to not make much difference to me. What I'm talking about is the fidelity of the gain coming from the amp. If you plug directly into a nice amp with nice tubes, guitar tuned, and you hammer out a thick open-string chord with open-sounding harmonies (think power chords or 2 chords), you're going to hear some beautiful harmonic resonance. Depending on how nice your amp is, you'll be able to practically hear each string and its overtones ring individually (rather than just a mess of noise), and the overdrive, while hairy, shouldn't blend all that harmonic information into unrecognizable sludge. In my experience, the more cable you run, the more times your signal is passed through a DSP, the cheaper your amp is, the more that harmonic information is smeared and the more the fidelity (clarity) of your tone is diminished. It's the kind of thing that makes you look at your amp, go "hmm...", and start reaching to turn your Bass knob down even though you don't feel like there's too much Bass in your sound.

In my opinion, using the Axe2 significantly decreases the fidelity of my overdrive sound - more so than my pedalboard. I was hoping to have the Axe's far superior effects supplant my pedalboard entirely (maybe I'd keep a drive or two), but, now that I've heard what it's doing to my clarity of my sound, I think I'll be sticking to my board. At least that stuff can be removed from the signal chain when I'm not using it.

Ahh well. It's still an awesome recording resource and digital rig!
Click to expand...
 
I've been running stereo half stacks while waiting for my CLR's. They're BV 120's so the axe hi gain amps are a big improvement...I've gotten especially good results with the Fryette, very heavy :)
 
I would never put a digital a/d and d/a converting unit in front of my amp.
But that's me. It sure can't make the soundquality better.

I like to have a real tube analog chain kind of rig when I 'm not using the axe.

If I use the axe, it's another type of rig. Then i never mix it with tubeamps.
I like it black or white. Why carry around a bunch of tube amps and the axe ?

Well , that's one way of looking at it.
I don't think you improve sound quality (if you are a purist)
by adding a computing unit in front of a great amp.
It would be strange if we didn't hear a difference !
 
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