What is it about the Drive sims?

I find the drives in the axe not that great when comparing with real pedals. The way i tested them was I created a patch with only drives then out of the axe into my fender amp. I put my real pedals in front of the axe and A/B them. You can get some decent sounds but they do not sound or react like the real pedal to me.

Perhaps there is a better way to compare them?

i only use my axe fx II for effects so this is also the way that i compare actual pedals to the modeled pedals. a few of them are right on and some of them need to be re-worked
 
Is there any kind of tools that could be purchased to compare pedals verse the fractal version, so we could create our variations of what already exists? or better yet could we implement a different type of tonematching explicitly for the Drives have it in the Drive block itself as an extra page that we could click on to go through a ala tonematch your own pedal kind of thing. That would be really cool.

I asked a similar question once. I put noting but a drive block on the grid. Had the pedal I wanted to replicate plugged into the front of the axe. Got the basics set and dialed in. What I learned from Java Junkie was to then do a tone match. Go back and tweak to get closer to the TM. TM again and keep repeating until the TM is flat.

Good thread with good tips!
 
I find the drives in the axe not that great when comparing with real pedals. The way i tested them was I created a patch with only drives then out of the axe into my fender amp. I put my real pedals in front of the axe and A/B them. You can get some decent sounds but they do not sound or react like the real pedal to me.

Perhaps there is a better way to compare them?

Your A/B scenario does not reflect how you would actually use a drive on the AXE-FX IMHO - USE a real patch that you would normally use the drive in.

It seems to me, that the only way you can "A/B" anything, is to make the signal path identical. Because the global gate is first in series of all other blocks on the AXE-FX II, (even in the drive only scenario you have described - that is unless you disabled the gate) and because your drive on the AXE-FX may not be first in your other normal patches, to accurately A/B your drive, you need to put in an effect LOOP, a send and return either directly in front, or behind the drive(s) which you want to "A/B". And cable your pedal (use short 18"-36" = short as possible- decent quality cables)Then turn on the this "Effect Loop", with the drive Bypassed as your "B". Then Bypass the "Effect Loop", with the drive Activated as your "B". This would give you a true "A/B" environment. Try it. It is up to you to experiment with your "A" drive on the AXE-FX II to get it dialed in correctly. It wont just work with your perfect tone as we all have different likes in this arena. Not until it is dialed in, just like with any Analog pedal First identify to few parameters on your "B" drive and notice their counterpart on the "A" drive. You should be able to approximate the "B" drive and gain some understanding of the AXE-FX II drive structure when you give a reasonable amount of time. Consider this experimentation as a Time Investment into your tone.
The Platinum lining to your cloud will become apparent at that moment when you get past thinking that what you are doing is copying your old. limited analog pedal, and that you now get to take the old concept and keep going with it. As you realize you can take what started as copying a tone, and now you are creating your own signature drive tone. I find huge power in lower mix levels when going for smooth lower gain tones (subtle can be better than in your face with the drives IMHO) and on higher gain settings, watch that level, crank that gain, then sculpt it with the drive eq. Then, as M@ and others have said, try stacking with PEQ and/or even cascading drives once you feel comfortable with your ability to control and understand your digital drive realm, Then, stop looking back at how you USED TO make your tone, and begin to see the power in what you now can do which dwarfs the limits and issues of your OLD basic drives.
Or, with the power of the AXE-FX II's routing abilities, set up a loop and use your OLD Analog boxes to your heart's content. The message here is that you can do whatever you want now that you own an AXE-FX .
As said before,...... have fun, as this is not a problem, it is actually a door that leads to killer new tones if you like...
 
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Your A/B scenario does not reflect how you would actually use a drive on the AXE-FX IMHO - USE a real patch that you would normally use the drive in.

It seems to me, that the only way you can "A/B" anything, is to make the signal path identical. Because the global gate is first in series of all other blocks on the AXE-FX II, (even in the drive only scenario you have described - that is unless you disabled the gate) and because your drive on the AXE-FX may not be first in your other normal patches, to accurately A/B your drive, you need to put in an effect LOOP, a send and return either directly in front, or behind the drive(s) which you want to "A/B". And cable your pedal (use short 18"-36" decent quality cables)Then turn on the this "Effect Loop", with the drive Bypassed as your "B". Then Bypass the "Effect Loop", with the drive Activated as your "B". This would give you a true "A/B" environment. Try it. It is up to you to experiment with your "A" drive on the AXE-FX II to get it dialed in correctly. It wont just work with your perfect tone as we all have different likes in this arena. Not until it is dialed in, just like with any Analog pedal First identify to few parameters on your "B" drive and notice their counterpart on the "A" drive. You should be able to approximate the "B" drive and gain some understanding of the AXE-FX II drive structure when you give a reasonable amount of time. Consider this experimentation as a Time Investment into your tone.
The Platinum lining to your cloud will become apparent at that moment when you get past thinking that what you are doing is copying your old. limited analog pedal, and that you now get to take the old concept and keep going with it. As you realize you can take what started as copying a tone, and now you are creating your own signature drive tone. I find huge power in lower mix levels when going for smooth lower gain tones (subtle can be better than in your face with the drives IMHO) and on higher gain settings, watch that level, crank that gain, then sculpt it with the drive eq. Then, as M@ and others have said, try stacking with PEQ and/or even cascading drives once you feel comfortable with your ability to control and understand your digital drive realm, Then, stop looking back at how you USED TO make your tone, and begin to see the power in what you now can do which dwarfs the limits and issues of your OLD basic drives.
Or, with the power of the AXE-FX II's routing abilities, set up a loop and use your OLD Analog boxes to your heart's content. The message here is that you can do whatever you want now that you own an AXE-FX .
As said before,...... have fun, as this is not a problem, it is actually a door that leads to killer new tones if you like...


I will give this A/B comparison a try today. thanks
 
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I think the reason you find that some people complain is that this is simply what some people do.

Have some fun instead. Cooper just showed me some video of Adrian Belew and me. We sat for hours making drive tones and never once even referred to an existing pedal. (OK, except one imaginary one with a dead battery). We had a blast, and he taught me a great deal about how the right attitude makes inventive tones completely playable. Invent your own drive pedal like a designer would. Put a peaky PEQ in front. Or try changing hi/lo/diode settings. Or use two drive pedals in series. Or in parallel! Try a compressor AFTER your drive pedal instead of before. Play with extreme bias settings. Try to create an amp tone with no amp block using EQ/Drive/EQ/Drive/EQ (remembering that there is an EQ built into the drive pedal.) Add dynamics to your drive with modifiers.

CREATE! EXPLORE! HAVE FUN!

:)

Many thanks for this post M@! I finally got my Big Muff sorted out! I've never even owned this pedal but after some research I took some notes where people how people were adjusting their nobs and how it would affect the sound. Try a TS808 MOD (or default, I prefer MOD) after the compressor for screeching but tight lead sounds!

If anyone wants to experiement with it, here's what worked for me:

Drive block
Pi Fuzz
Drive 1.5
Tone 6.46
Low cut ~700 Hz
High cut 1225 Hz
Slew limit 8.00
Bass +~3dB
Level 8.00

Compressor (after drive block)
Pedal 1
Sustain 5
Everything else default

All adjusted to personal taste ofc!
 
I think the reason you find that some people complain is that this is simply what some people do.

Have some fun instead. Cooper just showed me some video of Adrian Belew and me. We sat for hours making drive tones and never once even referred to an existing pedal. (OK, except one imaginary one with a dead battery). We had a blast, and he taught me a great deal about how the right attitude makes inventive tones completely playable. Invent your own drive pedal like a designer would. Put a peaky PEQ in front. Or try changing hi/lo/diode settings. Or use two drive pedals in series. Or in parallel! Try a compressor AFTER your drive pedal instead of before. Play with extreme bias settings. Try to create an amp tone with no amp block using EQ/Drive/EQ/Drive/EQ (remembering that there is an EQ built into the drive pedal.) Add dynamics to your drive with modifiers.

CREATE! EXPLORE! HAVE FUN!

:)

Agree, I often use the drives with modifiers to add some grit and dirt right in the middle of some complex effectblock network. Where it acts more like an "malfunctioning (/part of) circuit" of some effect(s) than as an pure drive intended for lead/comp work. Extreme settings is really fun for this. My favourite is the bit reduce and/or sample rate parameters. I e, try sample rate together with some (perhaps the inverse) amount of drive controlled with the envelope follower.

However, I can understand and agree on people´s wish too for having more types for some simple and ready setups for getting creative with their playing.
 
["Originally Posted by gtrnstuff: I did notice that the TS and BB Pre had a mix of 100%, while the real life ones have some clean signal in the mix."]

are you sure the BB has clean signal blended in?

gtrnstuff had mentioned this in another thread, and Cliff responded there:

Also I noticed with the TS and BB blocks in the Axe, the mix defaults to 100%
You may want to change the mix to about 80%., letting some clean tone through like the real ones.
At least that's what I hear.

The models let clean through even with the mix at 100%. It depends on the diodes though as to how much clean is mixed. Our models are based on the most common versions.
From this post: http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-f...rouble-bb-preamp-drive-block.html#post1035753
 
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