You Guys/Gals Are in for Another Treat

Hi Cliff,

You're really getting good at describing the nuances of sound!
Looking forward to hearing those rocks rubbing together :)
Thanks for all your work.
Pauly

FractalAudio said:
I'm working on it. Every amp model needs to be reentered. Lot of work. So far it is sounding fantastic. It's hard to keep focused as I get distracted playing.

It can be a bit shocking at first. Those "vintagey" amps are quite a bit different in some cases. Spitty, gnarly, nasty, angry sounding. The "polished" sound is gone. The low end is tighter. High gain amps growl and chug with a vocal quality. Medium gain amps purr like a big cat. Low gain amps sound big and chimey.

The whole impetus for this was I was doing some critical listening and I noticed that certain amp models didn't have the same distortion "texture" as the real amp. The amps sounded like rubbing two rocks together while the models sounded more like sandpaper. There was also a vocal quality. The amps went "chug, chug, yowwwwww" while the models went "chit, chit, yeeeeee". That led to a complete rewrite of the preamp algorithms. What I learned from that I applied to improvements in the power amp algorithms.
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FractalAudio said:
The whole impetus for this was I was doing some critical listening and I noticed that certain amp models didn't have the same distortion "texture" as the real amp. The amps sounded like rubbing two rocks together while the models sounded more like sandpaper.
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Re-reading this example it came to my mind that, when I listen to those blind test comparisons of real amps vs modelers, one thing that usually makes me recognize the real amp is that kind of underlying "white noise-like" sound present on distorted tones. In real amp samples it always sounds like it is more harmonically related to the rest of the spectrum and stand out less than in modelers samples. Also in modelers kinda seems like that noise has some resonance peaks, some narrow band of frequencies emphasized.

Don't know if that has anything to do with what you're working on (and the axe fx is already very hard to tell apart from a real amp even in that small detail), it's just that that part of your description somehow made me recall this thing I noticed.
 
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I'm changing strings on my main guitars to get ready for this ... Can't wait to dig in when it is released! Thank you in advance. Love your dedication to tonal perfection!
 
dongzo said:
Omg...That 10-string from you avatar...I hope you have other guitars as rumors says that the update is for 7-strings maximum ;)
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That's a Chapman Railboard. All my guitars are 6 String. Basses & others include Pedulla & Kiesel 5 strings, Modulus 6 string, NS Stick 8 string & Chapman stick 10 string.
 
All I can add to this is I‘ve gotten really excited about the ne FW and thank you so much Cliff for your dedication and hard work! It‘s really such a pleasure to play with this black box and the amount of quality you bring into it and your team is astounding!
 
@Everyone : Don't ask Cliff questions or it will slow down the release. ;)

I'm sure Cliff will propagate improvements if they apply. Case in point: he's applying his improvements from the preamps to the power amps.
 
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