Fractal Talk
- Thread starter laxu
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KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
Shredder
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LCW
Roadie
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LCW
Roadie
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For sure... it's a great time to nerd out on all this digital guitar gear.
JasonE
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I had a chance to spend a little more time with my FM9 with FW8 on it yesterday. I am quite impressed. I kept thinking that I don't remember this thing ever sounding this good and having this much feel to it. I had honestly forgot that I put the new firmware on it last week before I went out of town. To me, that is a testament as to how this new firmware has improved the models.
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Achilles
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With all of the production tolerances involved - and the fact no two amps of the same model sound EXACTLY the same anyway - is there a point where an amp gets signed off on by Fractal as being complete, i.e.; no more tweaking to that particular amp model with future updates?
Mongillo19
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I can't say I've ever had the privilege to play two of the same amps back to back. I often see people state the tolerance difference to write off any accuracy issues.
Does the tolerance difference make that big of a difference between amps? Some make it seem like the amps will be totally different
not referencing you but I see the tolerance argument brought up quite a bit and was curious what others think
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Are we talking about amplifiers handwired in the back of an Englishman's shop in 1960-whatever*, or are we talking about PCB designs meticulously tested and then mass-produced in Californian in the 2000's?I can't say I've ever had the privilege to play two of the same amps back to back. I often see people state the tolerance difference to write off any accuracy issues.
Does the tolerance difference make that big of a difference between amps? Some make it seem like the amps will be totally different
*...and named by playing a drunken game of darts...
JasonE
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My personal experience with this is that it just means that the knobs are in slightly different places to get the same sound. The amps still sound the same to me. With that said, minor differences in the circuit or components in pedals can make them sound different at different settings. I am thinking of the OCD shootout that I did with some friends. We compared our OCD pedals through the same amp. They were slightly different versions and did sound different. We could adjust them to get them to sound really close but the knobs were sometimes in very different positions to achieve that.I can't say I've ever had the privilege to play two of the same amps back to back. I often see people state the tolerance difference to write off any accuracy issues.
Does the tolerance difference make that big of a difference between amps? Some make it seem like the amps will be totally different
Mongillo19
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I'm talking about your run of the mill 5153 or dual rec.
So I'm assuming not much lol
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I'd like to think you're right, provided everybody's being clear about revisions, etc. Randall Smith has made a strong case of this, at least.
I suppose tube selection/ wear is always a wildcard, though?
laxu
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When the NeuralDSP Soldano SLO plugin came out, Rabea Massaad tried it vs his modern SLO-100 and he could dial them to sound very close, but the knobs needed to be in a bit different position.
Even modern components still have tolerances and pots can be 10-20%, so to match your real amp with Treble on 5, maybe on the equivalent Fractal model you need to turn it up/down a little bit.
For Fractal it really just means matching the modeling to their reference amp and that amp being a good representation of the particular amp. The Line6 Helix JCM800 is a good example where their amp didn't have a bright cap (or it wasn't modeled for some reason) so it wasn't the same as many other real JCM800s until they added the 2203 model.
I think a lot of Fractal's models don't change unless they find a bug (e.g wrong virtual component value) or they improve the overall modeling engine. Like for the latest iteration they found new ways to measure things and implement the results into the modeling.
Us end users should be just concerned with things like "does it sound good to me?" and "do I like how it feels to play?", let the manufacturer worry about accuracy.
Achilles
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Depends on the mfg. and the parts they spec but using a Marshall BMT tone stack as an example:
3 - variable resistors
3 - resistors
4 - capacitors
Assuming a +/- 20% tolerance:
R1 is 33K ohm with an acceptable variance of 26.4 to 39.6 - a range of 12.2K
C1 is 470pF with an acceptable variance of 376 to 564 - a range of 118pF
Now multiply every possibility by this:
No way slight tweaks to some variable resistors is going to compensate for all the range possibilities.
Back in the 80s there was this one JCM800 head that all the hair bands were trying to steal because
it just happened to end up with a combo of part values that sounded better than the other 800s.
If you guys can hear/feel differences with the most recent updates you can bet your house that you
could hear the differences between various production amps if given an optimum AB testing setup.
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dean701
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Not to forget that just because those capacitors or electronics behaved within tolerance when new, doesn't mean they would behave that way 30 years later. Some of these amps are no longer made or were of a certain generation. The 2203 and 2204 come to mind. I think the lifespan advertised by vendors for electrolytic capacitors is 15 years. Not to say that Fractal doesn't test everything on their end, but for those that own the products and are trying to do a comparison, have they maintained their amps?
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Achilles
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Few years back I picked up a Mesa Mark III (1987?)
After putting new tubes in I checked the filter caps and they were original so......
KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
Shredder
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LCW
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Gettin reeeal tired of you man!
