Guitar players! The search for Amp Sims is over AXE-FX

[ccosta]

Its just me , or the best demos are the ones with real tube power amp's and
speakers ?

The price could be right if it was the Holy Grail of DI guitar recording but doesnt seem to be.

Im not saying its overpriced since is a very high quality hardware / software solution , but for me, I rather spend that kind of money in real amps/effects.

Ok, now im waiting for replys like " but emulates 500 amps, 1000 fx's etc " that would cost 1.000000€"

I would happily spend 1000€ in some harwdare that could replicate "just" 3 classic amps ( Fender, Marshall, Boogie or whatever ) im perfection.

When I say replicate, I mean feel, sound etc.

[OzoneJunkie]

Unfortunately, nobody in this area of the world seems to own an Axe FX, shops don't have it either - and I seriously won't buy something that expensive (yes, it *is* expensive) without trying first.

They have a 15 day trial period - a necessity since it's not sold in stores. Just fyi...

[Didi]

The only thing 100% unique in Axe-fx is the mere software. Equivalent hardware may be acquired for a fraction of that cost, include Amplitube.

I don't think that's entirely true. From what I know, the overall (audio in to audio out that is) latency of the Axe FX hardware is something around 2-3 ms (if not less, I don't remember exactly), regardless of the settings used. To get close to that from a computer and software, you'd need something like an Apogee Symphony setup running at 96kHz. Ok, these days, one can get a setup delivering figures around 5-6 ms of overall latency for not too much money, but it might still be quite taxing your CPU. Also, once you add, say, an IR loading module, you may as well be quite in the 10 ms area of overall latency.
In addition, for live players (especially for guitarists).

2ms versus 10ms will be like standing 8.8 feet (2.7 meters) away from the source. Some should be ok with that and some not.

I didn't know that low latency Axe FX values. That's pretty cool. But I would love to know roughly how they achieve it.

They claim:

Top-of-the-line, 24-bit Cirrus Logic® converters assure signal purity.

There are no sound interface that can match this? Did they designed and built a custom sound interface better than everything that's out on the market?
Is it a modified pc with a motherboard, RAM modules and processor? Custom motherboard? Or it doesn't have pc components at all?
If so, what about the driver? Does it uses ASIO? Does it run on some kind of custom OS, some kind of linux maybe?

It does sound awesome on the samples, and I'm sorry I can't test one here in Argentina.

[Sascha Franck]

I didn't know that low latency Axe FX values. That's pretty cool. But I would love to know roughly how they achieve it.

They claim:

Top-of-the-line, 24-bit Cirrus Logic® converters assure signal purity.

There are no sound interface that can match this? Did they designed and built a custom sound interface better than everything that's out on the market?

I think it's pretty much like (digital) hardware synths. Dedicated CPU, dedicated converters and so on - in the end you'll end up with pretty low latency.

Seriously, I can work with 10-11ms (measured carefully and manually) all throughout a project on my Macbook, using Logic 8 and an M-Audio FW-410, it's also all fine until the very moment I'm working with headphones (or using certain plugins introducing their own latency), but even these 10 ms are sort of distracting when working with headphones. Having recorded some stuff under studio conditions, I absolutely seem to be used to that sort of "direct impact" a "normal!" guitar recording signal chain would give me.
I don't have any problems playing live, standing away several meters from my amp, though. It's just not what you expect in a recording situation.

They have a 15 day trial period - a necessity since it's not sold in stores. Just fyi...

For the hardware? I might give it a try then.

- Sascha

[ccosta]

I guess they could release a software demo, since most of the "magic" happens there.

But then they would compromisse the final player / user experience , since in this case the hardware is also a great part of the relation player / guitar / interface.

This is hardware fine tuned to guitar playing ( input matching, low latency etc).

And their market isnt the player with a few $$$ to spend, so I guess thats not in their minds.

[Hink]

I don't care for the comparisons to playing live, yes on paper the speed of sound is roughly 1000 feet per second. However that's on paper, on paper there are no reflections, in headphones there are no reflections either. Also, if you're layering guitar tracks or monitoring the input as well as the output instead of the timing being off you hear something very distracting that only happens at very low latency and that's a comb filtering sound.

Also, my machine and set up is quite capable of getting latency down to under 5ms (which is in the comb filtering range, but I can solve that). I now test different sims with no problem at these settings, but when you start running more tracks with synths, samplers and fx the buffer has to be lengthened and that's where the problems start. This is why I really can only rely on vst sims for re-amping, which is fine with me.

I remember Sascha you writing a great post about the realities of latency a couple years ago, do you still have it?

[Didi]

I found a pretty good discussión about the product here:
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/for ... p=33251316

That is the information I was looking for. Hope it is useful to someone.

[Sascha Franck]

I remember Sascha you writing a great post about the realities of latency a couple years ago, do you still have it?

Hm, must be somewhere at KVR. Unfortunately I didn't save it locally.
However, I still can't recommend, say, practising with any higher (overall) latencies than something like 10 ms. That's already like standing away around 3 meters from your amp, admittedly nothing *that* critical, still it could affect your timing (especially considering that there might be some additional factors adding latency).

- Sascha

[OzoneJunkie]

I think the VST version once released will run with low latency...

Basically I think it will come down to what you want - if you plan to play live gigs, the hardware unit will make more sense...

@Sascha - yeah, 15 day trial on the hardware unit.

[Restless]

I remember Sascha you writing a great post about the realities of latency a couple years ago, do you still have it?

Hm, must be somewhere at KVR. Unfortunately I didn't save it locally.
However, I still can't recommend, say, practising with any higher (overall) latencies than something like 10 ms. That's already like standing away around 3 meters from your amp, admittedly nothing *that* critical, still it could affect your timing (especially considering that there might be some additional factors adding latency).

- Sascha

10 ms can affect your timing?? Are you serious? a fixed 10 ms latency will do nothing, the human brain adapts to that easily. You know what the latency is for a pipe organ for example? Check that out. 10 ms jitter can wreck havoc with your timing, but 10 ms latency is nothing.

Have you ever played live in a big stadium? Where you have signals getting to you further apart than 10 ms? Side monitors on both sides, plus your amp mayve 5 meters away, your monitor 3 meters away. you adapt, and unless your plan is to be a bedroom or studio musician, you better as well.

[Sascha Franck]

10 ms can affect your timing?? Are you serious? a fixed 10 ms latency will do nothing, the human brain adapts to that easily. You know what the latency is for a pipe organ for example? Check that out. 10 ms jitter can wreck havoc with your timing, but 10 ms latency is nothing.

Yes I am serious. Give any proper drummer a headphone signal with 10 ms latency on it and he'll probably get mad.
A pipe organ is nothing to compare with as it has no concrete rhythmic impact to even start with. But it's an entirely different situation with, say, drums or funky rhythm guitars.
10 ms equals standing 3 meters away from your amp and even apart from the different kinds of room and early reflection perception, each and every player will clearly notice the difference between 3 and 1 meters of amp difference.

Have you ever played live in a big stadium? Where you have signals getting to you further apart than 10 ms? Side monitors on both sides, plus your amp mayve 5 meters away, your monitor 3 meters away. you adapt, and unless your plan is to be a bedroom or studio musician, you better as well.

I have been playing on larger stages a lot in my life, and yes, those distances are often responsible for a somewhat "unclear" or not so tight band timing. Pretty much the reason why these days lots of monitor ways (or even in ear monitoring) are becoming standard.

As an example, when they started using Aviom systems in a lot of theatres (I'm playing quite some musical jobs) some years ago, the first system had a latency of somewhat near to 10 ms - there's been loads of drummers simply getting mad by that. The next generation of Avioms brought latency down to something in the 2-3 ms area, now everybody's fine.

Also, in the plugin world, most plugins do at least introduce some additional latency (such as IR loading modules, but there's a lot of others, too), so if you chain them, this latency will add up.
And as said, it's not as if you'd just set your host to 64 samples and get 3 ms of overall latency out of it. All soundcards do introduce a certain safety buffer (especially true for USB and FW models), often resulting in something like another 5-10 ms added. So, what you may end up with in, say, an affordable laptop setup (let's consider using USB) with certain plugins is pretty much closer to 20 ms than to, say, 5 ms.

- Sascha

[Sascha Franck]

I should probably add that, while we're extremely good at compensating for latency while playing, our brains are extremely sensible when it comes to only the smallest timing offsets. Everybody could do the test themselves, just use a sample with a strong initial attack, then copy it to another track. Pan both tracks hard left and right, then delay one of them but set the level of the non delayed track quite a bit lower. You will still think the signal is sort of coming from the non delayed side of things.

- Sascha

[johnrrrrrr]

About the computer latency question

Line6 developed a technique in which there is Zero Latency.

Take that in........Ok, now breathe and say thats not possible in the known universe.

Well its true. Their Toneport uses a direct monitoring paradigm in which the song goes back in Time using a flux capacitor. Ok..it doesnt use time travel but that was the principle used.

Its genius and is the definition of circumventing a problem in such a way that speed is not a factor.

About the Axe fx. Its not doing anything any other modeler does. Its chip means nothing in relation to amp model latency. Its chip is more powerful because of its reverbs. If it only had amp models it wouldnt need 1/3 of what its got. They simple dont take up much regardless of what his marketing spew is.

Guys..idiots get fooled by such marketing nonsense. Anyone coming here should know better

[ughnonumus]

Its just me , or the best demos are the ones with real tube power amp's and speakers ?

Nah, man. It ain't you; it's the tubes!

Now, you're making me want to break out that Red Box, again.

[AndrewSimon]

A very creative patch from an AXE-FX user,

VIOLIN!