Fractal AM4, Suhr Reactive Load, SM57, and what the crowd thinks about your tone?

[GJgo]

The thing I noticed with tonex and the pa is that patches that sounded good in the daw isolated vs daw mixed vs playing at home through frfr vs playing through poweramp vs playing through frfr with a band were ALL different... so good luck!

A lot of the patches that sounded bad at home did the best with the band, go figure.

Its good to have options though, would be nice to be able to test a bunch in context as much as possible. PA speakers will sound different as well but hopefully you can get a good all-rounder.

*(for the sound guy to mess up )

I totally get that. So far both of these solutions have been pretty much plug-and-play with my PA, and not that great through my DAW and monitors. That’s what I was after so at the moment I’m happy

 

[GJgo]

C sounds the best to me overall. There's this girth and organic character to the sound in both the isolated track and the mix.

When the isolated track was playing, it seemed there was tonnes of low end on A, but the mids were excessively scooped. It did sound good in the mix though, so I'm wondering if a high pass filter would have helped the isolated tone.

A bit ambivalent about B, it sounds really good, but there's this "2D" quality to the sound, which I suppose is just a result of IRs being a static capture of a cabinet sound. But it also sounded good in the mix, and also when isolated.

All said and done, I would been happy to use any one of them live or in the studio. Loved the playing too, you've got nice tone in your fingers.

Yeah, to be fair that girth you’re talking about on A was because I used the ribbon mic for that set up. The dynamic was just too thin to use in that case, wouldn’t have sounded good. In hindsight, I also should’ve EQd it slightly differently, but that’s in the details. I try to pay attention to the general character of the sound and not worry so much about things you can change by turning a knob.

 

[Shask]

I will say the AM4 has a little bit of latency in the PA, but honestly, you get used to it after a minute or two. I wouldn’t make it into a big deal.

The AM4 feels are a little lacking into the PA compared to a high quality tube amp, but I’ve played plenty of not great tube amps that were the same or worse so I also wouldn’t make that a big deal.

Now, with that being said, running the AM4 into my DAW definitely creates a substantial latency and lack of feels. Using this as a practice method sucks all the fun out of things.

So all of that to say, as with other things, any one piece of gear isn’t necessarily good or bad. It’s the sum of the parts.

For what it’s worth, my little positive grid spark has better feels!

The feel and punch is a big reason why I have been liking ToneX over my Fractals. Make a capture of your amp through the Suhr, and then pair it with an IR. Heck, since you have mics, you could make captures of the entire miced rig. I bet that would have better feel and dynamics over the traditional modelers, and give you a format you could use in a plugin, or a tiny little pedal.

 

[csguy0]

I will say the AM4 has a little bit of latency in the PA, but honestly, you get used to it after a minute or two. I wouldn’t make it into a big deal.

I agree, after some time it all blends in

 

[Corey James]

C - B - A

And that's coming from a guy who does NOT like Boogies (anymore) owns too many Suhrs, and has an axe3 and FM9 with a deep appreciation for Fractal in general and their support / constant updates, etc

Nice job on the demo!

 

[DrewJD82]

I will say the AM4 has a little bit of latency in the PA, but honestly, you get used to it after a minute or two. I wouldn’t make it into a big deal.

The AM4 feels are a little lacking into the PA compared to a high quality tube amp, but I’ve played plenty of not great tube amps that were the same or worse so I also wouldn’t make that a big deal.

Now, with that being said, running the AM4 into my DAW definitely creates a substantial latency and lack of feels. Using this as a practice method sucks all the fun out of things.

So all of that to say, as with other things, any one piece of gear isn’t necessarily good or bad. It’s the sum of the parts.

For what it’s worth, my little positive grid spark has better feels!

You shouldn’t have any noticeable latency coming from the AM4, have you tried running it into a power amp/section and into a cab to see how it feels in that context? If I dealt with any latency feel from my AxeFX it would have been dead in the water on day one.

And I’m not sure if you’ve dug into the DynaCabs or if you’re using 3rd party IR’s, but after using York IR’s for years I completely ditched IR’s once the DynaCabs came out. I can get where I want to go in FAR less time just using the general mic placement areas you would on a normal cab.

Lastly; grab yourself a nice tube poweramp because after you get used to the joy of consistent live tones, if you’re like anyone else, after a while you’ll miss a bit of that cab interaction.

 

[GJgo]

You shouldn’t have any noticeable latency coming from the AM4, have you tried running it into a power amp/section and into a cab to see how it feels in that context? If I dealt with any latency feel from my AxeFX it would have been dead in the water on day one.

And I’m not sure if you’ve dug into the DynaCabs or if you’re using 3rd party IR’s, but after using York IR’s for years I completely ditched IR’s once the DynaCabs came out. I can get where I want to go in FAR less time just using the general mic placement areas you would on a normal cab.

Lastly; grab yourself a nice tube poweramp because after you get used to the joy of consistent live tones, if you’re like anyone else, after a while you’ll miss a bit of that cab interaction.

I sold the AM4 as the Suhr suits my needs better, that said I'll asnwer your Qs-

I didn't run the AM4 into a power amp -> cab here, but I have a local friend with a Fractal rack into a Crown PA into a FRFR 4x12 cab and it's the same story when I play it. Just enough latency that I notice it, but not enough to be a bother. Now, playing the AM4 into my DAW was a different story, massive latency that made it hard to play when listening through studio monitors.

I was only using the built in Dyna Cabs.