gunpointmetal

I usually find, no matter what gear I'm using, its always the best idea to turn amps/speakers on last. If I accidentally leave my speakers on when I'm powering on/off I'll often hear some electrical noise or soft "pop".

Mine doesn't show up on the USB 3.0 ports, but only sometimes.... Just spit-balling here.

Guitar cabs are inconsistent-sounding depending on the acoustic space, much more than a PA speaker is. One of my biggest problems that I experienced with a guitar cab is that what sounds awesome in my practice space, will sound small or boxy in a different room, completely watering down the playing experience. With my powered PA cabs, the sound I hear at rehearsal is the sound I hear on stage, pretty much independent of the room. Ultimately you have to use what works for you, as there is no "right" answer. The idea with modeling for me is to have a lighter, more compact, more versatile, more consistent, and more controllable sound that behaves in the way I expect every time I plug into it. I've played Mesa Thiele cabs, I've used a Power Engine, I've had 4x12s loaded with high-wattage guitar speakers, and even the PE (which is designed for modeling) doesn't maintain its tone through different rooms.

I kind think its funny to argue against FRFR by suggesting using guitar speakers that are as close to it as possible just to avoid using a crossover or HP/LP filtering.

That would be why I set up our practice room and my gear with an RTA and noise sweeps, and why I can tell audibly (not just scientifically) the difference between a guitar cab (even with 125 watt "modern" guitar speakers) with IR/cab modeling in front of it, and without it. Ultimately, its whatever works for you. Guitar cabs/speakers are very directional, frequency-wise, PA speakers are less-so, thats why when I've run sound (on some crappy PAs that I didn't get to set-up for myself), 85% of the time I have to put a mic pretty far off the cone, and rarely directly on-axis to get a palatable sound out front. The point of the FRFR is not necessarily to hear things outside the guitar range, but to know what that fully-processed guitar signal is going to sound like through a system that offers greater frequency response. Unless you're mic'ing your own cab (which, if there's a sound guy, why would you do that yourself, that's what he's paid for), or are using an IR of your exact cab on a separate line (with the microphone in exactly the spot you'll be using to mic your cab, into the relatively full-range monitors) , you don't know what your sound is like out front, just how its coming out of the amp. Which, given the nature of a guitar speaker, will change drastically depending on your location/orientation from the cone.....

You seem to be of the understanding that nobody plugging into an FRFR rig understands sound physics or audio engineering. Your method of amplification is preferable to you, because it gets you the sound you want. Mine is preferable to me for the same reasons. I like to have an amplification method that is as close as is affordable to what my guitars will sound like out front, so if I want to DI my modeler into the FOH, I should probably have something similar to organize my sounds and monitor with. Otherwise, I'm just a dude with a 4x12 that sounds awesome where I'm standing at the front of the stage and is beaming the front row in the earballs with harsh top end and lacking bass (because off-axis, that tone would sound KILLER) and the sound guy would be HP/LP filtering my guitar anyways.

Until you add a really sparkly reverb/delay, or other "hi-fi" sounding effects, then the extra range makes things clearer, less muddled. But mostly its (for me anyways) the ability to have a single rig that can be as wide-ranging or as limited as I need it to be. If I want to bypass the cabs or skip the cuts and add some synth-y oscillators, or crazy reverbs, etc, its not gonna sound limited, might not even sound like a guitar. If all you're doing is recreating guitar tones from previous things, you probably have no need for the extra range, but if you want to be able to do whatever you want, within the same rig, FRFR affords that.

Have you ever listened to what a guitar sounds like, unprocessed through a amp->cab->microphone->console, or directly on-axis of a guitar speaker? Guitar speakers have a limited range, but it doesn't simply "cut off" at a certain frequency. The raw tone of something like a Mesa/Engl at really high gain settings sounds fizzy, harsh, and nasally without any processing if you're directly in-front of it. Guitar tones most traditional amp players are comfortable with come from distance/off-axis listening, so when they hear an unprocessed, direct-mic'ed signal, it might seem off (harsh/fizz/broken) and that's what a modeler gives you as a starting point. That full-chain, unprocessed signal. Though I agree that traditional cabs can sound "bigger" in a room, its only bigger in a limited frequency area. If you're not going to go direct, it won't make a lick of difference, but if you're sending an IR/cab sound out to the front, but basing it on how that tone sounds through your guitar cab, the sound guy is not gonna like what he hears, because in order to get the brightness and fullness out of cab running IR's/Cabs, you're going to have to boost your highs and cut your lows to get an "expected" guitar cab sound, and the sound that goes to the FOH will more than likely by small and buzzy. There's not right or wrong way, it just depends on the usage. But to say that guitar cabs offer any real sonic advantage over a full-range cab is simply opinion based on experience. Plus, with a full-range cab, should you decide to search for sounds outside normal guitar amp-type tones (like your synth, wild oscillators, or crazy reverbs), the FRFR approach won't limit you to the smaller output range of a traditional cab. For me the biggest thing about going FRFR is flexibility.

Gig sounds through real guitar cabs sound like crap at low volume or through a PA. For your tones to work in that setting you need to set them up that way. Recording sounds can be DRASTICALLY different from live sounds as far as EQ, tone, etc. When you're running through a real guitar speaker, a lot of the harsh/tinny gets filtered by the speakers and where you stand in relation to your gear. When I was using real cabs, I would dial in my tones sitting on the floor in front of my 4x12 so I could get a better idea of what the mic would be hearing and make sure that people in the "beam" weren't getting their heads ripped off with high end. My tones ended up sounding a little dull standing 10' in front of the cab with it no longer pointing at my head, but I knew the microphone was getting "my tone" to be reproduced through the PA. It's the same with using full tones that include cab modeling to go FOH direct. You have to account for the EQ tweaks you'd hear AFTER a microphone/board are in place to get the right sounds. I go direct and most of the DI patches are really mid-heavy, high-passed around 110Hz, and low-passed around 6-7 kHz and they sound big and full and bright without being harsh, but if I go home and try to record at a moderate volume, those same patches sound a little dull and thin, so I have to adjust my EQ, maybe even which mic or cab model I'm using to get the same "feel" out of the sounds at talking/mixing volume. There is NO modeler that sounds exactly right going from a patch that sound amazing in studio monitors or headphones to a live sound situation. You're dealing with amplitude modulation, Fletcher-Munson, and directionality, so you have to approach the patch creation differently. Build some patches from the ground up running through a loud set of PA speakers aimed at your dome, and see how those work for you.

I do this all the time with a meager i3 and 4GB RAM, and haven't noticed any cursor/click issues. Do you have all the "digital nanny" crap that comes with Windows 10 disabled?

Because, obviously you're tone tastes are exactly what everyone should be reaching for and explains why I'm picking up your signature guitars and OD pedals from all those boutique manufacturers......

I wouldn't go that far...... ;)

I'm not sure, really, you might not need to do as much EQ'ing as the 3Sigma's I've tried are a little more "fully-baked" as far as the low/high-pass goes. I actually use a split BEFORE two amp models for my nine string (tuned down to A0, yes, 5-string bass down a step A) where I have everything below ~300 Hz going into one amp model (5150) and everything above that going to another one (ENGL) so I can distort/boost/EQ the low end separate from the high end, then blend them back together into a single cab. Helps keep things punchy and keeps the extreme low end from sounding too much like a bass.

Dude - Gate -> Scream 808 (Gain 0, Tone ~6, Level ~9)-> Gate -> ENGL Model (gain ~3-4, bass ~3-4, mids ~6, highs ~6 everything else to taste) -> XXL V30 w/421 2" off the grill then use the High Pass in the cab block to cut up to ~100Hz, Low Pass ~8k and you should be 90% of the way there. Your 81 should be just fine. Keep in mind that 50% of the djent guitar sound comes from the bass guitar playing in unison with a crunchy tone. The Helix is more than capable of being djenty as hell.

I can understand where "amp in a room" tone would be preferable for practice, or for listening pleasure when jamming around, but everyone realizes that no recording or amp mic'ed up through a PA is putting the "amp in the room" tone out there, and most people's perception of the sound is based on distance from a sound source that is probably much brighter, harsher, and "fuzzier" (at least talking crunch to high-gain). You can't just walk up to a real amp and turn the knobs so it sounds good 10' away and off-axis and expect a microphone at a close proximity to the speaker to somehow put that sound through whatever reproduction equipment you're using without EQ and post-processing. You can easily simulate it with 'verb's and EQ's, but most of the time you lose all of the definition and punch that you get out of close-mic'ing in the first place. I can't really see that practical use outside of what people wanna hear when they are jamming alone at home, which you can do by adding a 'verb and darkening the tone with some EQ.

I had nothing but headaches with almost every piece of hardware I connected when I was trying to use FLStudio for recording a few years ago. HD500, HD500X, Presonus 1818, some cheap Edirol interface I got for free from a friend. Now I just do my sequencing in there and export audio out to Reaper for everything else if I need FLStudio for anything. Its a cool DAW, but everything after 10 seems to be buggy as f&%k with most USB hardware that has dedicated drivers.

ok 8.... either way...plenty of on/off state options

Since you have 8 or 10 snapshots per patch, why no just make Snapshot 4 (or 5-10) the same as two with the reverb off so you can have both with one button press?

I think this is the main thing, so that when it finally does get ported to (possibly) mobile platforms its already in the interface to be functional that way. I use the touch screen on my PC almost exclusively with the editor, just because of how its laid out. But, I also rarely use the editor, since fixing stuff on the device is just as easy. I'd rather see programming resources go into more amps and lowering the patch change latency of Editor UI changes.

I do miss the patch volume knob from my old GT-6 on occasion, no menu diving, deciding which part of the chain to turn up to even out volumes...

Just turn your head sideways to the right.... Although I agree with the logic, all of the effects and amps are displays with the first control on the top and continuing down in the same order that they appear on the display screen, so it is congruent with the way the design is laid out for everything else.

But it still won't read A0 on my 9-string.....

Turn down your tone control, use the neck pickup when doing "fine" tuning work; ignore the top display live because nobody else is going to notice....

Not really solved...because the gap between actual patches is still atrocious, but snapshots are going to make my life easier live.

the Simple Delay occasionally makes an audible, though not overly loud, pop when engaged. Thought maybe it was the switch, but it does it on other presets where the same effect is mapped to different switches. It's nearly impossible to predictably reproduce, so I've just kinda accepted it.