Always consult the official Owners Manuals first

Difference between revisions of "Cab block"

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If you never need Cabinet simulation, for example because you're using the Axe-Fx II for effects only or just with a power amp and speaker cabinet, switch it off in the Global menu. Presets will then have a lot more "CPU room" for effect blocks.
 
If you never need Cabinet simulation, for example because you're using the Axe-Fx II for effects only or just with a power amp and speaker cabinet, switch it off in the Global menu. Presets will then have a lot more "CPU room" for effect blocks.
  
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==Matching amps and cabinets==
+
==Matching cabinets with amps==
 
It’s a matter of personal preference which cab to use with an amp. You can go with "historically correct" amp/cab combinations. Or go wild. The differences can be enormous. For example the 4x12 20w (very vintage, low power) has little bass, the 4x12 German has loads of it. Differences between cabs may also originate from the way the IR was captured. F.e., the 4x12 German sounds as if the mic was very close to the speaker (proximity effect). The 4x12 Brit sounds as if the mic was at some distance (thin bright tone). When comparing cabs, don't judge too quickly. Each time you select a cab, you may need to adjust the amp settings to dial in a nice tone.
 
It’s a matter of personal preference which cab to use with an amp. You can go with "historically correct" amp/cab combinations. Or go wild. The differences can be enormous. For example the 4x12 20w (very vintage, low power) has little bass, the 4x12 German has loads of it. Differences between cabs may also originate from the way the IR was captured. F.e., the 4x12 German sounds as if the mic was very close to the speaker (proximity effect). The 4x12 Brit sounds as if the mic was at some distance (thin bright tone). When comparing cabs, don't judge too quickly. Each time you select a cab, you may need to adjust the amp settings to dial in a nice tone.
  

Revision as of 09:20, 9 February 2012

Manual

Template:0 Disclaimer

Template:5.2 Cabinet (CAB)

Template:16.13 Loading User Cab IRs

Template:10.5 IR Capture

User contributions

Global cabinet simulation

If you never need Cabinet simulation, for example because you're using the Axe-Fx II for effects only or just with a power amp and speaker cabinet, switch it off in the Global menu. Presets will then have a lot more "CPU room" for effect blocks.

Matching cabinets with amps

It’s a matter of personal preference which cab to use with an amp. You can go with "historically correct" amp/cab combinations. Or go wild. The differences can be enormous. For example the 4x12 20w (very vintage, low power) has little bass, the 4x12 German has loads of it. Differences between cabs may also originate from the way the IR was captured. F.e., the 4x12 German sounds as if the mic was very close to the speaker (proximity effect). The 4x12 Brit sounds as if the mic was at some distance (thin bright tone). When comparing cabs, don't judge too quickly. Each time you select a cab, you may need to adjust the amp settings to dial in a nice tone.

In this list the 'traditionally' matching cabs are listed for each amp.

More information on speakers in this article.

Room ambience

Close-mic'd IRs aren't long enough to contain room ambience. The Axe-Fx II offers additional room ambience parameters in the Cab block. It's a special reverb effect. Also see Close-miked tone versus amp-in-the-room.

Low-Cut and High-Cut

The Axe-Fx II includes low-pass and high-pass parameters. These make it easier to deal with boomy or harsh sounds. Of course you can still use the the same parameters in the Amp block, or use a separate EQ block. Common settings are 80 to 150 Hz for high-pass, and 5 to 7 kHz for low-pass, but YMMV.

What's an Impulse Response (IR)

See Impulse_Response_(IR).

What's IR Capture

See Impulse_Response_(IR).

Parallel cabs are louder than a single one

Why do Cabinet blocks in parallel rows sound louder than a single Cabinet block?

  • Check this: Parallel rows with effect blocks
  • Bakerman: "It depends on how you're panning. Assuming a mono signal sent to cabs: Stereo cab w/ Pan L and Pan R fully left & right will be the same output level as 2 mono cabs w/ balance L & R. If pans/balances are centered the 2 mono cabs will be 6 dB louder. Balance elsewhere would be between 0 and 6 dB louder, and balance doesn't correspond 1:1 to pan L/R for the same placement. Balances will need to be further toward -50 or 50." Source

User cab slots

  • If you are looking for something different than the stock cabs, take a look at 3rd party IRs. The Axe-Fx II has 50 user cab slots which can contain external IRs. Axe-Edit (or a MIDI librarian) can be used to manage IRs and to upload them into the user cab slots. The Axe-Fx II will display the name of IRs in the user cab slots. The name is contained in the sysex data of the IR file with a maximum of 32 characters. IRs can be renamed using Axe-Edit.
  • IRs from Red Wirez and Ownhammer get good reviews. These companies offer sets of close-mic’d IRs for the Axe-Fx II for many speakers/cabinets/microphones. Selected IRs of these companies are included with the Axe-Fx II as stock cabs. Also included are some IRs by Jay Mitchell.
  • When using Ownhammer IRs, set Mic Sim to None in the Cab block, because the mic is already part of the IR.
  • Stock cabs and IRs from Red Wirez and Ownhammer are time-aligned, which means that you can mix these in the Axe-Fx II using stereo cabs.

The process of loading IRs is described in the manual (see above). Also, forum member Cobbler describes the process in this thread.

Cabinet Size Warping

Firmware 2.0 introduced Cabinet Size Warping. This allows the user to change the relative size of the speaker (not the cab). Only accessible if the Cab is set to Mono. Cab Size has been renamed to Speaker Size in firmware 5.

Motor Drive

  • Firmware 5 release notes: "Added speaker motor modeling to Cabinet block. This models the effect of high power levels on the tone of the speaker. The Motor Drive parameter controls the relative drive level and, therefore, the intensity of the effect."
  • Dialing in Motor Drive by forum member Manny Fufish.

Frequency response curves

Frequency response curves:

Where to put the Cab block

In the real world it makes a difference if you put effects before or after the speaker cabinet. It's different with the Axe-Fx II.

  • Javajunkie: "You can place the effects loop anywhere in the chain (just add the fx loop block). Unless you are running a stereo cab or 2 mono cabs panned hard L/R, you may want to place stereo effects after the cab. The cab is a linear time invariant effect (unless you add drive) so effects like delay and reverb will sound the same before or after it. As Cliff and others have stated on numerous occasions LTI effects can be placed before and after each other and the will sound the same. Only when placed before or after non LTI effects (drive, amps, et. al) it really matters. The one caveat there is that some effects are mono, placing effects before and after that makes a difference."
  • Cliff: "The difference in having the cabinet before or after the effects is usually subtle. It depends on how non-linear or time-variant the effect is. For effects like EQ, which are linear and time-invariant, it doesn't matter at all. For slightly time-variant effects like chorus and flanger the difference isn't very pronounced. For highly time-variant effects, like pitch shifting, the difference can be marked."

Selecting a mic sim and proximity

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