This is where I started to get scientific. So I benchmarked the Gx CS TB and the Gx Vox TB against the original pedals in the following way:
First I recorded a clean guitar signal in Ardour. This is it:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... t_Line.mp3
Next I recorded the physical pedals by routing the guitar signal out of the computer into the physical pedal, checking that bypass signal was the same input level as the original, and then recorded each pedal with two different settings.
Colorsound Tonebender, Attack 10, Volume 10:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... -10-10.mp3
Colorsound Tonebender, Attack 8, Volume 10:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... S-8-10.mp3
(The Colorsound Tonebender has a third knob called "tone", so it may be another version than your model).
Vox Tonebender, Attack 10, Volume 7. Gain is extreme, so the circuit becomes sensitive to ground loops etc.:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... B-10-7.mp3
Vox Tonebender, Attack 8, Volume 7:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... TB-8-7.mp3
Next I took the same line signal, and routed it into the plugins:
Gx Colorsound Tonebender, Attack 10, Volume 10:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... -10-10.mp3
In this case I had to reduce output volume by 50db to arrive at an acceptable output level.
Gx Colorsound Tonebender, Attack 8, Volume 10:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... S-8-10.mp3
In this case I had to reduce output volume by 40db to arrive at an acceptable output level.
Gx Vox Tonebender, Attack 10, Volume 7:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... B-10-7.mp3
In this case I had to reduce output volume by 50db to arrive at an acceptable output level.
Gx Vox Tonebender, Attack 8, Volume 7:
http://www.etcetera-music.eu/public/ins ... TB-8-7.mp3
In this case I had to reduce output volume by 40db to arrive at an acceptable output level.
And as you can hear, once the output volume is reduced, there is no clipping. So what I think is happening is, that the simulation does not make transistor clipping, and hence the result is just a massive amplification, accentuating the high end, and the distortion heard in my previous samples is that of the gx-2. This is consistent with all my observations. Could you possibly check the plugins with a sine wave? It should clearly result in transistor clipping. If it doesn't then some parameter is missing from the simulation.
/Frank
Vox, Selmer, Yamaha and Leslie amplifiers. Rickenbacker, Epiphone, Ibanez, Washburn, Segovia, Yamaha and Fender guitars. Hammond, Moog, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Crumar, Ensoniq and Mellotron keyboards. Xubuntu+KXStudio recording setup.