Axefx Ultra after 2 hours of plugging in...

[emperor_black]

I messaged a guy selling his axe-fx on the 'bay after gigging with it once and asked him what he thought about it live. While he had a traditional amp/cab for his own monitoring, the other band members felt that his going direct to the PA left his "tone" completely at the hands of the sound guy who may or may not alter it to better suit the rest of the band. But he could cut through the mix very well and was very happy with it. The rest of the band was not.

[Matt_B]

I messaged a guy selling his axe-fx on the 'bay after gigging with it once and asked him what he thought about it live. While he had a traditional amp/cab for his own monitoring, the other band members felt that his going direct to the PA left his "tone" completely at the hands of the sound guy who may or may not alter it to better suit the rest of the band. But he could cut through the mix very well and was very happy with it. The rest of the band was not.

So the guy has his own amp (probably a power amp and cab) like a standard set-up and instead of mic'ing that up, he just ran direct into the PA as one might one do if they had a speaker emulator (Palmer, H&K Red Box, ADA Microcab). I'm sorry but that makes no sense so me.

Whether or not a cab is mic'd or the signal is DI'd, it still gets sent to the main to be mixed with the rest of the band. I fail to see the difference in either approach from a mixing perspective.

[Chad]

...the other band members felt that his going direct to the PA left his "tone" completely at the hands of the sound guy who may or may not alter it to better suit the rest of the band.

That doesn't really make sense. Assuming the other band members were also miking their amps, what would have kept the sound guy from messing with their sound as well?

[emperor_black]

Good questions. I've no idea. :think:

[Matt_B]

Ah ha! I know what was up - the other band members were jealous because he sounded so darn good.

[emperor_black]

could very well be. My other band mate was so jealous of my rig, he was always making fun of it. Saying I have too many pedals. His $5000 rig was not sounding right because he was running it through crappy crate cab with stock crate speakers.

[jgcable]

Here is my take. If you are going to use the Axe FX live you are at the mercy of the soundman and whatever sound system and more importantly.. whatever monitoring system the club you are playing at has. Unfortunately.. thats a big risk to take because as all gigging musicians know... house PA systems and soundmen are like a box of chocolates... you never know what your gonna get. That... is the main reason most players use traditional amps live. A few months ago we did a gig at a club that had an absolutely incredible sound system. Probably the best sound system and monitoring system in a medium sized club I have ever seen. Sounds good right? Perfect for your Axe FX rig right??? WRONG.... The sound man was aweful. We had aweful sound and probably the worst monitoring I have ever heard. We soundchecked and it sounded good but he messed with it the entire gig. Thank goodness we had traditional amps because when we were forced to give up on the monitoring system we were able to turn up our amps to hear ourselves. It was a nightmare and if I had decided to run direct through the PA that night I would have been DONE. This story is not a rare one. Its pretty common when you are playing local clubs. Its hit and miss with PA and monitoring systems.

[MetalMedal II]

Yeah, ya don't wanna be at the mercy of Raymond...

[jgcable]

Yeah, ya don't wanna be at the mercy of Raymond...

My point exactly. And my fellow JCF'rs... I am not talking out of my ass on this one. I have been playing live consistantly for around 30 years. I have seen just about everything you could possibly see when playing live. Unless you travel with your own PA and sound personel, you are really taking a chance thinking you could bring your direct into the board rig to a gig. There were many gigs through the years that we only used the PA for vocals because the house PA's were so bad. It gets even worse when you are doing multi-band gigs where only the first band gets a soundcheck and you only have 15 minutes to get on stage and be ready to play in between bands. Usually, for those gigs, the soundman has mic's set up for the guitar cabinets. When one band is done, they roll or carry their guitar amp off the stage and the soundguy just puts the mic in front of the next cab speaker. It would be a NIGHTMARE and just about impossible to do a gig like that if the next bands guitar player had a direct rig like an Axe FX because the soundguy would now need to run a direct cable from the Axe FX to the snake and then create a proper mix so the guitar player could hear it. Then, he would have to balance that direct sound with the live mic sounds. Then.. hopefully he would have a good enough monitoring system to create sub mixes so the band could get a balanced sound onstage but the guitar player could get the correct clean mix for his guitar sound. I would say its safe to say that 95% of the sound guys out there don't like to run the guitars direct no matter what the rig is.

[jgcable]

Now if you don't play live or if you are a pro that travels with a full PA and a pro crew... forget everything I just said!!!
I would like to hear from other JCF'rs that gig regularly on this one. I know there are a fair amount of you out there.
Again... I can't stress this enough.. I think the Axe FX clips I have heard online are incredible. I just don't think its practical for live use for most live players unless of course you travel with a pro PA and monitoring system and have pro's running it.

[lerxstcat]

John, I don't think most guys run this unit direct to board only. I believe that most are also running it to a power amp and regular speaker cabs, or to a pair of powered FRFR cabinets. So they DO have onstage power and control over it. Not much different in that regard than running any other modeling preamp into a power amp and speakers, really.

If you just ran it direct with no onstage monitor under your personal control, then you are right. But that's not my impression of what most are doing.

[Matt_B]

John, I don't think most guys run this unit direct to board only. I believe that most are also running it to a power amp and regular speaker cabs, or to a pair of powered FRFR cabinets. So they DO have onstage power and control over it. Not much different in that regard than running any other modeling preamp into a power amp and speakers, really.

+1. I'd say split between players running power amps w/guitars vs. players running power amps w/FRFR or powered FRFR cabs is about 50/50.

That said, IMHO the players running through guitar cabs are short changing themselves but I can understand that is not easy for some folks to give up their traditional rigs and make the leap to FRFR.

In a perfect world, one could just run through the PA but I agree that's a crap shoot unless you always use the same PA.

[Matt_B]

Greg Howe seems to really like his Axe-FX.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Mlq...eature=related

[lerxstcat]

Greg Howe seems to really like his Axe-FX.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Mlq...eature=related

Yeah, and his Laguna guitar, too.... cool lick though!

[emperor_black]

Can the Axe-fx mimic changes in preamp and power tubes in a Amp? I swapped the JJ preamp tubes in my mark iv with Sovtek preamps and the amp got some "bite" in the tone and became slightly more tight. Can the afx mimic those?