What's all the hype about Axe Fx?

[speed monkey]

My Axe-FX just arrived. Can't wait to get it home tonight, fire it up and see what happens.

Fire it up - go the first pre set and clear out everything except the amp model. Start building from there. Find an amp sim you like. Steer clear of the effects and add those later.

[Matt_B]

Fire it up - go the first pre set and clear out everything except the amp model. Start building from there. Find an amp sim you like. Steer clear of the effects and add those later.

I hear ya. I've been down this road before. If the amp and cab don't cut, nothing else matters.

I did spend an hour or so fiddling with it and it's going to take some work. It's very responsive, dynamics-wise, but it's a bit noisy and I don't really like noise gates. Oh well, it's just the start.

I'm not even really worried about the tone per say because I know there's enough in the box to get almost any tone imaginable. I understand how all the tone shaping options work so I just need to focus on getting it to feel right.

[roodyrocker]

Thats strange, my Axe-Fx isn't noisy. How are you running yours Matt? Is it through powered monitors or power amp and cab?

[Chad]

I respect your opinion, but you are overlooking the other advantages to a unit like the AxeFx. There are several people on the Fractal forum only using 3 or 4 patches......do they really need and are they fully utilizing all of the AxeFx's features? No. But why do they do it?

1. Don't have to deal with the issues and inconsistencies of micing.
2. Don't have to deal with the issues and inconsistencies of tubes (if using an FRFR setup or IEM's).
3. Don't have to deal with stage volume issues.
4. To add to #3, you don't have "hot spots". i.e. some crowd members getting their ears melted (for example when in front of a 4x12).
5. With an FRFR setup or IEM's you have the ability to hear EXACTLY what the audience is hearing. Do you want to have awesome tone for yourself or do you want to have awesome tone for the audience? What one hears on the stage is not always the same as what the audience hears. With a setup like this you can MAXIMIZE YOUR TONE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE.
6. Portability. For the 2 to 4 preset guys all you need is the Axe, a small, cheap MIDI preset switcher, and a PA/monitor if going FRFR.
7. Even within "balls out gain for rhythm" and "same sound with a smidge of boost and delay for solos" there are a ton of amps that will fill that need. Some folks change amps like they change underwear. If somebody likes doing that, then fine. With the Axe, you can push a few buttons and twist the knob and have a "new amp day" quite often. Cliff continually adds different amp models.

I'm sure there are other points that could be made, but that's a few I thought of off hand.

I'm glad this thread is inspiring folks to look into an AxeFx. The only downside is that for every purchase, I feel a little less special and unique for owning an AxeFx.

I just wanted to add a couple more AxeFx advantages:

--you can do things that aren't possible with tube amps. For example, you can crank up the bias to a point that would melt down real tubes, but it is entirely possible with the AxeFx with the bias parameter.
--power consumption: this isn't talked about much, but tube amps are power hogs. Think about all the heat tubes give off. With an AxeFx and a solid state FRFR setup power consumption is way lower.

[quiksilver]

I just got mine today. Haven't done much yet, just ran through the presets. Now I have to figure out how to download and install user presets from the forum into the empty slots (hope I can do it within Mac OS, but I have an Intel Mac and can run Windows if necessary).

[Matt_B]

Thats strange, my Axe-Fx isn't noisy. How are you running yours Matt? Is it through powered monitors or power amp and cab?

I'm just running it through a little set of Edirol 15W powered speakers, via the digital in. I think the noise is caused by the guitar cable I'm using. It has a lifted ground on one end (to help with noise..ha!) so I'm going to try another cable. The noise is a low level whistling that only occurs when the guitar's volume is anything other than on of off.

I plugged my Charvel Bengal into it tonight and all I can say is holy crap. I stripped down a factory patch to amp, cab and delay and just tweaked the amps and cabs. It's friggin' amazing. It really does respond like a tube amp. I've had other modelers before (Boss GT-8, Boss GT-Pro, Line 6 Gearbox) and this thing is nothing like them. I don't know what else to say except it does everything everyone claims it can.

On a side note, I understand how it can do what it does. Other modelers don't have the horsepower (CPU-wise) to allow the range of dynamics that the Axe-FX does. The more horsepower you have, the more bits you can put towards recreating an analog sound. It's like comparing an 8 bit color image to a 32 bit color image. The resolution and color range is exponentially greater on the 32 bit image.

I still have to spend time really fine tuning my meat and potato distortion sound but I'm so close after only an hour.

[MOSHWITZ]

I just got mine today. Haven't done much yet, just ran through the presets. Now I have to figure out how to download and install user presets from the forum into the empty slots (hope I can do it within Mac OS, but I have an Intel Mac and can run Windows if necessary).

Right here brother,,

I'm still doing that shit,,and smiling all the time.

There are three things you'll want to have,,

1)Download the archive of user presets,,there is some great stuff in there.

http://www.axechange.net/downloads/archive2.zip

2) Download Bome's SendSX,, to send the user presets to the AXE

http://www.bome.com/midi/sendsx/

3) And IR converter, to change all your favorite Cab IR's(.wav) to the AXE-FX's (Sysex) format.....then load them into the ten user slots in the AXE with Bome's SendSX.

http://guitarlogic.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=sd7kfvmntoqinjpjhm39q2d5s0&action=tpmod;dl

Tweak away,,,,,,Enjoy

MOSHON
DAVE

[quiksilver]

Hey, thanks, Dave! I was just browsing through the Axe FX forum and found a Mac editor, so it looks like I'll be able to use that, which is nice. I did encounter 2 potential issues upon browsing through my presets. One is, the knob is extremely sensitive and sometimes skips 5 or 10 presets, instead of going only to the next one. I'm trying to be careful, but it still does it. Is that normal? Or can I re-calibrate it or something? The second issue is that one preset "Fly By Night" causes a CPU overload. I have the Standard, and I understand from reading in the Axe FX forum, that Ultra presets might overload a Standard, but this is one of the factory-installed presets, so it seems odd that it doesn't work. Is this something I should worry about?

Thanks.

[MOSHWITZ]

Hey, thanks, Dave! I was just browsing through the Axe FX forum and found a Mac editor, so it looks like I'll be able to use that, which is nice. I did encounter 2 potential issues upon browsing through my presets. One is, the knob is extremely sensitive and sometimes skips 5 or 10 presets, instead of going only to the next one. I'm trying to be careful, but it still does it. Is that normal? Or can I re-calibrate it or something? The second issue is that one preset "Fly By Night" causes a CPU overload. I have the Standard, and I understand from reading in the Axe FX forum, that Ultra presets might overload a Standard, but this is one of the factory-installed presets, so it seems odd that it doesn't work. Is this something I should worry about?

Thanks.

Sup?
Both editors are in BETA right now so all the functions may or may not work correctly, they are still working the bugs out. The newest one(PC) is the first one where almost everything works for me, and the first one to connect all the way where it shows my firmware vrs. and when I change something in the amp block it actually works and changes the settings on my AXE.

You cant load user presets from the editor yet though( at least with mine) you can only load presets from the factory banks. thats where the SendSX program comes in. you double click on a user preset, and hit send and it will send it to the axe, but If you want to keep it you have to save it in the axe somewhere, cause if you move to another preset without saving, its gone and you'll have to send it again. once you save it in the axe,and say you tweak it to your liking, you can send it back to the computer into SendSX, then click on "save midi IN" and save it in a folder.

Yeah the knob is pretty sensitive, you cant just give it a twirl like some other gear,,I've had to adjust to this as well.

I have an Ultra,, and "Fly By Night" is reading 84% cpu,, so Yeah I could see where that would send the standard for a loop,,,as it is, the preset is like using 4 cabs cause it is running two stereo blocks,you can try changing the 2 cab blocks to mono low res, instead of stereo,,that knocks it down to 75% so that might help that one.

I've read that it doesn't hurt the unit, it just means you have to adjust the preset or you can't use it.

[quiksilver]

Thanks again! That is reassuring. I just wanted to make sure mine was working right. I will probably end up switching presets with a pedal anyway. I'm thinking of getting a Tech 21 MIDI Mouse for that.

[Robert Burns]

Robert, I think when the GT-10 grows up it wants to be one good patch from the Axe-Fx :ROTF:

Good god! Watch this cost me $2500.00!

[AK47]

Good god! Watch this cost me $2500.00!

Shop around I have seen the ultra go for 1800 and the regular Axe FX go for 1500 used that is.

[jgcable]

Mesa Boogie Mark III Green stripe head, Marshall 4 x 12 bottom, guitar cord, guitar.
No CPU overload hear... just great tone.

[Matt_B]

I'm thinking of getting a Tech 21 MIDI Mouse for that.

I'd suggest looking into a MIDI pedal that has built in expression pedals (or at least has inputs for them) and will send CC (continuous controller) messages.

Expression pedals will allow you to foot control the wah, whammy pedal function, change volume, amp gain, panning, effects levels, etc., etc.

Continuous controllers (basically on/off or momentary switching functions) will allow you to treat effects blocks in the Axe-FX like stomp boxes, channel switching, etc.

Just some things to consider.

[hippietim]

Mesa Boogie Mark III Green stripe head, Marshall 4 x 12 bottom, guitar cord, guitar.
No CPU overload hear... just great tone.

You forgot to mention either a) the fatigued ears from hearing your thin buzzy tone because they wouldn't let you turn up or b) the bleeding ears because they did :ROTF: