AX8 Drives

Barry Johns said:
My personal opinion is that every single one of them is complete garbage. The one thing I hate about the AX8 is that it does not take overdrive/boost pedals in front of it well. No, not well, it actually is utterly useless. I just don't understand why that is?????

Everything else for the majority, I love the AX8!
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Useless?? I've got a Timmy, a Soul Food and a KTR hitting the front of the AX8 and they all sound fantastic.

Many of the onboard drives sound good too, usually after tweaking from the default settings.
 
philipacamaniac said:
Useless?? I've got a Timmy, a Soul Food and a KTR hitting the front of the AX8 and they all sound fantastic.

Many of the onboard drives sound good too, usually after tweaking from the default settings.
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Curious, do you also have a high quality tube amp that you put them in front of as well?

My pedals are freakin amazing in front of my Suhr Badger 35, lifeless with the AX8. To me, it's all relative.
 
dbun said:
In the "real world" I much prefer amp gain over pedal gain.

The massive benefit of the Fractal gear is that you can have the best of both worlds because it is so easy to swap between two different amps, or even do neat tricks like varying the amp gain within a preset.

If you are not bonding with the drive pedals, then exploring amp drive is the way to go.
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What I like about the drives is that they really help to take out the low end boominess that many people experience with FRFR.
 
Barry Johns said:
Curious, do you also have a high quality tube amp that you put them in front of as well?

My pedals are freakin amazing in front of my Suhr Badger 35, lifeless with the AX8. To me, it's all relative.
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I've got a real AC15 head and a Mesa Maverick 2x12 combo that I bought the pedals for. I was originally planning to go the FX8 route, but when I compared Fractal amp modeling to the sound of a mic'd amp at front of house, modeling won me over.
 
There are some decent drive pedals but there isn't quite enough variety for me - it was the main reason I switched from an fx8 to the ax8 so I can use the preamp section like a drive pedal.
 
philipacamaniac said:
Useless?? I've got a Timmy, a Soul Food and a KTR hitting the front of the AX8 and they all sound fantastic.

Many of the onboard drives sound good too, usually after tweaking from the default settings.
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Aww man you are not helping me. Been trying to decide if I should add some of my pedals back to a board with an AX8. This is just tempting. I have to remember how easy it is to carry the AX8 by itself though.

For the most part I found it best to use filter blocks for boosts so far. Was shocked to see fractal didn't have a klon drive option, maybe someday, I'd definitely be all about that.
 
bo13bo said:
Aww man you are not helping me. Been trying to decide if I should add some of my pedals back to a board with an AX8. This is just tempting. I have to remember how easy it is to carry the AX8 by itself though.

For the most part I found it best to use filter blocks for boosts so far. Was shocked to see fractal didn't have a klon drive option, maybe someday, I'd definitely be all about that.
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Honestly there are so many amps with available gain boosts and saturation switches that I rarely ever go to the drives. When I do it's to mostly the tube screamer or sd-1 models to slightly boost the gain and/or tighten the low end and they work beautifully. I have a boutique pedal board too with Wampler, Weehbo and Marvel Drive pedals on it but honestly it's useless now given how great the AX8 is.
 
Will Chen said:
+1. The AX8 would allow you to actually use a modeled Marshall preamp with the cab and power amp emulation disabled like a dirtbox into a real amp if one so desires.
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I haven't tried this. I've tried it with the Gt100 and the Line 6 pod series and didn't like the results. The idea of Pre amp into pre amp doesn't sound like it's going to work but I guess an overdrive pedal is a preamp! I will test this and let you know how I go.

I just find it confusing that fractal get everything else so right except the overdrives. I don't have a lot of trouble duplicating my plexi, ac15 or fender brown face amp tones on the ax8. Which amazes me.
But when I ab the fractal fulltone ocd vs my version 3 ocd it's not even close. The fractal ocd is very woolly. I don't have heaps of time at the mo to work on eq etc so will spend more time and report back next week. But it should be as easy as setting the drive, tone and volume levels like the pedal. If I get something I'm happy with during experimentation I'll work out how to share with you all.
Cheers jonny
 
RKF said:
Honestly there are so many amps with available gain boosts and saturation switches that I rarely ever go to the drives. When I do it's to mostly the tube screamer or sd-1 models to slightly boost the gain and/or tighten the low end and they work beautifully. I have a boutique pedal board too with Wampler, Weehbo and Marvel Drive pedals on it but honestly it's useless now given how great the AX8 is.
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I agree but with no disrespect intended you are missing the point. I am currently touring and using clean amps as backline most of which do not have effects loops. Even if they do I can't make enough noise during a soundckeck to test the loop.

So I'm relying on overdrives, as I have for years, to give me cranked amp tones into a clean amp. Most of the time I'm just playing clean.
I've been very happy in the past using fulltone ocd, boss od3, and more recently mesa flux drive.
The problem is I am currently underwhelmed at fractals attempt at modelling these pedals and I don't want to bring my ods with me on tour planes and buses.
The drives sound fine goosing an already breaking up modelled amp in the ax8. Just not happy as stand alone into clean amp.

Of course I haven't written it off because there are so many parameters to adjust and I can mess around with filters etc. But I was hoping it was going to be as easy as using a 3 knob pedal.
 
Hmmm........i would have to say that your point is absolutley valid to the point you cant get the sound your looking for. But i dont think it is the fractal drives. I have worked with many amps and many drive pedals. It is soooo subjective. My ax8 will be on my next record, but it will be multitracked with real amps that have taken me years to get the tone i want. 30 tube heads and dozens of drive pedals over 30 years got me where i want to be tone wise. To me, the fact that the ax8 will still be in the mix after 30 years of tone searching speaks pretty well of what they are doing. Last time i tried counting, there were over a hundred drive pedals out there. Imho, clearly there is no "right" answer for everyone. If a head and a distortion pedal gives you the tone you want, then thats what one uses.
I gig with a jvm410 halfstack as it gives me the exact tines i want. If monitors are good enough, i will gig with my ax8. If the monitors are not good enough, then j have to bring a frfr..why bother imho. If i have to bring that, i will just bring the real.deal.
 
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jonny gardiner said:
Hey folks. Im new here. Im loving the AX8. Its an absolute game changer.

I think all of the effects are stellar EXCEPT the drives. Does anyone feel the same?

I have a vast collection of overdrives (OCD V3, Xotic RC, TS9, TS808, Rat, Pi Fuzz, Boss BD2 & OD3, Analogue Man Silicon Fuzz, Hendrix Fuzz, Micro Boost and many more) and dont think the AX8 does a great job of modelling them. My fav drive on the AX8 is the Blues Drive, but I have to turn the tone control fully counter clockwise to make it work. I certainly don't have to do that with the original Blues Driver , which I ab'd against the AX8 and the Blues Driver model on the GT100 .

I find most of the overdrives muddy. In fact I think the Boss GT100 does a much better job at OD modelling.

Am I missing something? Are there go to adjustments people are making with the drives to make them work?

The amp and Cab modelling are soooo good you can almost forget about the drives but I really want to use the AX8 occasionally as a pedal board in front of a clean tube amp.

Looking forward to your input.
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I have a similar feeling as yours. I've bought the AX8 to replace all my current rig but my boss DD500 (the most important part in my pedalboard) has died a few days before a gig so yesterday I tried to program the AX8 for using with my amp (only effects) and ended up buying a replacement for my delay because I couldn't get the drives sounding anywhere near my analog pedals and I don't want to take both my analog pedals and AX8 to the gig.

My style is very different from what I see from almost everyone here: I don't play metal, djent or anything like that. I play Knopfler, Gilmour, Robben Ford, etc... and my analog rig is a brownface vibroverb with some pedals I tried to replicate yesterday:

- Buffalo FX evolution: a take in the Cornish G2 muff style pedal. It's a great pedal: balanced, gritty but clear, tight bass, etc... I tried to replicate it with both the muff and the RAT. I tried everythig: change diodes, played with the cuts, the three band EQ... nothing :( the Muff model just sound awful. You can make it a little better with a bit of mids and lowering a bit the bass cut but I think such a legendary model deserves a VERY better model.

- King of Tone: tried with the bluesbreaker model (in which the king of tone is based). So bright and so grainy I couldn't believe it.

In general I find that most of the drives have a lot of gain. You have to turn the gain knob in the KoT very high to make it sound like the bluesbreaker at 2 or 3 (and I remember the Marshall bluesbreaker to have less gain than the KoT). My main guitar is a strat with CS '69 pickups and have the input pad set to 12dB (for my 335 and Les Paul with antiquities).

- Wampler Plexidrive and Keeley BD-2: I tried the bluesbreaker and the two Tube Drivers. The 4 knobs sounds a bit too dark: I've played several times with the real thing and it's a bright pedal and, again, with less gain than the model. The 3 knob sounds better. But I found several of the models lacking clarity and it doesn't matter what I do that when I kick a real pedal it sounds much, much better.

On the other hands the Xotic RC and the AC (I have an AC+ and used to have a RC) seems to be very similar to the real Xotics.

I hope we could test the new clipping algorithms soon and see if things get better but I think the AX8 deserves a much better drive models. I can see myself using the AX8 with the Buffalo and either KoT or BD2 in the loop :(
 
jonny gardiner said:
I agree but with no disrespect intended you are missing the point. I am currently touring and using clean amps as backline most of which do not have effects loops. Even if they do I can't make enough noise during a soundckeck to test the loop.

So I'm relying on overdrives, as I have for years, to give me cranked amp tones into a clean amp. Most of the time I'm just playing clean.
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Have you tried running a signal w/o cab sim, but with the amp block's preamp section into a clean amp and another FOH? Tried it at a gig recently and it seemed to work pretty well for me.

One trick I discovered was to either use a PEQ block in the axe to filter out unwanted frequencies before going directly into an amp, or try to tweak the amp to make it sound as 'flat' as possible (usually NOT the case when putting all the knobs at noon)
 
Josetxu said:
I have a similar feeling as yours. I've bought the AX8 to replace all my current rig but my boss DD500 (the most important part in my pedalboard) has died a few days before a gig so yesterday I tried to program the AX8 for using with my amp (only effects) and ended up buying a replacement for my delay because I couldn't get the drives sounding anywhere near my analog pedals and I don't want to take both my analog pedals and AX8 to the gig.

My style is very different from what I see from almost everyone here: I don't play metal, djent or anything like that. I play Knopfler, Gilmour, Robben Ford, etc... and my analog rig is a brownface vibroverb with some pedals I tried to replicate yesterday:

- Buffalo FX evolution: a take in the Cornish G2 muff style pedal. It's a great pedal: balanced, gritty but clear, tight bass, etc... I tried to replicate it with both the muff and the RAT. I tried everythig: change diodes, played with the cuts, the three band EQ... nothing :( the Muff model just sound awful. You can make it a little better with a bit of mids and lowering a bit the bass cut but I think such a legendary model deserves a VERY better model.

- King of Tone: tried with the bluesbreaker model (in which the king of tone is based). So bright and so grainy I couldn't believe it.

In general I find that most of the drives have a lot of gain. You have to turn the gain knob in the KoT very high to make it sound like the bluesbreaker at 2 or 3 (and I remember the Marshall bluesbreaker to have less gain than the KoT). My main guitar is a strat with CS '69 pickups and have the input pad set to 12dB (for my 335 and Les Paul with antiquities).

- Wampler Plexidrive and Keeley BD-2: I tried the bluesbreaker and the two Tube Drivers. The 4 knobs sounds a bit too dark: I've played several times with the real thing and it's a bright pedal and, again, with less gain than the model. The 3 knob sounds better. But I found several of the models lacking clarity and it doesn't matter what I do that when I kick a real pedal it sounds much, much better.

On the other hands the Xotic RC and the AC (I have an AC+ and used to have a RC) seems to be very similar to the real Xotics.

I hope we could test the new clipping algorithms soon and see if things get better but I think the AX8 deserves a much better drive models. I can see myself using the AX8 with the Buffalo and either KoT or BD2 in the loop :(
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My thoughts exactly. Even to the point where I asked myself if the AX8 is generally oriented a bit more towards metal and djent styles - which I am not. I play rather clean stuff to classic Rock mid OD. I don't care much for most of the drives, but found some workarounds with the help of this great forum and I am happy with the results. Still I would not mind to find more usable drives for my playing style - a bluesbraker for example. Maybe in a new FW? I would gladly send my 400 $ Himmelstrutz Fitzo OD pedal over the pond to Cliff to have it added - return shipping fare included :)
 
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I have a thread about the Rukus (Riot) going on over in the FX8 forum. In general, that drive is so different from the original to the point of being unusable, even with the deep tweaking that some have recommended. And those that find it acceptable don't have experience with the real pedal.

I know that there was a firmware update maybe a year ago where some of the drives were updated *G3'd" but given all of the recent complaints maybe we'll see some love from the big guy on these. I can hope. :)
 
I think, it is completely wrong to call Ax8 a metal/Djent unit. It does so much more. I play a wide variety of styles with mine.

But I still agree that the drives are not its strong point. Drive pedals (model) into a clean amp (model) is a real struggle. So I use the amp models instead. Then I use EQs to boost or tame the amp as needed. I was never a big fan of drive pedals in the analog world though. You can also boost the amp with a drive block, but they take so much CPU that I usually prefer the EQs to do the same.

We should get new clipping algos with quantum 4.01, maybe that helps.

@jozetxu,.have you considered that maybe your level settings in the drive block are too high, such that the amp gets boosted a lot? I don't think one can expect the knob settings to correspond 1:1 with the drive pedals.
 
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