laxu
Fractal Fanatic
I was eagerly waiting for the Axe-Fx 3 to see if it would improve on the one thing I've mentioned several times as my only issue with the Axe-Fx 2: the front panel. Reading thru the promo page for the Axe 2 I can tell that it's not what I had hoped.
While putting the 5 knobs underneath the display makes it a lot easier to operate, I'm not sold on the rest. The navigation and page layout is just as cumbersome as it was on the Axe-Fx 2, the placement of the buttons around the value wheel (which IMO should not even exist on the unit) is also not ideal as at least on the Axe I tend to bump my hands into the wheel when trying to reach the Enter and Exit buttons.
In terms of on-screen UI to me this seems to be just Axe-Fx 2 UI in color with more stuff fitting on a single screen. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with this, but it could certainly be improved with small changes like showing the exact value above each knob.
For the rest of the features...it's just too much for me. I'm not a power user. All my patches have a pretty simple grid layout and the most complex thing I have is a few dual amp patches. I don't need this many inputs, outputs, grid blocks, simultaneous channels, user IRs etc. I'm sure others will find them to be exactly what they want.
Sound- and feelwise I am already perfectly happy with the Axe-Fx 2 and I expect initially the 3 won't sound much different but a few years later Cliff has again come up with something that makes everything even more realistic.
I might give this another try if an "AX9" comes to market that is a pared down, simplified version of all this. At the moment I will either stick with my Axe-Fx 2 or sell it while I can still get good returns for it and look for something else.
While putting the 5 knobs underneath the display makes it a lot easier to operate, I'm not sold on the rest. The navigation and page layout is just as cumbersome as it was on the Axe-Fx 2, the placement of the buttons around the value wheel (which IMO should not even exist on the unit) is also not ideal as at least on the Axe I tend to bump my hands into the wheel when trying to reach the Enter and Exit buttons.
In terms of on-screen UI to me this seems to be just Axe-Fx 2 UI in color with more stuff fitting on a single screen. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with this, but it could certainly be improved with small changes like showing the exact value above each knob.
For the rest of the features...it's just too much for me. I'm not a power user. All my patches have a pretty simple grid layout and the most complex thing I have is a few dual amp patches. I don't need this many inputs, outputs, grid blocks, simultaneous channels, user IRs etc. I'm sure others will find them to be exactly what they want.
Sound- and feelwise I am already perfectly happy with the Axe-Fx 2 and I expect initially the 3 won't sound much different but a few years later Cliff has again come up with something that makes everything even more realistic.
I might give this another try if an "AX9" comes to market that is a pared down, simplified version of all this. At the moment I will either stick with my Axe-Fx 2 or sell it while I can still get good returns for it and look for something else.