Presenting... The Axe-Fx III

I placed an order for an XL+ around 1 week ago and it is due to arrive tomorrow. Price was just on $3,100 AUD (no B Stock or discounts in Australia - full pricing applies). My gut feels turmoil, regret and a bit cheated by the timing of this - just my bad luck. My head on the other hand is not too concerned. I have used Axe FX Ultra at home/in studio only. My presets are generally made up of an amp, 2 cabs, a delay and a reverb. I don't tweak the interface, only using Axe Edit on PC monitor ad I don't need or use a footswitch. My reasons for upgrading to XL+ were more amps and better sound quality, realism and feel. From what I read I don't think the Axe 3 will add much for me that the XL+ doesn't cover. More processing power has to be better but with the relatively simple way I use the Axe FX, will I really be missing out? What does everyone think about sound quality, realism and feel? Have I totally missed the boat here with XL+ for what I want?
 
I placed an order for an XL+ around 1 week ago and it is due to arrive tomorrow. Price was just on $3,100 AUD (no B Stock or discounts in Australia - full pricing applies). My gut feels turmoil, regret and a bit cheated by the timing of this - just my bad luck. My head on the other hand is not too concerned. I have used Axe FX Ultra at home/in studio only. My presets are generally made up of an amp, 2 cabs, a delay and a reverb. I don't tweak the interface, only using Axe Edit on PC monitor ad I don't need or use a footswitch. My reasons for upgrading to XL+ were more amps and better sound quality, realism and feel. From what I read I don't think the Axe 3 will add much for me that the XL+ doesn't cover. More processing power has to be better but with the relatively simple way I use the Axe FX, will I really be missing out? What does everyone think about sound quality, realism and feel? Have I totally missed the boat here with XL+ for what I want?

$3100 including postage is the discounted price. IM were selling it for $3500 plus postage a few months ago.

Perhaps you could return your XL+. However, the Axe-FX III isn’t going to ship to Australia until May at the earliest. If that’s too long, you could enjoy your XL+ in the interim, then sell it and upgrade to the III later.
 
$3100 including postage is the discounted price. IM were selling it for $3500 plus postage a few months ago.

Perhaps you could return your XL+. However, the Axe-FX III isn’t going to ship to Australia until May at the earliest. If that’s too long, you could enjoy your XL+ in the interim, then sell it and upgrade to the III later.
Thanks David. I wasn't aware of the price shift.
 
Channel switching happens in well under 50 ms. You don't even perceive it as a gap — you just hear a seamless changeover to your new sound.
To clarify this, the Axe-Fx III has no audible gap when changing channels on the Amp or anything else.

For the record, totally switching an amp — on any modeler — requires a brief fade-out of the old sound, followed by an equally brief fade-in of the new sound. Without that, you’d hear a nasty CRACK! In your speakers. For years, I thought my Roland GP-100 had gapless switching, because I couldn’t hear a gap. Only when I analyzed it did I realize that there was a short gap of less than 50 milliseconds. Too short to hear.

The Axe III beats that performance. One beta tester measured it at 37 milliseconds. It just feels and sounds completely seamless.
 
Oh no, not that again

There were people claiming the dreaded awful gap on the II was “very small” and barely noticeable.
 
Gonna stick with my Axe II MKI & MKII and wait for the Axe-FX III XL+ ... then it'll be my turn to be the cat's meow while you're all twiddling on your little Axe-FX III MK I's :p :tearsofjoy:
I don't think they're going to make any new hardware because the FPGA chip will upgrade the hardware. That what i heard check for yourself.
 
Gotcha. Ok that explains the 14 block grid width over the old 12 block grid width. :D

If I may... it might be a good idea to let people set a default "Input/Output" default grid layout that automatically pre-populates for every new patch. My default layout would be as simple as "far left = Instr In" and "far right = Output 1" but it would be a huge workflow boost and quality of life improvement if I could just set that part and forget it.

Then again I suppose you could just create that patch and copy / paste it to all 512 patches once and you'd be good to go.


Now that I think about it though, it would probably save Fractal Audio a lot of headache and a ton of support phone calls to send the unit from the factory with pre-populated input and output blocks, and then expose the "new patch template" to users who want to customize their ins and out blocks for new patches.

Axe-Edit already has a template feature.
 
You can’t hear a 37 ms gap. Or a 37 ms delay, for that matter.

I wouldn't say it's quite that simple. Switching with a pretty dry sound and no pause, ~40 ms can be distracting. The smaller the gap, the easier it is to deal with. I don't think it's difficult to notice improvement down to around 10 ms, or lower (basically 0 ms) if you switch while holding a note/chord.


1. Phrase w/ no gap
2. 38 ms on the beat
3. 38 ms preceding beat
4. 20 ms preceding beat
5. 10 ms preceding beat
 
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