Axe Fx III vs. vintage 80s Rack

God I don't miss digging around fucking with patch cables in the back of a rack with a mini flashlight in my mouth cuz I forgot my headlamp. Give me an Axe and a cheap laptop. The size of your rack is equal to the size of your headache.

My current headache (and my current joy). Granted it's not very vintage (I should put one together, I have every variation of all the ADA stuff including the mods -- that would be a killer rack).
 

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OMG, how I miss my hernia factory rig the size of a small refrigerator and all of the abuse it took getting moved every gig, not to mention having to wire it up tougher than a Nike missile silo and trying to program around whatever piece of gear decided not to work that night. I’m also sure road crews and truck packers everywhere rue the day it and most rigs like it all got replaced by an AFX2 and an RJM MMGT.

Said. Nobody. Ever.
 
OMG, how I miss my hernia factory rig the size of a small refrigerator and all of the abuse it took getting moved every gig, not to mention having to wire it up tougher than a Nike missile silo and trying to program around whatever piece of gear decided not to work that night. I’m also sure road crews and truck packers everywhere rue the day it and most rigs like it all got replaced by an AFX2 and an RJM MMGT.

Said. Nobody. Ever.

You are not wrong! But still, in the day a rack near the size of a refrigerator with all the blinkenlights looked impressive as hell. Even more so if it was cabled up neatly, because you knew the owner had paid kilobucks to some wizard to build it.

So it's a little less obvious that you should fall to your knees in front of an Axe-FX, y'know? Still, I'll take it any day over the old way of doing things!
 
True story - about 12-13 years ago, at a happy hour in a Scottsdale bar, I observed a busty Scottsdale lady eating BBQ ribs, which were the daily special. Stopped short of saying, "Nice rack! How much did they set you back?"
Lucky u stopped short - otherwise you could've been wearing BBQ ribs
 
Lucky u stopped short - otherwise you could've been wearing BBQ ribs
It was a bit of a saucy line....
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I gigged four slaved heads into two 24 space racks and three 4x12s in w/d/w setup. It sucked, you have no idea how great you have it today.
I’ll bet it sounded amazing when everything was setup correctly, you were in a venue that allowed the proper volume, and the room had good acoustics. I’ll also bet that trifecta didn’t happen often.
 
Here's my rack from ~89/90. It grew a bit after (don't have a photo of final version). The last version added Nady 650, Second Quadraverb, Rane SM26, Alesis 3630, and the ADA amp died/was replaced with a 2 space Rocktron Velocity 300.

The signal chain went something like Nady > Bradshaw > Kasha Rockmod II > Hush Loop > Mono Loop out to Rane > Quadraverb (x2) , IPS-33B > Rane Stereo out > Bradshaw Stereo In, Bradshaw stereo out to BBE > BBE > Velocity 300 > DL Monsuen 4x12 wired as 2x12 stereo with G12T-75. The Alesis was in a mono loop for clean sounds. The dual Quadraverb set up was done so I could change patches and have delay/reverb tails. The Bradshaw provided analog channel switching for the Kasha as well as midi for the Quadraverbs and IPS-33B. Occasionally I'd throw a Crybaby in between the 650 and the first Bradshaw input.

The weight of the rack got to a point where I split the power amp off to it's own 4 space so I wasn't killing my back trying to lift it in/out of a hatchback.

Never quite got the clean sound I wanted (Rocco's 80s clean patch nails it), but the dirty/lead sound was great.


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OMG, how I miss my hernia factory rig the size of a small refrigerator and all of the abuse it took getting moved every gig, not to mention having to wire it up tougher than a Nike missile silo and trying to program around whatever piece of gear decided not to work that night. I’m also sure road crews and truck packers everywhere rue the day it and most rigs like it all got replaced by an AFX2 and an RJM MMGT.

Said. Nobody. Ever.

I knew several guys who (briefly, as that period in music didn't last long) would haul
their massive racks to the $100 a man per night gigs. Granted that was in 1989-1990
$$$ so it may have gone slightly farther than it does now. :)
 
yeah, been there, done that. we have had some fun in the past trying to recreate some landau tones and it was pretty easy, to be honest. those old bits of gear have their quirks (nothing sounds like the tc g-force pitch shifter when it's feedback is turned up...it was one of my signature sounds for a while), but the overall flexibility and convenience just trumps all that.

here's my wee beastie...
 

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yeah, been there, done that. we have had some fun in the past trying to recreate some landau tones and it was pretty easy, to be honest. those old bits of gear have their quirks (nothing sounds like the tc g-force pitch shifter when it's feedback is turned up...it was one of my signature sounds for a while), but the overall flexibility and convenience just trumps all that.

here's my wee beastie...
Really liked the G-Force, but my fav TC rack thing is still the 2290 I briefly had. The delays were just gorgeous
 
Hi- Any idea if the Mitigator uses a rechargeable battery inside, or single use battery?
Mine lost all its presets, and there is a battery inside 3.6v lithium I want to replace,\but not sure if I need a
rechargeable one?
It doesn't say much on it
 
Hi- Any idea if the Mitigator uses a rechargeable battery inside, or single use battery?
Mine lost all its presets, and there is a battery inside 3.6v lithium I want to replace,\but not sure if I need a
rechargeable one?
It doesn't say much on it
Always use single-use batteries.
 
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