Pete Thorn with Axe-II

Sounds good, is this direct or camera mic? Update, says on utube that theyre all direct
 
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Loved the clips. Marsha, Plexi,Wrecker, Buttery. Great!!
Pete Thorn is da man!! Total Pro.
 
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And now you know why I went straight down to Tone Merchants and bought my Suhr Badger 18 Head cabinet combo 2-1/2 years ago.... - THORN
So here I sit ready to lay down the cash for my AXE-FX II (But there is no way I am going to sell the Badger and I bet that Pete keeps his too)?????

Thanks again for the no BS straight to the tone demos Pete!
 
I agree with some that the recording doesn't seem 100%.
For example, in the Plexi part the high end seems to be clipping / distort.

Nevertheless, I like the guitar tones by themselves a lot. Love the Buttery part.
 
Fantastic demo and great playing as always! :)

The Buttery and Wrecker really stood out for my ears.
 
Hmmm...Great playing but I must say that I'm not that impressed with the tones. It doesn't sound much different than my Axe-Fx Standard to my ears. It still sounds compressed and when chords are played it's like all 6 strings are amalgamated into 1 tonal sound instead of it being richly complex. I'll give an example: Previously I listend to Mark Day's Axe-Fx clip at Tone Merchants...then I clicked on his other link of the Cameron CCV at Tone Merchants YouTube - ‪Cameron CCV Demo May 2011‬‏ After hearing the complexity of the distortion of those tones out of that real tube amp, I lost any gas for an Axe-Fx II.

Again, my point being that the tones that Peter Thorn has put up here might be a little better than my Axe-Fx Standard (although to me they don't sound much different) but they don't come anywhere close to the raw harmonic richness and complexity of that Cameron amp example. That is why I'm not really impressed. I was hoping for more of a giant leap forward sonically in the advancement of technology.
 
Same here...Pete is a monster player and a very good demoer but this clip isn't impressive at all (IMHO, none is 'til now...) ; Axe vintage can do that and more.
Soundwise, the gap between I and II is narrower than i thought (or than we've been told it would be).
Wait and see...
 
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Complexity on youtube??? I need to play the thing to really say my opinion... But that´s me. I´ve heard good sounds from POD´s on youtube, but they feels like .... when i play one. Nice sound maybe. Not tone/feel imho... I have to play the Axe II before judging :)
 
I think you need to judge "harmonic richness" by a little bit more than a clip.

Cliff has said that his new modeling is 100% there. Though he does have some desire to push his own product, I don't think he would use that figure if he didn't mean it.

Also, one clip was direct, and one was in the room. Different amps, dialed differently. Far too many variables to come to an accurate conclusion, IMO.
 
BlueLotus said:
Hmmm...Great playing but I must say that I'm not that impressed with the tones. It doesn't sound much different than my Axe-Fx Standard to my ears. It still sounds compressed and when chords are played it's like all 6 strings are amalgamated into 1 tonal sound instead of it being richly complex. I'll give an example: Previously I listend to Mark Day's Axe-Fx clip at Tone Merchants...then I clicked on his other link of the Cameron CCV at Tone Merchants YouTube - ‪Cameron CCV Demo May 2011‬‏ After hearing the complexity of the distortion of those tones out of that real tube amp, I lost any gas for an Axe-Fx II.

Again, my point being that the tones that Peter Thorn has put up here might be a little better than my Axe-Fx Standard (although to me they don't sound much different) but they don't come anywhere close to the raw harmonic richness and complexity of that Cameron amp example. That is why I'm not really impressed. I was hoping for more of a giant leap forward sonically in the advancement of technology.
Click to expand...

There isn't a giant leap forward left to take. There are a thousand reasons why one youtube clip might have sounded better to you than another. The least likely of all those reasons is that the Axe-FX is somehow deficient of something that the real amps have. You're dealing with youtube clips for crying out loud, not exactly critical listening material...

I A/B the Axe-FX to real amps all the time. There is not a huge step left to take, period. If there were, I would have sold the Axe-FX and just played my amps years ago.

I personally liked Pete's clips. They were rough and obviously he didn't spend much time tweaking them, but I liked them. He convinced me to revisit some of the amp models I've been ignoring lately.

D
 
dk_ace said:
There isn't a giant leap forward left to take. There are a thousand reasons why one youtube clip might have sounded better to you than another. The least likely of all those reasons is that the Axe-FX is somehow deficient of something that the real amps have. You're dealing with youtube clips for crying out loud, not exactly critical listening material...

I A/B the Axe-FX to real amps all the time. There is not a huge step left to take, period. If there were, I would have sold the Axe-FX and just played my amps years ago.

I personally liked Pete's clips. They were rough and obviously he didn't spend much time tweaking them, but I liked them. He convinced me to revisit some of the amp models I've been ignoring lately.

D
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+ 1, 10 minuets creating presets isn't a lot of time and Youtube is the last place to split hairs when it comes to listing to guitar tone, all you really get is a basic idea of whats has been done. Some of the presets he dialed in were very nice wile others sounded like they still needed some work. As always Pete does one of the best jobs at doing youtube demos given the short fallings of what Youtube does to the audio, way to go Pete ;).
 
dk_ace said:
There isn't a giant leap forward left to take. There are a thousand reasons why one youtube clip might have sounded better to you than another. The least likely of all those reasons is that the Axe-FX is somehow deficient of something that the real amps have. You're dealing with youtube clips for crying out loud, not exactly critical listening material...

I A/B the Axe-FX to real amps all the time. There is not a huge step left to take, period. If there were, I would have sold the Axe-FX and just played my amps years ago.

I personally liked Pete's clips. They were rough and obviously he didn't spend much time tweaking them, but I liked them. He convinced me to revisit some of the amp models I've been ignoring lately.

D
Click to expand...

Truth here. Much truth.

I don't understand what Standard/Ultra owners want to hear - there is no quantum leap forward to take. Incremental steps? Sure. More this or that? Sure. Quicker to dial? More responsive to your dynamics? Perhaps.

But really, if the Standard/Ultra are so short of hitting the mark as many current/past owners seem to want to make it... I don't know what to tell them.

I hear and feel a difference in person playing the Axe-FX 2. I like the difference. You can add more bass in without adding any flub. You can add more highs in without it getting shrill. But the Standard/Ultra are damn fine pieces of gear and frankly, I'd still take either of them over any number of given amps if I *had* to choose one rig to take to a show or a session.

Guys - it's YouTube. They are clips, not gospel. Folks are clutching at straws trying to listen critically to YouTube clips; they are not high resolution audio. You are hearing lots of artifacts from their own compression scheme on YouTube. These are clips cut direct; there are not amps demonstrated on YouTube - not one - ever recorded direct into the DAW. So if you prefer 'recordings' (ahem, vidoes) on YouTube of this or that amp over something cut direct, you are missing the boat.
 
That's another excellent point. Even if you select 720p (which most people, even on here I'd wager, never bother to do), you're getting 128kbps AAC, which is *slightly* better than equivalent bitrate mp3.

When we start getting FLAC and WAV files to compare, and when we're using quality sound systems to listen, I think we can start talking at that point.

And, even at that point, I reiterate: we are currently talking about a room recording with a particular amp, cab, mic and room. All of these variables were different in Pete's clip. There's nothing to be gained from trying to pick out a winner here.
 
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