Axe-Fx II Epiphany - Unintended Consequence

[Toowoombaus]

O.K., newbie here.

I had a revalation after getting the Axe FX II. It seems super obvious now, but I didn't see it coming...

Basically if you look at each major amp category or family, the various amps in that category are all almost the same thing with minor differences. Just a variation on a theme.

I’m not trying to be a downer, this is just an observation.

In the last five years I went nuts on a boutique/vintage amp odyssey.

I started studying and I spent a lot of time on The Gear Page. I would hear about an amp, look it up online, read up on it in the forums, do an image search and look at pictures, watch videos etc.

Then I would get one, play it, record it, gig with it and I would say "O.K., I got it..."
Then I would do it all over again.

It was fun and I learned a lot. I know exactly what I like and I can articulate it. It was an education.

Some of my favorites were: TopHat Emplexador, Handwired Vox AC30, Budda Stringmaster, Matchless Independence, Roccaforte Custom 80, Fargen Olde 800, David Bray modded 1987x etc.
They all had a magical aura about them.

So... when I got the Fractal with three hundred amps at my fingertips I would play a note or chord and click through the presets as it rang out.
I would hear it would go "eee, ahhh, oooh, rrrr" and my world just shrunk... Some of the magic seemed to fade...

The amps in any given category are almost all the same thing with just some subtle differences!

When 300 amps are a click away there is a perspective I now have that I didn't before.

I know... DUH! "You just figured that out"?!

I knew it before, but not like I know it now.

It's fun trying the different modeled amps but I find myself saying "oh yeah, another Marshall with a different midrange focus, a little more gain and a little different texture to the breakup in the low end".

I guess there is a lot of marketing hype and myth making surrounding many of these amps that I fell for.

I still love them but, what to do...?

I guess make the best presets I can, learn more about what makes a particular amp special, but more importantly get to work and use them to make some great inspired music.

Anybody else have a similar experience after getting an Axe Fx?

 

[deathbyguitar]

Yeah,that's pretty much the case. Seems like there's hardly any totally original amp designs. Everyone is just kinda piggybacking on what Fender and Marshall did way back when. Heck, the first Mesa Mark series was just a Fender Princeton with more gain stages. Amp designers seem to be content reinventing the wheel over and over again. I use 2 or 3 amp models for everything and call it a day.

 

[Toowoombaus]

Yeah,that's pretty much the case. Seems like there's hardly any totally original amp designs. Everyone is just kinda piggybacking on what Fender and Marshall did way back when. Heck, the first Mesa Mark series was just a Fender Princeton with more gain stages. Amp designers seem to be content reinventing the wheel over and over again. I use 2 or 3 amp models for everything and call it a day.

Yes but some of the “twists” have been ground breaking like your example of Mesa. The cascaded gain in the preamp was a gamechanger.
Think of all the fuzz pedals created trying to get more gain, all of the high volume playing, using variacs... just to get more gain.
So actually the search produced some interesting things that have become part of the palette of guitar tones.

There is still plenty of fun to be had. I love being able to use two amps at the same time filling in different parts of the spectrum.
I always did it with tube amps but doing it with the Fractal is like having a tone Lab.
Loving it.

 

[lauke-lux]

O.K., newbie here
Anybody else have a similar experience after getting an Axe Fx?

Not at all...but just because I stuck to a few amps right from the start and beyond some small experimentation rarely get out of that corner. Your observation strenghtens me in the conviction that what counts is the time you spend playing, more than tweaking (even if it's important also to work your sound).

 

[Jimmytwotimes]

Why do different guitar players sound so different then, you might ask.. IMHO, this brings more justification to " tone is all in the hands" debate..
Why when I play a silver jub, I sound like me - or a mark IV or a Freidman or tweed - I sound like me. The amp provides the ambiance... more or less to my technique - or lack thereof....

 

[deathbyguitar]

Why do different guitar players sound so different then, you might ask.. IMHO, this brings more justification to " tone is all in the hands" debate..

I always loved that quote. While of course a good amount of tone comes from someone's hands/technique and so on (Wes Montgomery's callused thumb comes to mind), I'd love to see someone make an AC-30 sound like a Rectifier.

 

[Toowoombaus]

Why do different guitar players sound so different then, you might ask.. IMHO, this brings more justification to " tone is all in the hands" debate..
Why when I play a silver jub, I sound like me - or a mark IV or a Freidman or tweed - I sound like me. The amp provides the ambiance... more or less to my technique - or lack thereof....

Yeah I sound like "me" but the genre of amp and context/environment can inspire different kinds of playing from me.

Yeah that sounds like "me" playing a Tweed Deluxe, Yeah that sounds like "me" playing a Friedman, Yeah that sounds like "me" playing a Vox.

I always loved that quote. While of course a good amount of tone comes from someone's hands/technique and so on (Wes Montgomery's callused thumb comes to mind), I'd love to see someone make an AC-30 sound like a Rectifier.

Good point. Plug into an AC30 and yeah, Metal wouldn't be my first choice because of the inherent tone of a Vox, it calls something else from you. You still sound like you, just another part of you.

Remember that commercial from the 80's "This is your brain on drugs" and they crack an egg and drop it into a frying pan?

Amps are kinda like drugs... This is your brain on Diezel, This is your brain on Tweed Champ, This is your brain on Morgan AC20.

 

[chucma]

I had a revalation after getting the Axe FX II. It seems super obvious now, but I didn't see it coming...

This is a good sign. To reassure you, there is ALWAYS something obvious to learn with the Axe FX, it's all part of how these different components fit together. There are so many options (Amps, Cabs, Drives, other effects) and different combinations of each result in different tones - so you cannot simply know how they will all interact with each other without going through some sort of learning curve. Even if you were Joe Bonamassa himself!

What I love about the Axe FX is that when you combine these different components, then they tend to react like their real world counterparts would do.

 

[FusionFanatic]

With electric guitar, you can get everything from crystal clean to nasty and mean, and everything inbetween. What do you want a amp to sound like? Marshall’s and Fender’s are the benchmarks of tone. So other manufacturers build their amps based off these platforms. Mesa has their thing going on, and so does Vox. Everything else is somewhat similar to these four. And, you will always sound like you because 70% of it is really in the hands

 

[chucma]

Good point. Plug into an AC30 and yeah, Metal wouldn't be my first choice because of the inherent tone of a Vox, it calls something else from you. You still sound like you, just another part of you.

Also try out the AC15 as well! It has been my go to amp in the Axe FX for nearly 5 years now. I find the AC15 is more generous with those beautiful VOX chimes than its bigger brothers. This might just be with my setup, but it has remained consistent for me for a long time running.

 

[AlGrenadine]

I always loved that quote. While of course a good amount of tone comes from someone's hands/technique and so on (Wes Montgomery's callused thumb comes to mind), I'd love to see someone make an AC-30 sound like a Rectifier.

Not impossible on the axefx

 

[Toowoombaus]

Also try out the AC15 as well! It has been my go to amp in the Axe FX for nearly 5 years now. I find the AC15 is more generous with those beautiful VOX chimes than its bigger brothers. This might just be with my setup, but it has remained consistent for me for a long time running.

I checked it out but I need to get some good Vox IR's because these stock ones and the gift pack ones aren't doing it for me.
I've had handwired Vox amps in "the real world" and they were some of my favorites.
I checked out some of those ML demos and they sound good.

But your right AC15's are sweet and chimey and they give up the goods sooner than their big brothers.

 

[dr bonkers]

I checked it out but I need to get some good Vox IR's because these stock ones and the gift pack ones aren't doing it for me.
I've had handwired Vox amps in "the real world" and they were some of my favorites.
I checked out some of those ML demos and they sound good.

But your right AC15's are sweet and chimey and they give up the goods sooner than their big brothers.

I've got a Vox AC-10 cab IR that gives up the Vox goods without being ice picky or boomy.

https://www.drbonkerssoundlab.com/p...lume-9-vac-1x10-guitar-cabinet-ir-collection/

 

[Toowoombaus]

Thanks Doc!

 

[unix-guy]

I checked it out but I need to get some good Vox IR's because these stock ones and the gift pack ones aren't doing it for me.
I've had handwired Vox amps in "the real world" and they were some of my favorites.
I checked out some of those ML demos and they sound good.

But your right AC15's are sweet and chimey and they give up the goods sooner than their big brothers.

There are a handful of nice free Vox IRs from @indeloon85. I've been using them for several years (with many Amp models).

 

[Clockwork Creep]

I'd say, there are, like ~10 different amp types in the fractal, that are so different that I can't justify calling them "A slight variation of the same".
For example, the 5150 and Rectifier, the Mark 4, and the friedman, and the plexi, they all have such a huge difference in gain structure and vibe...

 

[Toowoombaus]

I'd say, there are, like ~10 different amp types in the fractal, that are so different that I can't justify calling them "A slight variation of the same".
For example, the 5150 and Rectifier, the Mark 4, and the friedman, and the plexi, they all have such a huge difference in gain structure and vibe...

Yeah, I know... details. But the macro view is what I’m referring to.

A Friedman is a Plexi with more gain and a different EQ footprint, and the 5150 is based on Ed’s Plexi with even more gain and other tweaks but all are different takes on a Marshall.

Mesa Recto is a little bit different because Mesa came from hot rodding Fenders but most people believe that the Recto design was “taken” from the Soldano SLO and the first Soldanos were 1959SLP's so Marshall again...

This is just my opinion, how I see most amps fall into several camps with people remaking their versions of the classics with a twist.

It sounds like your taking a micro viewpoint and when I look at all the amps that way sure, I can see lots of differences between them.

And I love ‘em all!

 

[Rex]

I guess there is a lot of marketing hype and myth making surrounding many of these amps that I fell for.

There is a lot of marketing hype and myth-making in all things guitar. If I had a penny for every time a gear manufacturer used the term "legendary" to describe their products...

Every circuit in a tube amp can be found in early editions of the RCA Receiving Tube Manual, published before World War II. It's all variations on the same stuff. Some wonderful and fascinating variations, but still more similar than not.

 

[Toowoombaus]

There is a lot of marketing hype and myth-making in all things guitar. If I had a penny for every time a gear manufacturer used the term "legendary" to describe their products...

Every circuit in a tube amp can be found in early editions of the RCA Receiving Tube Manual, published before World War II. It's all variations on the same stuff. Some wonderful and fascinating variations, but still more similar than not.

Yes the RCA Tube Manual...

I’m finding some wonderful differences that are quite surprising.
I’m learning so much more about tube amplifiers by reading the manual descriptions of all of the controls, that’s really exciting!

Thanks Rex!

 

[Muad'zin]

O.K., newbie here.

I had a revalation after getting the Axe FX II. It seems super obvious now, but I didn't see it coming...

Basically if you look at each major amp category or family, the various amps in that category are all almost the same thing with minor differences. Just a variation on a theme.

I’m not trying to be a downer, this is just an observation.

In the last five years I went nuts on a boutique/vintage amp odyssey.

I started studying and I spent a lot of time on The Gear Page. I would hear about an amp, look it up online, read up on it in the forums, do an image search and look at pictures, watch videos etc.

That's where you went wrong. It's a silly place. No good comes from hanging out at that place, except maybe selling gear.

Anybody else have a similar experience after getting an Axe Fx?

I pretty much never cared about finding tone. My first amp was a silverfaced Fender Twin and I've loved that clean tone ever since. I became a clean amp with pedals for dirt ever since. Building DIY pedals became a hobby of mine and over time I realized that the dirt sound I liked most was a Marshall sound. Ever since getting the Axe I only use a Fender and a Marshall amp model. Occasionally a Mesa model for overdubs when recording or a Vox for when I feel U2ish. Almost all of the 300 amp models I've barely even tried, nor do I plan to try them. Maybe I should, but I just can't be arsed.

Yeah,that's pretty much the case. Seems like there's hardly any totally original amp designs. Everyone is just kinda piggybacking on what Fender and Marshall did way back when. Heck, the first Mesa Mark series was just a Fender Princeton with more gain stages. Amp designers seem to be content reinventing the wheel over and over again. I use 2 or 3 amp models for everything and call it a day.