Troy Kelly
New Member
I'm New to AX8. Using it as a front of amp pedal board only, in front of a Matchless Lightning 15 (no effects loop). I love the gain structure and tone and simplicity of the amp. I prefer having a loud amp behind me when I play, despite over a year of using a Helix with no amp on stage, only in my IEM mix, direct to FOH. I had to go back to a live Amp sound that I can feel in my chest, since the band does not use on stage monitoring at all, but strictly IEM.
I wanted AX8 to replace my analog pedal board. And mistakenly thought it had true bypass which is only in the FX8 apparently. My typical pedal board consists of Tube Screamer, delay, univibe, tremolo, etc.
First thing I noticed plugging the AX8 into my amp with no effects activated was a drastic change in tone.
The bass disappeared and the high end was off the charts not to mention a considerable hum.
What causes this drastic change in tone?
Is it the impedance setting? Is it one of the effects I've put in a block even though it's turned off?
With the Helix for example I found that setting the impedance to 1m and removing any reverb effects from the chain mysteriously fixed this and got me as close to true bypass as my ears can tell. Does the AX8 have a similar trick to save my amp tone and still use the AX8 as pedal board only? Is there a best practice to accomplish this?
I do play at least one gig a month where I have to use the amp modeler for a specific reason, which is why I chose the AX8 over the FX8. In the first day I found at least 3 amp model presets that blew away anything I found in the Helix after 2 years of playing with it.
I'm not a gear head, or an electrical engineer, I just want to play music.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
I wanted AX8 to replace my analog pedal board. And mistakenly thought it had true bypass which is only in the FX8 apparently. My typical pedal board consists of Tube Screamer, delay, univibe, tremolo, etc.
First thing I noticed plugging the AX8 into my amp with no effects activated was a drastic change in tone.
The bass disappeared and the high end was off the charts not to mention a considerable hum.
What causes this drastic change in tone?
Is it the impedance setting? Is it one of the effects I've put in a block even though it's turned off?
With the Helix for example I found that setting the impedance to 1m and removing any reverb effects from the chain mysteriously fixed this and got me as close to true bypass as my ears can tell. Does the AX8 have a similar trick to save my amp tone and still use the AX8 as pedal board only? Is there a best practice to accomplish this?
I do play at least one gig a month where I have to use the amp modeler for a specific reason, which is why I chose the AX8 over the FX8. In the first day I found at least 3 amp model presets that blew away anything I found in the Helix after 2 years of playing with it.
I'm not a gear head, or an electrical engineer, I just want to play music.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.