2nd Day with Axe II

G

Glen Sorrentino

Inspired
OK, so here is goes. Most everyone has done a great job regarding new features as well as sound. I think i'll stick with commenting on sound.

1st off. I am not a clean tone player. I do 80s metal mainly. I have struggled to get pristine harmonic thick crunch and singing clean lead tones for a decade. I am blessed to have a great FRFR system with the focal 6be's. This removes any artifact from my observations because what i hear is only what the axe fx has to produce.

From my initial observations i see and hear several improvements. 1) the organic amp response is now high definition and can be felt greatly as well as heard. 2) dial up is fast and arriving at great tones takes just several minutes. 3) string definition is greatly enhanced and just beautiful. 4) harmonic seem to jump off the finger board now. 5) frequencies across the spectrum are defined and balanced. 6) sustain is easily had. 7) unwound strings feel and sound thicker and less "tinty". 8) Room presence and " amp in the room" is certainly obvious now. 9) the guitars volume control cleans up like never before and remains pleasing.10) The sound of your wife's voice complaining that you don't spend time with her is greatly augmented.

I plan to add to this after dinner. Peace Out!
 
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I wanna Rock!

[/QUOTE]The sound of your wife's voice complaining that you don't spend time with her is greatly augmented.

That is a nice feature. :p

Glen, do you have an idea what amplification/live rig you would use?
I didn't know this product existed six months ago, now, I'm pretty sure this is the path to tonal nirvana. From reading your comments, it sure sounds like it:D
 
OK, back to it. Dinner is over and the 2 shots of Patron are kicking in. So forgive me for the flight of ideas, It's the Patron!

I have had the opportunity now to blast through all the presets. I have tweaked several and could not wipe the saliva off my guitar fast enough.

The Cliffs of Dover patch was able to turn my super bright hardwood maple super strat into dark EJ goodness. I find it exceptional that the tone shaping with the EQ's allows this kind of a transformation from such a starting point. I tend to reduce the Sag and crank the master. I removed some dampening and reduce the drive and deepened the reverb. Sounds " bell-like". I'm confident with some additional tweaks that grabbing Eric's tone can be acheieved. I am interested to see how people work with this patch. It will be fun to see.

Next, believe it or not, I tweaked the METAL amp. One of my favs since the ULTRA. I think its called Cheese METAL. Well, I turned the cheese into Feta with a snap of Parmesan Reggiano with the 4x12 Cali and SM57 and some amp block EQ tweaks and setting the tone stack to Pre. I plan to perfect this patch to elevate the cheese factor and give it the respect it deserves. Hey, who cut the Limberger?

On a more serious note, i am pleased with the EVH Circa 1982. There is warmth and percussive punch. You can't help but play the celebrated Panama opener and ease back the volume control for the interlude.

In general, many of the presets are an easier jumping off point than with the Gen I. I plan to make some of my own presets soon and give some feedback. My older presets are quite involved but i sense this rational can now be abandoned in light of the improvements.

Before the Patron peaks, I'll leave everyone with a fitting quote " Better to keep your mouth shut and let people think your stupid then to open it and remove all doubt".
 
In response to JazzRockBluesFunk:

I don't have any real suggestions for live other than i would be satisfied playing direct to the PA if the PA was worthy. Unfortunately, i do not play live but am more of a bedroom rock hero- in my minds eye of course! I plan to look into gigging gear because i have become increasingly displeased with the music industries mainstream genre and force-feading us guitar empty music.

I might have to take it upon myself to get out in public again and ram the age of guitar back again out to masses who don't know any better. Only trouble is in 10 years i will be pushing 50 and kind of prefer that the younger generation "take the saddle." It is time again for the general public to "poney- up" to some real music that is guitar-centric. I suspect guitar will be reinvented and find its place again in the mainstream in 1-2 generations because of gear like the axe fx which is helping many talented people perfect the art.
 
FractalAudio said:
I'm in the market for some new monitors and have been leaning towards Focals.
Click to expand...

Many manufacturers boost the treble to make their monitors sound more "detailed". You can usually turn it down, but you have to be aware of it when doing A/B comparisons.

Check out the Barefoots if you get a chance. The K&H O300s are also nice, but they're pretty old now. I have no vested interest, and I don't own either of these brands.
 
Glen Sorrentino said:
OK, so here is goes. Most everyone has done a great job regarding new features as well as sound. I think i'll stick with commenting on sound.

1st off. I am not a clean tone player. I do 80s metal mainly. I have struggled to get pristine harmonic thick crunch and singing clean lead tones for a decade. I am blessed to have a great FRFR system with the focal 6be's. This removes any artifact from my observations because what i hear is only what the axe fx has to produce.

From my initial observations i see and hear several improvements. 1) the organic amp response is now high definition and can be felt greatly as well as heard. 2) dial up is fast and arriving at great tones takes just several minutes. 3) string definition is greatly enhanced and just beautiful. 4) harmonic seem to jump off the finger board now. 5) frequencies across the spectrum are defined and balanced. 6) sustain is easily had. 7) unwound strings feel and sound thicker and less "tinty". 8) Room presence and " amp in the room" is certainly obvious now. 9) the guitars volume control cleans up like never before and remains pleasing.10) The sound of your wife's voice complaining that you don't spend time with her is greatly augmented.

I plan to add to this after dinner. Peace Out!
Click to expand...

Do you have the Twins(3 way) or the Solos (2way) 6 BE's?
 
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FractalAudio said:
I'm in the market for some new monitors and have been leaning towards Focals. This validates my impressions.
Click to expand...
I own Focal CMS 50, those are so transparent, what you ear is what you get!! The best monitors I ever own for mixing. Pure joy!! Got for it Cliff, you won't be dissapoint.
 
I have the solo Focal 6bes. The twins are great but more costly. They get plenty loud and for a medium sized room will really crank when you want. I leave them flat. I don't even use balance cabling because the distance is short. I go 1/4" to XLR. I play itunes through them. With better ADA converters than the mac ,music sounds much improved.

Whats interesting and most phenomenal with these, is every time i get a better piece of equipment, it sounds as if the speakers improve when the reality is- ITs really the equipment! Translation to the recording for me sounds exact. What you hear through the monitors will be what you get on the recordings. I have played many monitors which add a ittle here and take a little there and sound just as beautiful if not better but won't translate at all to the recordings. I like that these speak the truth. They will not glam up your sound. If your rig settings sound like crap its because it is. If it sounds great, its because it is. You don't need to be a recording export with these because learning how to translate a monitor to recordings is a variable that is removed with these.

You can hear some high gain soloing/noodling on youtube with these at sorreng71. I left some clips months ago recorded with my cheezy canon vixia. Yes, thats right, i used a pathetic camera mic. Use headphones to listen to this rather than just your computer speakers to do it some justice. The truth is, this sounds way better in the room even. Now with the Axe II, the sound is awsome and i will have to do some better clips since this was the Ultra.
 
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FractalAudio said:
I'm in the market for some new monitors and have been leaning towards Focals. This validates my impressions.
Click to expand...

OT

I have the focal Solo 6Be also.

The good:

1.Very low distortion . less than 0.05 from 100Hz upwards. Measured with Win MLS using angelo farina's method
2. they really go down to 40Hz with wall coupling.
3.They go louder than your neighbors will tolerate.

The Bad:
1.There is a 1.5 dB dip at the crossover frequency which is around 2.2KHz. For guitars tones that is something to be careful about cause that frequency is critical
2.The 1.5 dB dip + the Low distortion+ the otherwise flat spectrum will make guitars surprisingly softer in the mix.First time I heard "sad but true " from Metallica I was shocked at how more buried the guitars sounded.

But the focal Solo6 Be are like fractal.. You get more that you paid for.;)
 
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Just another data point, I have Adam A7X's and they are very good... did not A/B with Focals... I know from other speaker building projects (all home brew, triode VT-52s etc.) that Focal makes VERY good drivers (mid range and tweeters)...

my 2c
 
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Always wanted to try the Adam A7s. Fortunately, there are a lot of good options really. Its too bad monitors are so pricey, it makes it hard to take the plunge. I can only speak for the Focals since i listen to them daily. I think most people that would cave in and get them will probably not be disappointed.
 
Glen,

You should be a writer! Great review. Clear, concise, entertaining... all the goods! (Some of the guitar mags out there are in desperate need of these qualities!)

Cheers.
 
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