I used to tweak my Standard quite a lot. I didn't use the factory presets much, or at least modified them heavily to suit my playing and gear. Particularly so, the gainier the sound I was going for. Now the Axe-Fx II comes with nearly 400 presets of which barely a handful don't sound very, very good to me completely plug and play, just my Parker and my Genelecs.
In the first week, I've done practically zero tweaking apart from some testing and, for instance, adding a distortion pedal before the amps in preset #128, "Back Line" to get a nice chewy, heavy sound from what was a nice, crunchy, punchy rock distortion sound. The pedal? "Rat Dist", the first one in the list, just lowered the drive and upped the level and didn't feel I needed to do anything more.
Got to play the unit at a studio control room and really open it up for the first time last night. The acoustic treatment there was measured and approved by Genelec engineers, so one wouldn't be overstating in saying it's a "decent" sounding space. Over a course of hours, I went once through the presets with my friend and we were just amazed by how good it almost every patch sounded. We tried a Parker Fly, a Les Paul and a Tele and each was equally matched by this unit.
Can't say how amazed I am with where this technology has gotten. Wow.
(Even the fan noise isn't that bothersome when you're playing fairly loud and the unit is tucked into a rack under the studio's desk. Pity I can't replicate the placement or the volume at home.)
In the first week, I've done practically zero tweaking apart from some testing and, for instance, adding a distortion pedal before the amps in preset #128, "Back Line" to get a nice chewy, heavy sound from what was a nice, crunchy, punchy rock distortion sound. The pedal? "Rat Dist", the first one in the list, just lowered the drive and upped the level and didn't feel I needed to do anything more.
Got to play the unit at a studio control room and really open it up for the first time last night. The acoustic treatment there was measured and approved by Genelec engineers, so one wouldn't be overstating in saying it's a "decent" sounding space. Over a course of hours, I went once through the presets with my friend and we were just amazed by how good it almost every patch sounded. We tried a Parker Fly, a Les Paul and a Tele and each was equally matched by this unit.
Can't say how amazed I am with where this technology has gotten. Wow.
(Even the fan noise isn't that bothersome when you're playing fairly loud and the unit is tucked into a rack under the studio's desk. Pity I can't replicate the placement or the volume at home.)