onebaldbloke
Inspired
For those interested, here's a temporary & admittedly not very elegant workaround for me & what I perceived to be a transient (I dare not utter the "C" word") element I found lacking in the Axe. If this post doesn't interest you, for the sake of others here & in the hope of open discussion & avoiding deletion, I ask that you refrain from insults or attacks on my own observations, which may be different from yours. And yes, even my own Family think that I am a trouble maker! Such is life.
My (hopefully temporary) solution, which is neither earth-shattering nor original, is to use various stomp boxes in series (Ivan Richards, mostly) before the Axe/clean amp (e.g Rich Blues into Rich Drive). This had been the basis of my tone pre-Axe for about 10 years, anyway. This is what you hear if you whack on my web site, like it or not. The problem is that this setup precludes me from using the Axe for distortion. Shock! Horror! So, I've gone back in time a little, & now have a 12 audio loops RJM switching thingy (I sold my SwitchBlade last year when I got the Axe), with a dozen stomp boxes rack mounted & connected to it, & switch between these boxes (or combinations thereof), always ending with the Axe on a clean setting (SVT, AC30 etc) through this week's fave IR. FWIW, ages ago when I posted that the RedWirez IR's had more "attack" to my ears than the Fractal ones, I did not get insulted.
To re-iterate - this is NOT an elegant solution, nor does the Axe now replace everything in a nice little two unit housing (it's back up to 6, bugger it!) but it does return to me the "transient response" I believe to be missing. It's always been about my tone to me, anyway (not copying someone else's), not convenience.
So far, this is really good, though I can't really approximate any particular amp's distortion, because it's Ivan's boxes (in my case) that are doing that. This is no doubt a terrible thing for others, but is not at all bad for me, as I don't have the burning desire to copy or replace "real amps" with the Axe, I just want to get a tone I like, whatever that ends up sounding like. It's all cultural & subjective, after all.
Even Sir Belew (a man I truly & deeply admire) once used as his main sound a BigMuff/Foxx into a clean JC120, I believe.
(And of course, you can hear that little Boss compressor on at all times - er, until he got his Axe!)
I seem to recall Jimmy Page saying that his sound was really just a Tone Bender, presumably running into a cleanish amp. Having seen & heard him live in 1972, this sounds correct. Not that what old JP does is that dear to me; it only serves to illuminate that "amp distortion" has not always been the foundation of "good tone". I suspect that the same, for example, may have been true of Clapton during the Marshall stacks era Cream - because that also sounds like a lot of "stomp box" distortion to me (FuzzFace, ToneBender etc). I have owned many 60's Marshalls, Fenders etc, & they certainly didn't sound like that without a stomp box before them! Also, I have been able to work with some great/famous producers, & they concur on this, though it's still my own ears that I trust, always.
However, this post is not intended to start an argument on those old British blokes' equipment, so I'll stop that here.
On a personal note, thanks to those of you who PM'd & emailed me in support of my posts in the deleted thread.
Over,
Bob.
My (hopefully temporary) solution, which is neither earth-shattering nor original, is to use various stomp boxes in series (Ivan Richards, mostly) before the Axe/clean amp (e.g Rich Blues into Rich Drive). This had been the basis of my tone pre-Axe for about 10 years, anyway. This is what you hear if you whack on my web site, like it or not. The problem is that this setup precludes me from using the Axe for distortion. Shock! Horror! So, I've gone back in time a little, & now have a 12 audio loops RJM switching thingy (I sold my SwitchBlade last year when I got the Axe), with a dozen stomp boxes rack mounted & connected to it, & switch between these boxes (or combinations thereof), always ending with the Axe on a clean setting (SVT, AC30 etc) through this week's fave IR. FWIW, ages ago when I posted that the RedWirez IR's had more "attack" to my ears than the Fractal ones, I did not get insulted.
To re-iterate - this is NOT an elegant solution, nor does the Axe now replace everything in a nice little two unit housing (it's back up to 6, bugger it!) but it does return to me the "transient response" I believe to be missing. It's always been about my tone to me, anyway (not copying someone else's), not convenience.
So far, this is really good, though I can't really approximate any particular amp's distortion, because it's Ivan's boxes (in my case) that are doing that. This is no doubt a terrible thing for others, but is not at all bad for me, as I don't have the burning desire to copy or replace "real amps" with the Axe, I just want to get a tone I like, whatever that ends up sounding like. It's all cultural & subjective, after all.
Even Sir Belew (a man I truly & deeply admire) once used as his main sound a BigMuff/Foxx into a clean JC120, I believe.
(And of course, you can hear that little Boss compressor on at all times - er, until he got his Axe!)
I seem to recall Jimmy Page saying that his sound was really just a Tone Bender, presumably running into a cleanish amp. Having seen & heard him live in 1972, this sounds correct. Not that what old JP does is that dear to me; it only serves to illuminate that "amp distortion" has not always been the foundation of "good tone". I suspect that the same, for example, may have been true of Clapton during the Marshall stacks era Cream - because that also sounds like a lot of "stomp box" distortion to me (FuzzFace, ToneBender etc). I have owned many 60's Marshalls, Fenders etc, & they certainly didn't sound like that without a stomp box before them! Also, I have been able to work with some great/famous producers, & they concur on this, though it's still my own ears that I trust, always.
However, this post is not intended to start an argument on those old British blokes' equipment, so I'll stop that here.
On a personal note, thanks to those of you who PM'd & emailed me in support of my posts in the deleted thread.
Over,
Bob.
" for enlightening us with your perspective. 
