Acceptance of axe fx from others

barhrecords said:
If you are doing a show and your biggest worry is about whether or not the crowd is accepting of a guitar modeler, not sure what to make of that lol

One of the biggest pluses of the AxeFx II is that you don't have to worry about pedal board patch cables, batteries, tubes not seated, dirty pots and a million other gotcha's that plague analog rigs that are used heavily.
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This!
 
Ive had more compliments (both sounds guys and musicians) running my axe rig through the FOH then i ever had with my tube amps (i have had some really nice tube rigs over the years) and I don't have to be yelled at to turn down. Stage volume and mixes couldnt be better these days plus I can carry everything in one trip, Guitar, 4 space Rack Bag and pedal bag.

Other bands can snicker all they want but after they hear my tone the look on there face normally changes. I'm on and off stage with all my gear in 3min so I can sit back and relax as I watch them load in all there big and heavy amps and cabs.

We don't travel light we travel "SMART"
 
What's funny is that when you spend your life in this forum, you forget that not everyone out there has an Axe... The bass player and I run cross field on stage so our cabs aren't really even visible from the front. We use those for stage monitoring only and so I have something to jack feedback from. My Axe is in a rack bag on top of my cab and a pedal board in front of me and run direct to FOH. I fit everything in my Civic Hybrid :). I *love* when other musicians stand in the back of a club with their arms crossed trying to find fault with everything and then never say a word to you... That's how you know you've shut them up. Occasionally I get the die hards that just won't let it go about tube amps - those are the same guys who think a points ignition is far superior to a magnetic crank trigger.
 
FractalAudio said:
Who cares? You'll have the better tone and that's all that matters. And you won't break your back getting that tone.
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Yes indeed! I don't play live but if I did, I wouldn't give a damn about what people think about my rig. :lol

Marcus Siepen said:
True, but those people are ignorant idiots, why should I (or anybody else) worry about their opinion? I know exactly what "my" sound is, I used to have my 2 Tripple Rectifier stacks on tour, together with my Les Pauls they perfectly deliver what I want. "Unfortunately" my band is touring world wide, so a lot of flying is involved, and you don't take this kind of backline with you on a flight, the weight is way to high. And here comes my Axe-Fx, it does the job as well. So as long as I can get my sound, I am happy, I would plug my guitar into a coffee machine if it delivers my sound ;-) And if somebody thinks that the Axe FX is not good enough, well, nobody is forced to use it. But only talking bad about it cause it is no tube amp is stupid.
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Yes I agree on that:encouragement:

By the way, Does Andre or anyone else in the band use the Axe or just you? Blind Guardian rocks and I'm looking forward to the eventual new album as always!
 
hey Scott, let us know when and where you're playing out?
thanks and have a great time!


scottburrow said:
I think people just think I have money or something. I just got my equipment appraised and insured so I can start playing Clubs and He valued my playing rig around $6.000 dollars. around 9.000 with my other guitars. So they see all this stuff in racks and wonder what the heck is all this stuff, wheres your head, its in the rack, what?????

I love it.

To be honest, its so easy from my perspective to show it off, because it sounds so freaking good. I just created a Princeton tone last night, with a little reverb and delay and a wah. Man, I couldn't stop playing it.

This band I'm starting on Friday, really loves R-N-B so we are starting with Sir Duke, superstition, the Power of love and some Taylor swift song and lastly some ZZ-Top. A pretty eclectic bunch of tunes. I can't wait.

So, no. Once they hear it, they are almost instantly converted. They just can't afford it, Yet...
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James said:
Yes indeed! I don't play live but if I did, I wouldn't give a damn about what people think about my rig. :lol



Yes I agree on that:encouragement:

By the way, Does Andre or anyone else in the band use the Axe or just you? Blind Guardian rocks and I'm looking forward to the eventual new album as always!
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We use pretty similar setups, he has his Engl amps and an Axe FX 2, I have my Mesas and my Axe FX 2, so we can handle any situation without problems. And about this visual aspect of having a huge backline on stage, we stopped having amps and cabs visible on stage in the 90s already, it only interferes with projections and videos ;-)
 
I've been playing with a rack mounting FX unit through a poweramp since the mid 90's

Roland GP-16
then
Digitech 2120
then
Roland VG-99
then
the mighty Axe-II

my poweramp was [until recently] a Marshall 8008
and is now a Matrix GT1000FX

I have absolutely NEVER had a complaint about my tone
in fact.. and to the contrary..
the guitarists in the crowd have mostly been very complimentary
with the occasional - "holy sht dude what is that you're running up there, cos it's blown me away"

since I got into all the tone morph crap I do, I've been kinda railroaded away from trad amps and stomps
cos they just cannot deliver what I need..
within a week of owning the GP-16 I realised that there was no turning back..
 
One good thing about getting older (turning 50 in my case) is that i care less and less about what other people think.
It's SO LIBERATING. I'm a free man.
A couple of guys i work with (similar age to me) are so hung-up on what other people think about their so-called 'image' that it affects their choices.
They are slaves to a bygone era.
Another thing, my FOH engineer LOVES me!
 
Have had to deal with various negativity in rehearsals and the like, but that's due to using FRFR v the other guitarist having the amp in the room. An actual amp in the room (or rather, an actual cab) is always going to win when no PA is involved. Hence I've now got a cab to sort that out.

However, when it came to us doing a proper gig, I just gave the sound guy a line, and it took about 30 seconds to adjust levels and I was done. No EQ. And it just sounded killer out front. Works for me!
 
There are always people who think that something other than a tube amp for live sound is unacceptable. I have zero concern for those opinions as I use both and love the sound I get. As long as the listening and buying public have no problem I have no problem.
 
ArrowHead said:
I've noticed over many years that the local Guitar Centers have a tendency - whenever someone brings in a guitar, even a piece of junk, as soon as they take it out all the employees go "Oh WOW man, that thing is SOOOO AWESOME!". Even when I recently traded in a completely unremarkable lefty Ibanez RG (a 5ex1, which was a cheap GC only run) everyone in the store ran over and remarked how awesome it is. I've gotten the clear impression that it's blatant sarcasm/patronization.
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Yea, until you want to sell it back to them and they offer you as little as possible...

And back on topic... nobody has ever really hassled me about it or anything. When I first switched from my Boss GT-8 the leader of the band asked me about it, but was pretty much stoked at my new sound ;-) Our soundman only really asked me one question: "how much was your rig?" ;-)

Other than that, nobody even really notices. People ask me about my guitars, people tell me I don't play Crazy Train right (LOL), but nobody asks about my backline.
 
Mewcenary said:
An actual amp in the room (or rather, an actual cab) is always going to win when no PA is involved. Hence I've now got a cab to sort that out.
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Not having gigged yet with just the backline, this is very interesting to me Mewcenary. I do use use guitar cabs w/out cab sims - as you can see below, and am looking at FRFR to get the cab sim sound for these small gigs. But you think in fact it's better to stick with the guitar cabs for these smaller gigs?
 
A guy wanted to get in an arguement with me at one of our festival shows a few weekends ago. My other guitarist uses an Eleven rack because he cant afford a Axe FXII but he got a killer deal on it. One of the stage hands comes up to me like 'well it looks like you guys have the battle of the processors going on'. I went along with it, I thought he was stating that Fractal trumps Avid in this department and then he goes.

"Avid wins. They make consoles. They have been doing this a whole lot longer". I tried to explain it to him and then he just kept going on and on.

We got done playing and he came up to me and was like ".....alright. Thats the first time that I can say the Fractal wins"
 
Hugomack said:
Not having gigged yet with just the backline, this is very interesting to me Mewcenary. I do use use guitar cabs w/out cab sims - as you can see below, and am looking at FRFR to get the cab sim sound for these small gigs. But you think in fact it's better to stick with the guitar cabs for these smaller gigs?
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Whenever I have gigged with the Axe FX, it has been with a FRFR monitor wedge, and then going into FOH. So I have not done the 'cabs only' style gig with it. Yet!

So, FRFR has worked great for me in that situation. What the wedge gives me, is exactly what is out front. No surprises.

However, in band rehearsals there is no PA being used like that, and to me it has been VERY noticeable that a FRFR sound is simply not on a par with an actual guitar amp in the same room. And of course, why would it be? The FRFR approach is by its very nature like having my guitar cab miced up in a separate room, and playing that sound into the rehearsal room.

As a result, if I was doing a small gig where it was vocals only in the PA, I'd take a cab.
 
Mewcenary said:
Whenever I have gigged with the Axe FX, it has been with a FRFR monitor wedge, and then going into FOH. So I have not done the 'cabs only' style gig with it. Yet!

So, FRFR has worked great for me in that situation. What the wedge gives me, is exactly what is out front. No surprises.

However, in band rehearsals there is no PA being used like that, and to me it has been VERY noticeable that a FRFR sound is simply not on a par with an actual guitar amp in the same room. And of course, why would it be? The FRFR approach is by its very nature like having my guitar cab miced up in a separate room, and playing that sound into the rehearsal room.

As a result, if I was doing a small gig where it was vocals only in the PA, I'd take a cab.
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Hey man - you may have saved me a lot of money!!
 
My usual problem is meeting expectations of the sound guys or other senior players. The sound guy eyes my rack and says, "Oh, we have a pro here today". He usually cuts me a lot of slack when I tell him where to plug in and is good about helping to setup sound. Lots of time I run a wireless rig so I can walk to the back, stand next to him and discuss how we think it should sound while I am playing. Problem is they expect me to sound like a total pro. What they don't realize is I am just lazy and don't like carrying around a big tube rig with a giant pedal board.
Most of the other guitarists have not see an AFX and wonder if it's an Eleven Rack or something. They never heard of or saw a AFX. I have had a few look at my MFC-101 and ask what kind of Multi-FX pedal it was. They see me selecting patches and how I will get a total sound change. Often they assume the AFX is the amp, or they start looking for the amp. They assume I have a Boss or Line6 or something MFX pedal. Lots of puzzled faces, but in the end, a good time by all.
 
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