Alex Lifeson's tech seems pretty impressed with the Axe II

Art B

Member
New video from Mesa/Boogie, where Alex's tech, Scott Appleton, shows us his current rig. Fast forward to 2:40 to hear him talk about how Alex gets all his acoustic tones from piezo pickups through the Axe. Clearly, the guy is impressed! :lol

FWIW, I agree it sounded pretty killer when I saw him in Seattle a couple weeks ago.
Now if we can just get him to get rid of those ancient Palmers. :roll


 
Geddy uses the Palmers too, and as much as I like Tech21's stuff (I own a Paradriver DI and a Leeds Character pedal), I never liked Geddy's live tone that much when he ditched the amps and started using the Sansamp RPI (or was it the RPM or PSA, I forget).

What blew my mind listening to another Appleton vid (posted here too, I think) was that Alex tracked a lot of effects for Clockwork Angels using Guitar Rig 5, which seems to get almost as much negative user feedback as it does positive, and that Scott reworked a lot of Alex's GR5 studio patches into Axe presets for the live tour.

Could you imagine if these guys has Axe-FX IIs back during the Farewell to Kings or Hemispheres sessions? :shock

Speaking of prog guys, I'd love to see Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson jump on the Axe FX wagon. He's half the player of Lifeson but is a phenomenal songwriter and producer IMO. He just demoed his new PRS 22 with piezo bridge, which would sound quite tasty thru an Axe-FX. :)
 
I'm a huge fan of Lifeson. i'm working on getting the axe ii integrated into my Bogner Ecstasy rig...wondering two things: Appleton says the signal goes out of the lerxst and mark v heads into the axe, then to the speaker sim units....I'm puzzled...how do two amps go into one axe unit, and im assuming the pre amp of the head(s?) is in the loop of the axe...?

that's how im doing it with the Bogner. But I'm only using one head. And my last question....Im going out of my wireless, into the decimator noise suppressor, then into the axe front instrument jack, but that is a bit inconvenient, running a parch cable around to the front from the back of my rig. it looks like Alex must be using input one, rear...but I heard that is not right... I'm going to try it.
 
Didnt he have a "switch thingy" in the first rack to select if it was his clean, crunch or drive head and then fx loop into AXE?
 
I'm a huge fan of Lifeson. i'm working on getting the axe ii integrated into my Bogner Ecstasy rig...wondering two things: Appleton says the signal goes out of the lerxst and mark v heads into the axe, then to the speaker sim units....I'm puzzled...how do two amps go into one axe unit, and im assuming the pre amp of the head(s?) is in the loop of the axe...?

that's how im doing it with the Bogner. But I'm only using one head. And my last question....Im going out of my wireless, into the decimator noise suppressor, then into the axe front instrument jack, but that is a bit inconvenient, running a parch cable around to the front from the back of my rig. it looks like Alex must be using input one, rear...but I heard that is not right... I'm going to try it.

You can you the direct line outs (if the have them) of the amplifiers into the left and right input of the axe-fx and/or he has a switcher before. If you have a load box (like the palmer), you can tap a line level signal there.
Lifeson should go in the front, because he has a line level (not a guitar level signal) going into the Axe-fx.

For you it is possible to use the rear if your signal is hot enough, but you will not get the lowered noise floor and soft clipping features. The SNR ratio will probably not be quite as good, but it may not be noticeable.
 
Just watched this vid last night. He has Mesa Boogie High Gain Amp Switcher in his rig. The tech says they take all guitar amp outputs and funnel them into one. You can choose one amp or blend multiple amp (I.e. Boogie Clean and Lerxst dirty simultaneously).
 
My question is simply this - in every picture of his Clockwork Angels rack system, there is nothing plugged into the instrument input on the front of his Axe FX II's. I wonder if he got them modded so that there is an "instrument" input on the back (that is, *with* the added noise reduction of the instrument input on the front of a stock Axe II)?

You can you the direct line outs (if the have them) of the amplifiers into the left and right input of the axe-fx and/or he has a switcher before. If you have a load box (like the palmer), you can tap a line level signal there.
Lifeson should go in the front, because he has a line level (not a guitar level signal) going into the Axe-fx.

For you it is possible to use the rear if your signal is hot enough, but you will not get the lowered noise floor and soft clipping features. The SNR ratio will probably not be quite as good, but it may not be noticeable.
 
My question is simply this - in every picture of his Clockwork Angels rack system, there is nothing plugged into the instrument input on the front of his Axe FX II's. I wonder if he got them modded so that there is an "instrument" input on the back (that is, *with* the added noise reduction of the instrument input on the front of a stock Axe II)?

I'm sure the input isn't instrument level, but rather line level from the amps. So he doesn't need the front input.
 
I would have to go back and check this, but if IRC, he uses it as only effects and or acoustic IR simulation for his peizo pickup. All easily done from rear inputs to keep cables clean.

Yeah the Guitar rig 5 thing surprises me, but hey, he is used to it.

And the Chef the Palmer, J Bonnamassa uses one now, and how picky is he?

Lifeson is all in ears now on stage. So the Palmers must be doing it for him
 
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