AX8 v Axe-Fx III

That's what i was fearing. Good to know though, thank you for pointing out.

To be fair, I think that I’m misspeaking by saying this is “not possible.” Perhaps more gymnastics with more limitations than I’m happy with in a workflow, but “not possible” is a large statement. Since I haven’t actually tried to create a preset like the one you’re imagining, I would like to excuse myself from my role of “Unqualified Guy who Says Things.”

Thank you Kamil Kisiel and others here for keeping it imaginative and creative.
 
i recently did a weekly gig where my duo partner and i shared the Axe3 for both of our guitars. my setup uses a guitar with electric pickups and a piezo/acoustic sound. so technically we had 3 guitars running through it.

it "worked" but with planning. tone wise, sound wise, and all that, it was great.

the issue comes down to changing sounds, especially when it comes to Scenes. to make it easy for my partner i just gave her 3 Scenes, with a few IA switches for delay, chorus, and a boost (filter block). if i'm on a clean sound, and she's on a lead sound, if i change Scenes so that i'm on a lead sound, her sound will change because a Scene currently can't "ignore" blocks. if she turned on the Chorus block with the IA, and i changed sounds, her Chorus block would turn off. so in short, any Scene change that one guitar needs will affect the sound of the other one.

so i split the "scenes" into 2 groups of 4 - up to 4 for me, up to 4 for her.

the rule was whoever is singing the song, they stay on their "clean" sound only. this allowed me to do this:

if i sing:
S5 - my clean, her clean
S6 - my clean, her clean lead
S7 - my clean, her distortion
S8 - my clean, her distortion lead

if she sings:
S1 - my clean, her clean
S2 - my clean lead, her clean
S3 - my distortion, her clean
S4 - my distortion lead, her clean

so while i sang, she could change Scenes all she wanted, but my clean was unaffected because none of "my blocks" changed at all. no gap or anything while i played and she changed Scenes. same for when she sang.

under all of this was my piezo/acoustic tone, where the 3 blocks used there never, ever change, so personally, i always have a fall back to change to the acoustic sound using a switch on the guitar itself. it helps in this situation too, where just in case some Scene was changed wrong, i have some sort of guitar sound (acoustic).

it's this sort of consideration that needs to be made when using multiple guitars with one Axe.

it would be great if the "Scenes can ignore blocks" wish can be implemented in the future, or other similar things. i think many people can't afford an axe per player, so they don't buy any, and FAS gets 0 sales. but if features that helped us "share the axe" with multiple players, many bands would get at least one. (how's that for marketing ;) )

the situation i described is a bit improvisational - we don't plan songs or rehearse. we just play and adapt. that's why having the singer stick to the clean tone and the other player improvise works out.

with fully planned songs, setlists, and tones, this might be a non-issue since every change can be known at all times. but you can't stray from that probably, unless you setup like i did or something similar.

so it can work. but you need to plan.
 
I think where the one Axe III for several players works best is when you are playing songs that are tightly planned. In other words you aren't a jam band doing lots of loose improvisational stuff where players might be making on the fly decisions about what tone or effect they want at a given moment. Remember there are touring bands that control their Fractal units via midi sequencer and don't even use foot controllers - everything is planned out to a T. Certainly in situations like that, it wouldn't matter if everyone was using separate units or the same unit (as long as there was enough processing power).

Obviously if your band can make it work then load in/out becomes much simpler, esp if the Axe III is in a rack with the stage box, wireless receivers, and wireless transmitters for IEMs.....which is how I plan to rack mine.
 
I got the Ax8 as a quick to set up, very portable jam rig and gig backup safety net. If people are drinking beer, I don’t want my “brains” on the floor if I can help it, so I use the III at gigs instead of the Ax8. Turns out I even prefer to lug the III to a quick jam session over the Ax8 now because it’s so much easier for me to get great sound out of it. I still love my Ax8, but I play the III almost exclusively now. Also, with the right shallow case I would say that the III still does qualify as “ultra portable” compared to every other guitar rig I’ve ever owned. At this point I would only prefer the Ax8 if I were doing a bunch of fly dates.
I concur with this. The III is so easy to get great amp tones out of. The II and AX8 were not bad, but I had to tweak more. III is a few twists and bam...you're there. Get the best now and then enjoy it for 5 plus years. Cheap when you think of the fact that you won't need any other pedals....it's all there. Plus the improvements and add on's the future holds for the III.
 
AX8 is ultra portable, the Axe III is not. AX8 is primarily to be use live.

Get the III if you will be using it indoors most of the time, way way better in almost every aspect compared to the AX8.

My setup with the III is quite portable.
I use a shallow 3-unit rockbag, which is quite light, with a custom velcro mount (made by my wife) for attaching a controller to the outside of the bag.
Very easy to carry...and you need a bag for the ax8 anyway. Of course it will add around 10 pounds extra, but that's what workout is for ;)

Axe in one hand, FRFR speaker in the other hand and gigbag with your guitar on the back....ready to rock :)
 
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