Axe-Fest Live Report

I need to echo the thanks to Kerry and others for making this happen. We would have live-blogged all day from this, but the wireless internet has been sporadic at the hotel/overloaded.

Some other goodies:

FRFR HEAVEN: special shout out to TommyTequila, next to our event room is a room with AXE IIs, MFCs', Friedman 4 X 12 cabs, various power amps, and about a DOZEN different FRF products, some self-powered some not. Tommy and company have set it up so users can test and compare with the switch of a button!!! AWESOME!

I am sure to forget some, but brands include KSCs (12s and 1Os), EVL (15), Matrix, RCFs (12s and a 10), JBLs which are Cliffs....Cliff uses JBLs into Carvin power amp, but the JBLs not made any more... and a few other too (no slights intended). Will do some test driving with my user presets this morning, did a little on Factory presets yesterday, very surprised at the wide range of differences in FRFR monitors.

Great players in there including Ian I think demo'ing for folks. It is a great way to audition before you buy for sure!


SCENES: The new scenes feature coming in next FW release Cliff discussed today is very very cool... Basically in a single patch you can have several effects in any matter you like turn on and off together. I think I understand it correctly. For people who have wanted to simultaneously turn on/off multiple effects in preset instead of do the tap dance, this new feature will be well loved....

Solo time? Switch to another scene in your same user preset, and your boost, wah, and delay all turn on/come up if you like, while your reverb and chorus turns off -- you get to decide how to program it. COOL!

Another cool application for practicing may be to set up a patch with a looper at the end, and two amps, set one up with pitch shifter to emulate bass (Yek has some great bass patches like this as a start), you start the preset with the bass on and loop your bass line, then after it's looping, change to a second scene into regular amp, dub the guitar rhythm you want into looper...and then play lead. I have not confirmed this would work with Matt but suspect it should.

Or you can add a synth lead to your lead line if you have a synth block with resonator, PEQ, delay -- no need to stomp 4 things, you'd set up a new scene to turn it on and blend with your other sound.

So, your AXE II now in essence has the customizable Bob Bradshaw switching/routing system in the box, turning stuff on/off together in one click, as you choose. Soon they will likely do another software update to MFC so it can be set up to access scenes from IA switches -- and we'll all be good to go!
 
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Another shout out here for James Santiago. His playing and tone were world class. Very Eric Johnson-y, but he definitely had his own style going on. In regards to the IRs he's going to be sharing, I remember he mentioned one speaker specifically that Eric Johnson himself sent him and sent "This is the speaker I use!" (James has a direct line to many famous musicians and fellow tone seekers). I believe the speaker was an Altec. From listening to him, James is about as meticulous of a tone hound as it gets (uses specific length cables, certain brands, VERY nice preamps, etc) and will be sharing 2 speaker IRs with many different positions, iirc.

Also, I dont know if anyone mentioned this, but Matt announced they are going to be making an "Artist" section on AxeChange where they will be sharing artist IRs and patches. Very cool :)
 
GrooveNut here on the forum also did a demonstration of tone matching, going through it step-by-step...was nice job!
 
rhequiem said:
Another shout out here for James Santiago. His playing and tone were world class. Very Eric Johnson-y, but he definitely had his own style going on. In regards to the IRs he's going to be sharing, I remember he mentioned one speaker specifically that Eric Johnson himself sent him and sent "This is the speaker I use!" (James has a direct line to many famous musicians and fellow tone seekers). I believe the speaker was an Altec. From listening to him, James is about as meticulous of a tone hound as it gets (uses specific length cables, certain brands, VERY nice preamps, etc) and will be sharing 2 speaker IRs with many different positions, iirc.

Also, I dont know if anyone mentioned this, but Matt announced they are going to be making an "Artist" section on AxeChange where they will be sharing artist IRs and patches. Very cool :)
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This is right, except clarify that the speaker Eric Johnson uses that James Santiago referenced is an Eminence. We'll get James's IRs for both the Altec (great for clean sparkly tones with chime) and the Eminence EJ250 (for leads and dirty rhythm) when Fractal starts the Artist portion of Axe-Change.
 
rhequiem said:
Another shout out here for James Santiago. His playing and tone were world class. Very Eric Johnson-y, but he definitely had his own style going on. In regards to the IRs he's going to be sharing, I remember he mentioned one speaker specifically that Eric Johnson himself sent him and sent "This is the speaker I use!" (James has a direct line to many famous musicians and fellow tone seekers). I believe the speaker was an Altec. From listening to him, James is about as meticulous of a tone hound as it gets (uses specific length cables, certain brands, VERY nice preamps, etc) and will be sharing 2 speaker IRs with many different positions, iirc.

Also, I dont know if anyone mentioned this, but Matt announced they are going to be making an "Artist" section on AxeChange where they will be sharing artist IRs and patches. Very cool :)
Click to expand...


That tone was flipping gorgeous. I was really impressed how good it sounded and how well he played. James is a super cool dude. Every one that presented and performed did a bang up job. It really was an amazing day from my perspective. So many people put so much work into this.
 
Tosin Abasi was off the hook.
the first question someone asked him says it all:
"What planet are you from"

Scott P and Grovenut both has great presentations.
Cliff was awesome.

Dweezil and Matt had a great vivisection of how to create a dynaflange preset.

Mark Day did had a great performance playing Ozzy and Journey.

Wes Hauch is a fantastic player

i already mentioned James
 
bammbamm said:
It was an awesome day. Talked to Matt on when they are going to release the new firmware which includes the new function 'scenes' which makes seamless transitions and spillover. He said possibly wednesday. Don't know if they would release the Axeedit the same day, I forgot to ask.

I also asked Cliff if they are making new stuff that I need to save money for. He said, uh im not telling. Lol. I should have asked over after he had a few beers.
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Can you tell us any more about the new firmware and "scenes"?
 
rsf1977 said:
Can you tell us any more about the new firmware and "scenes"?
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Pit simply allows you to store a set of bypass states without switching presets as well as output level.
So one scene could have chorus and drive on. Another chorus and drive off. Another with drive, no chorus and a volume boost for a solo. Stuff like that.
 
Interesting java. So this is kind of like sending the on off state of everything in a preset on recall with a ground control pro. That would free up my midi switches to be so much more useful. So awesome!

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner
 
rsf1977 said:
Interesting java. So this is kind of like sending the on off state of everything in a preset on recall with a ground control pro. That would free up my midi switches to be so much more useful. So awesome!

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner
Click to expand...

Yes, with added benefit of being able to control relative levels as well.
 
vestapol said:
Thanks for the reports guys. Looking forward to the vids.

V
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Me too and I'm one of the guys filming. I keep recording and giving my tapes to jack, when I'm done. I'm not sure how much footage we will use, but I can tell you we got most of the event, if not all of the event. I had like 15 DVD tapes when I started, and I'm down to about 5 or 6 left. The cool thing is, is that we have three cameras rolling at the same time from different angles, and we have a live feed from the board, so when it's put together, there should be some fractal footage that no one has seen before, done in a three camera, shooting style. I want to says thanks to Jack for bossing me around and telling me what shots to get, he's good.


This has been an awesome event, and I look forward to many more in the future. I just got to tell you, if you ever get a chance to meet Matt, do it. He is the funniest guy and most personable guy I have personally ever met. He will give you all of his time if you want it, and that's in the middle of the event. Crazy cool individual and wickedly smart.


I know it sounds like I'm kissing his butt, but I tell you, meet the guy and you will see exactly what I am talking about.


One last thing for now

Tosin Abasi gave me goose bumps.....
 
javajunkie said:
Pit simply allows you to store a set of bypass states without switching presets as well as output level.
So one scene could have chorus and drive on. Another chorus and drive off. Another with drive, no chorus and a volume boost for a solo. Stuff like that.
Click to expand...


Seems pretty similar to what I was asking for in this thread a while back. http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-fx-ii-wish-list/56407-presets-within-each-patch.html

Being as my thread received zero responses, I likely did a crappy job of explaining it.


It sounds like scenes is exactly what I was asking for. In fact I am planning on getting a liquid foot controller as I can sort of set that stuff up by just assigning a bunch of commands to one IA.
 
Damn I wish I was available. I work for NewTek and we sell a product called the TriCaster. I could have connected 3 or 4 cams to a 2 space rack unit. Switch the whole thing live and at the same time record the individual cams separately with the same time code in case further editing was needed. If there weren't apparent issues with internet bandwith we could have alsy streamed the events live. Heck 3 or 4 cams and I connect the macjine running axe edit to the TriCaster so we record the UI at the same time.


scottburrow said:
Me too and I'm one of the guys filming. I keep recording and giving my tapes to jack, when I'm done. I'm not sure how much footage we will use, but I can tell you we got most of the event, if not all of the event. I had like 15 DVD tapes when I started, and I'm down to about 5 or 6 left. The cool thing is, is that we have three cameras rolling at the same time from different angles, and we have a live feed from the board, so when it's put together, there should be some fractal footage that no one has seen before, done in a three camera, shooting style. I want to says thanks to Jack for bossing me around and telling me what shots to get, he's good.


This has been an awesome event, and I look forward to many more in the future. I just got to tell you, if you ever get a chance to meet Matt, do it. He is the funniest guy and most personable guy I have personally ever met. He will give you all of his time if you want it, and that's in the middle of the event. Crazy cool individual and wickedly smart.


I know it sounds like I'm kissing his butt, but I tell you, meet the guy and you will see exactly what I am talking about.


One last thing for now

Tosin Abasi gave me goose bumps.....
Click to expand...
 
How many "scenes" per patch?

javajunkie said:
Pit simply allows you to store a set of bypass states without switching presets as well as output level.
So one scene could have chorus and drive on. Another chorus and drive off. Another with drive, no chorus and a volume boost for a solo. Stuff like that.
Click to expand...
 
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