Axe-fx 2 for the aussies!!!

I was hoping June this year, now im thinking maybe June next year. Dont get to hung up on it, its a long wait.............
 
I'm hoping any day now but I'm not holding my breath, I'm done being anxious about it for now. Keeping this much money ready in my bank account is a real trial though, it's getting hard not to indulge in some 'retail therapy' ;)

Cheers.
 
Woohoo! My Axe-FX II just arrived! Haven't had a chance to try it yet, have to patiently sit through breakfast and then organise the wife and kids so they're amused for the morning. Going mental with anticipation.
Turned it on briefly to check the firmware version (2.00c, F/W update will be the first thing I learn to do with the Axe...) and wow, fan noise! I set it up next to my PC which is a gaming rig with 9(!) fans all up and the Axe was quite audible over the PC. Not such a big deal as I'll be either playing loud or using 'phones, but wow, I can see why people are complaining.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to post some thoughts on the sounds later.

And a big thanks to Andrew at IM, you're a star!

Cheers,
Steve
 
Awesome Soma, when did you get your coupon? can you PM me how much you paid for it. Guess the rest of us will have to wait for the next shipment. Enjoy your new toy :D
 
Hahaha I'll see what I can do, I'm a total stranger to recording so it might be a while before I can organise something ;)

I got to spend about an hour with it this morning (after updating the firmware and loading the new preset banks) and I have to say what a beast! I'm a hi gainer so thought I'd skip ahead to those presets, but like most people got stuck on the first Bassguy preset. The feel and dynamics on this preset is just beautiful and I found it very inspiring even though it's not in my usual genre. Clean to dirty with a turn of the volume knob. Very nice. I went through spending a bit of time on the the first 1/2 dozen or so presets and was very impressed. Fender type tones really do it for me when looking for cleans so I wasn't disappointed. Real life started to intrude so I skipped through the plexis pretty quick then got to a couple of Recto presets. I have to say initially I was disappointed as these patches seemed very dark and mushy with no attack to them. I tweaked the EQ and gain a bit and got further into the ballpark I was looking for. I'm confident I'll find the tones I'm after here. I skipped to near the end of the presets to check out some of the effects presets (some cool stuff there) and it was here I ran into the Recto lead preset. Aaaah much better :) Aggressive, present and full of life. Nice one. I believe this preset has a TS808 in front of the amp, so maybe that's the ticket. I need to dig in more. Then I had to go help with the kids lunch so that's where it ended.

So there's my first Axe-perience down. Need to try it through headphones but so far I have to say it looks like it will be everything I hoped it would and I can't wait to get more into it :D

Cheers,
Steve
 
Soma said:
Hahaha I'll see what I can do, I'm a total stranger to recording so it might be a while before I can organise something ;)

I got to spend about an hour with it this morning (after updating the firmware and loading the new preset banks) Cheers,
Steve
Click to expand...

FW 4.00? :D
 
Bugger. I'm off for a week of holidaying / gigs at Hayman Island (that part is ok), so I don't really want to grab the Axe-Fx II sitting on Aussie eBay for $3200 BIN. Don't like parting with $$ and telling the seller to hold it for a week - it worries me a bit.

Plus I only just got an Ultra from eBay a week ago and want to get to know it now that I have it.

Just thought I'd let you guys know about the II.
 
Just some more random thoughts.

Well, I didn't get around to loading the f/w update but I did spend some time playing through headphones last night (sore fingers!). Interestingly the hi gain patches that sounded a bit rubbish through my FRFR speaker sounded pretty damn good through them. I guess that says something about my speaker or my headphones, not sure what at this point. The speaker sounds awesome for clean and edge of breakup/crunch stuff and the headphones awesome for higher gain stuff. They do sound extremely different and that's something I'll have to deal with but this was expected to some degree though so it's all good.
Anyway, it's surprising me how easy this thing is to use. I'm not doing anything too in depth at this point but I'm digging in more as I go and it's all been very easy so far. Nice since the learning curve was one thing I was concerned about. I guess coming from the GSP1101 has some advantages ;)

Cheers.
 
Firmware Updates

So I can now see why people are so polarised about firmware updates. I finally updated to 4.01 and the tone has changed significantly, and I'm not sure that for me it's for the better (although to be honest I probably haven't had the unit long enough to make calls like that). But what I'm trying to say is it's easy to see how some people can think an update is amazing and others hate it and say it's ruined their patches e.g. the Bassguy patch I gushed about had a really nice breakup going on in 3 but is now spanky clean in 4 no matter how hard I hit the strings. I realise I can probably tweak the patch to get it where it was but it's annoying that I need to nonetheless.

Anyway, not meant to be anything negative about the box, I'm still loving it. Just been put back a couple of steps with tweaking due to the sound of the box changing with 4, makes the learning curve that little bit steeper.

Oh yeah, Happy New Year everyone :D


Cheers.
 
Manning said:
Hi Soma - I haven't logged in for a few days, so I didn't see your news until just now. Congrats!
Click to expand...

Thanks man :) Back at work now so time is limited with the Axe now, but I'm totally stoked with this thing. It is without a doubt the best gear purchase I've ever made :D

Fingers crossed for the rest of you who're still waiting :)

Cheers.
 
A word of warning on firmware updates. I recently updated from 3.xx to the new 4.01. It was all running smoothly until the unit froze and blank screened. It now dead and has to be sent back to Andrew for a new eprom. Scratching my head to figure out why this one and the only thing I can think of is that I had the MFC plugged in at the time. It may have screwed it up.

Be careful guys.
 
Yeah Pete, a lot of us are thinking *if only* we had the opportunity to be careful in this fashion. :lol

<grumble grumble>
 
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