Axe-fx addiction? "ew, a normal amplifier!"

Cobrango

Cobrango

Power User
Does anyone get as tonespoiled as me with the axe-fx? I mean it's the whole guitar-amp-respond-loop from the axe-fx who make me play with a certain feel of being connected with my guitar in a way that makes me play effortless and everything is all silkysmooth.

What I mean is when I play on a normal amp (ok I know it depends on the kind of amp :p) but I played this ampeg 2x12" thingie at my school with a bit of gain and I almost could not play it. My lines were all imploded and it felt like I was fighting it more than enjoying what I did.

Do you guys feel that way? It's the thing about "a great guitarplayer can make a cranked whatever sound great" where I'm like the complete opposite. I feel addicted to the axe-fx because now I don't think most amps do justice to my playing, which is kinda weird to say. At least I can say that if I don't like my sound, I can't play any good. Easy as that. It's hard to get the sounds I'm after aswell, so I guess that's a big part of it.

The great gating and low noisefloor also contributes to the whole perferance of the axe-fx heaven to everything else. Many of us love the axe-fx more than anything else by now but what I'm trying to ask is if any of you feel a bit uncomfortable using normal amps now? Because I am! What are your thoughts on this?

It's like playing someone elses guitar with the action is all up in the sky, and you're used to this light superflat legatostyle. I can't do anything on a guitar like that. At school I got handed this squier from hell (in a bad way) because we were having a lesson about how to record guitars in the studio, so they asked for a guitarist and silly me raised my hand like "well, I'm.. I'm a guitarist, I guess." so in I went. I could not play anything on that thing! I came out from the recordingroom feeling all empty inside. One of my worst guitarmoments ever.

What are your thoughts on this?
 
Nope. I get lost playing on anything-in a good way. Be it my GSP, Axe or mini mesa-heck I played oboe on the GR55 for a half hour last night. Danny-Boy with an oboe-yeah baby! I get what you mean though. If I hate what I sound like, I don't want to play that way. If I am just messing around, I usually just flip knobs and a tone will remind me of something-and then I play that something, or mess with it if I have never played it. Get bored with that, flip some more knobs. Not a very constructive practice, but I think there is value in freeform exploration.
 
I am, always have, and always will be a complete and utter tone snob. The Axe FX II (and my former Ultra) made this even worse. I also am the type of player who can't 'play my best' without a great sound. A weakness, I know. I've always hated that fact as well. However, with a good real amp and a bit of tweaking I can usually get something 'tolerable' and manage to find some sort of cool licks or riffs to jam to impress some really terrible players or non-musician types.

Heck, last year I played through an MXR Dimebag distortion pedal through some EXTRA crappy SS Marshall and a super cheap. POS Marshall cab. I was as to wow these 'non-musician' types with some half way decent (by my standards...) cover songs.

For the most part, yes, I totally get what you are saying. I NEED to have good tone to have that 'transcendental' 'one with the guitar' and 'one with the amp' type vibe

I'm just glad I have an Axe II.
 
I agree to some extent. What I have 0% appreciation for is the boosted amp and tight gate trick which can make a really sloppy player sound ok. Seems like all the djent kids are doing this nowadays instead of learning the variations of palm muting. And then you get an Axe-Fx and praise about the realistic dynamics.. which you'll never hear in the genre of metal. :D

Real amps just make everything too complicated for the metal genre. One of my friends bought a JVM head and now he's praising how good he sounds but in reality... he's got a shitty old cab, no noise gate and a cheapo delay that's not even in the loop. So to me... that's just waste of money buying a good amp and not taking care of the whole chain.

I also have a guitar hero type of friend who only shreds with so much delay and gain and wah that anyone can sound good with that setup.

If you can sound nice and dynamic on a dirty sound then you're doing it correctly. You'll sound good through anything.
 
Yes I plead guilty to tone snobbery as well . Felt unable to play without what I considered a great tone - yeah I could usually tweak out some tolerable tones from what I would consider a sub par rig - enough to impress the easily impressable . what I was ususally doing was using the " boosted amp and and tight gate trick " to cover up all the slop I tried to pass off as shreding . The best thing I ever did was go back to a basic quality clean tone to work on technique scales, chords , arpegios all that stuff .
 
( continued )

I worked with a Jazz trio , singer , Keyboard and me . Just used my Mini Rectifier with a nice clean full tone . Awsome amp for small Jazz gigs . Used to be when I tried out a new piece of gear I went right for the super high gain tight gate tones . When I got my AXEFX ( yesterday ) I checked out the clean and mid gain presets right off . I was instantly impressed with the feel and connectedness between the instrument and the sound .
 
I would have agreed until 2 weeks ago, when I got a new Epiphone Wildkat. Sounds better on my 70's twin than anything I've been able to get yet on the AxeII. There is a 'moving', 'shimmering' quality I jut have not be able to replicate. I love the reverb on my twin, but even with it and tremolo off, there is a kind of non-static, ever-changing quality that I have not gotten on my II. In truth, I'd forgotten how good jut plugging into an amp could sound. Incidentally, even though I am normally running FRFR, I actually went to the trouble of driving the same speaker cab (my twin is cut down to a head and drives a custom ported single EVM-12 speaker cab). So, I have turned cab sims off, and then I try both the Twin, and then a Twin model on the Axe, and, though I hate to admit it - I like the real Twin more. Sigh.
 
It's probable that you just didn't get along with the amp. Had you played the real version of whatever your favorite Axe-FX model is, you may have had a different experience. I understand what you mean about it affecting your playing, though. My ability to play is regrettably almost entirely dependent on me liking how my gear sounds. If I feel inspired to play, but I pick up my guitar, and my rig sounds off, I'll either spend the entire time tweaking instead of playing or just give up entirely. This is true whether I'm using a modeler or not. These days, I make more of a hobby of tweaking gear than I do of actually playing. I guess I'm either too picky or really bad at sculpting tones. Probably both.
 
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