Axe-FX II Ver 6.0 and the effects on the Human Psyche PART I Cover Bands

GuitarDojo

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Part I Cover and Tribute Bands


As 6.0 nears I wanted to give my thoughts (ramblings) and talk to my colleague Cover/Worship/Tribute band players.

The Skinny

TONE MATCHING
The Tone matching feature is going to be a powerful tool. No doubt. To have that exact tone is freakin cool, but will it work live?
Yes, but you will always have to take in account several factors that effect us all; Guitar-Pickups-fingers etc.
For cover players you will also have to think about P.A - Room - Audience.
and most importantly, you have to ask yourself a question about the Original Tone - Did it suck? Yes? I would stear clear....... garbage in garbage out.
My new personal tone matching rule is easy;
Is the original that good to me? If so then Match the tone (Amp and Tone Match Block)
and THEN mess with the effects (if any) later, keep it bare bones and simple.

THE AMPS
As I was jamming on one particular "Tone Matched" cover , my personal preferences started kicking in, I found myself tweaking (not much mind you) away from the original tone. Why? The Amps have taken another step up and since I have the attention span of cat trapped in a yarn factory, I humbly proclaim (in my man-cave) that my tone is better. YEMV (E= Ears)
Your (6.0) tone choices are astounding so be prepared again with this one main question "Shall I Tone Matcheth? Or not-eth?"

Another tune I have been working on I found a happy middle with the updated amps. I can still maintain an "authentic tone". Very close for not being "tone matched", but absolutely worked live and I love it.

PSYCHE
Right now I am playing more amps in v6 that I really havent played before before. HiWatt!! OMG!!!!!!!! KILLER TONE!!
The Recto+ HBE+CarolAnn have been my main amps for a while. Even more awesome now....

Final Thoughts
Creativity has been sparked with more jammin than before. V.6 is baby batter firmware dudes!!! Make some Patches!!

QUESTIONS? To my fellow Cover/Tribute dudes (& worship dudes)

TONE MATCHING -Will you use this feature live? If you could tone match every tune you play to the original, would you?

If you have some "dialed in" tones that are close enough or better, what has been audience reaction?

If you walked in to your regular gig with v.6 and most of your setlist tone matched, what do you think the audience reaction will be?

Out for now
B
 
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I honestly don't think a general audience gives a crap about tone matching or if they would even notice.
This is definitely aimed at the users of this tool not the audience.
I cannot wait to hear how the amp sims have been improved.
tone matching is just gravy (for me that is)
 
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Every time I read a post like this the wait gets harder! I am more interested in the new power amp modelling than tone matching, but tone matching sounds like fun. As a worship cover band guy, I will certainly try the tone matching. I doubt I would match every tune. I would probably only do tones that have some sort of signature to them. One tone that has eluded me is Spirit In The Sky. I am pretty close except I can't get the notes to "bloom" quite correctly.
 
for tone matching- can you input a string of long 16th notes at a very high bpm and get good tone matching results?

for example at 2:56

 
QUESTIONS? To my fellow Cover/Tribute dudes (worship dudes)

TONE MATCHING -Will you use this feature live? If you could tone match every tune you play to the original, would you?

B

Probably not.
With cover stuff, I've never tried to nail an exact tone....rather get close to the spirit of the original with a tone that I like.

I'm really excited to hear the new versions of the amps (and will dial in my own tones again), and use that for cover tunes.

BRING ON V6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I agree with the op. After the dust settles the matching feature of 6.0 will probably be used more as a starting point rather than an end point.
I play in a cover band and have no desire to sound like the original, rather I want to put my own flavor in it, thats one of the main reasons I bought an Ultra, then an AxeII .
 
Baby batter? That is frickin hilarious!

I guess the audience had better stand back a few feet once I start rocking 6.0!
 
Although my current bands does covers, I never really try to sound just like the original guitar player (and we often arrange the songs a bit to fit). I normally don't take the original guitar players lead riffs either (unless they are absolutely essential, rarely they are), although I will try to play in the style of their live playing. We do a lot of Zepp and stuff like that, so the vibe is the most important part to the audience and I try to get that.

I would like to explore sounds that I used to get with some of my older amps (which I never sold) linked to one of my older cabs with G12M's in it, so V6 will be cool about that.

In truth I'm very glad that the Fractal crew is taking their time with this release and trying to make sure all components are working as they planned. I currently get sounds I really like with the current software, any upgrades in terms of sound and feel will be well appreciated, but I won't deal with them until I have a week or two off from gigging. I'm one of those weird types that practice often and usually without an amp. MY axeFx often remains unused between gigs if I've nothing I feel the need to tweak before the next gig.
 
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