AlbertA
Fractal Fanatic
I upgraded from a Mark I Axe-Fx 2 which I used for little more than 6 years... time passes fast.
Taking it off the box, the unit it seemed familiar yet new.
First impressions on the I/O
- input 1 available on the back now is a nice detail
- I'll probably not take advantage of all the outputs available here
- Different story on the inputs. I have at least 4 mics and had to use a mixer previously. Now I can just bring them directly into the axe-fx for recording purposes. Neat.
I dethroned the Axe-Fx 2 and installed the III on its place.
Booted the Axe-Fx III... to my surprise took quite a bit longer than what I'd seen on Larry Mitchells video.
It currently takes about 15 seconds.
The screen looked good, fonts look nice and crisp. The era of Blue has arrived.
First thing I went to was the tuner. Much more refined than in the Axe-Fx 2 - great use of the increased display resolution. Very smooth and accurate.
Then proceeded to setup the output level to +4 dBu (thanks for the tip, I forget who pointed this out)
I started going through the default presets - it had been years since I did that on the Axe-Fx II
I grabbed a strat like single coil guitar for the first few presets. Double Verb and A-Class 15 presets jumped out. Sounded pretty useful with a few tweaks.
First impression on the home screen - I saw too much wasted screen space, lots of black, specially when scenes don't have any names, but I'm glad it's being looked at.
I then hooked up USB - I use linux so I didn't expect it to work (the Axe-Fx II needs the host to load the USB firmware). But it was a nice touch that now the USB core firmware is not external anymore. Not unexpectedly, because I run Linux, I did encounter some issues.
I updated the firmware to the latest. I was expecting a massive speed up (due to the new USB core) in transferring the firmware but surprised it was actually slower than updating the Axe-Fx II. Bummer.
I hope Axe-Edit 3 is actually faster.
Once I worked around the USB Linux issues, I could finally test USB streaming. The 8x8 configuration is pretty fantastic. I tested loopback latency by using IN USB in the grid, feeding OUT 3 block, which a physical cable from Output 3 L to Input 2 L, which I could then capture through USB channel 7.
Using a block size of 64 in my host, the total loopback latency was about 7.64ms - of which software latency is (64x2x2)/48000 (2 blocks of 64 for output, 2 blocks of 64 for input) or around 5.3ms. Which brings the DAC/ADC + Axe-Fx III USB Buffer size (I set it to 8 samples) latency to around 2.34ms.
That means my USB to speaker playback latency is around 3.82ms (with a block of 64 on my host). That's pretty phenomenal.
With the new IN/OUT block setup, you can now record say 3 stereo streams: One track could be the whole grid output with FX and everything, One DI, Another where you could just record the output of the Amp/Cab for example.
In summary, very pleased with the USB implementation. It would be even awesomer if we could configure what the USB input streams captured
I've started tweaking some patches but I find myself fighting 10 years of muscle memory. I have no problem editing at the unit, but it's still just as clunky as it was in the Axe-Fx 2. Such is the any front panel really. Axe-Edit just made editing so much easier.
I did just discover that clicking the value wheel is a shortcut for going into the Layout page, so that helps a bit.
I like that you have a mini tuner in basically all the screens. Or when you edit a block that you have a mini meter there.
The new Tri-Chorus sounds phenomenal.
The new Cab block with up to 4 IR slots is a great improvement. The number of included IRs is staggering as it's the number of User IR slots (2048)
The RTA block looks really useful.
I also love that there's no loud pops as I turned the unit with the speakers already on. And only a small pop when turning the Axe-Fx III off. Awesome. Maybe this was already the case with the XL+, but again I'm coming from a Mark I Axe-Fx II
That's all I've explored for now.
Overall it's a great refinement and improvement over the Axe-Fx II.
Taking it off the box, the unit it seemed familiar yet new.
First impressions on the I/O
- input 1 available on the back now is a nice detail
- I'll probably not take advantage of all the outputs available here
- Different story on the inputs. I have at least 4 mics and had to use a mixer previously. Now I can just bring them directly into the axe-fx for recording purposes. Neat.
I dethroned the Axe-Fx 2 and installed the III on its place.
Booted the Axe-Fx III... to my surprise took quite a bit longer than what I'd seen on Larry Mitchells video.
It currently takes about 15 seconds.
The screen looked good, fonts look nice and crisp. The era of Blue has arrived.
First thing I went to was the tuner. Much more refined than in the Axe-Fx 2 - great use of the increased display resolution. Very smooth and accurate.
Then proceeded to setup the output level to +4 dBu (thanks for the tip, I forget who pointed this out)
I started going through the default presets - it had been years since I did that on the Axe-Fx II
I grabbed a strat like single coil guitar for the first few presets. Double Verb and A-Class 15 presets jumped out. Sounded pretty useful with a few tweaks.
First impression on the home screen - I saw too much wasted screen space, lots of black, specially when scenes don't have any names, but I'm glad it's being looked at.
I then hooked up USB - I use linux so I didn't expect it to work (the Axe-Fx II needs the host to load the USB firmware). But it was a nice touch that now the USB core firmware is not external anymore. Not unexpectedly, because I run Linux, I did encounter some issues.
I updated the firmware to the latest. I was expecting a massive speed up (due to the new USB core) in transferring the firmware but surprised it was actually slower than updating the Axe-Fx II. Bummer.
I hope Axe-Edit 3 is actually faster.
Once I worked around the USB Linux issues, I could finally test USB streaming. The 8x8 configuration is pretty fantastic. I tested loopback latency by using IN USB in the grid, feeding OUT 3 block, which a physical cable from Output 3 L to Input 2 L, which I could then capture through USB channel 7.
Using a block size of 64 in my host, the total loopback latency was about 7.64ms - of which software latency is (64x2x2)/48000 (2 blocks of 64 for output, 2 blocks of 64 for input) or around 5.3ms. Which brings the DAC/ADC + Axe-Fx III USB Buffer size (I set it to 8 samples) latency to around 2.34ms.
That means my USB to speaker playback latency is around 3.82ms (with a block of 64 on my host). That's pretty phenomenal.
With the new IN/OUT block setup, you can now record say 3 stereo streams: One track could be the whole grid output with FX and everything, One DI, Another where you could just record the output of the Amp/Cab for example.
In summary, very pleased with the USB implementation. It would be even awesomer if we could configure what the USB input streams captured
I've started tweaking some patches but I find myself fighting 10 years of muscle memory. I have no problem editing at the unit, but it's still just as clunky as it was in the Axe-Fx 2. Such is the any front panel really. Axe-Edit just made editing so much easier.
I did just discover that clicking the value wheel is a shortcut for going into the Layout page, so that helps a bit.
I like that you have a mini tuner in basically all the screens. Or when you edit a block that you have a mini meter there.
The new Tri-Chorus sounds phenomenal.
The new Cab block with up to 4 IR slots is a great improvement. The number of included IRs is staggering as it's the number of User IR slots (2048)
The RTA block looks really useful.
I also love that there's no loud pops as I turned the unit with the speakers already on. And only a small pop when turning the Axe-Fx III off. Awesome. Maybe this was already the case with the XL+, but again I'm coming from a Mark I Axe-Fx II
That's all I've explored for now.
Overall it's a great refinement and improvement over the Axe-Fx II.
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