Axe-Fx III first impressions / early review from a current II owner

kostein

Inspired
I've had the III for about a week now and I thought of sharing my experience with it for anyone who might care. Before going into it I have to note that I've had my II for almost 8 years now and it still sounds amazing to this day.

The first thing that I've noticed is that I am playing a lot more and I feel a lot more inspired. I think part of the reason that is happening is because it's a brand new toy but mainly it's just it sounds really really good. And you know how it is when you're playing through something new that sounds good. You just wanna keep playing and everynow and then you stop for a second and marvel at how amazing it sounds, which inspires you to play even more. That's been happening a lot once I started dialing presets. That to me is one of the greatest qualities any piece of gear can have, to inspire you. In this short period of time I've had the III it has done that in spades. That alone for me justifies this purchase.

Lets talk about tone. I can already hear you asking "Does it sound better than the II?" Well, read on :)

I'm primarily a high gainer as I play mostly metal. I've yet to delve deep into clean/crunch tones so this will refer to just high gain. Sooner or later I'll eventually do that once I'm set on high gain.

My presets are usually pretty simple, an amp and cab, maybe a drive or eq and effects as needed. The first thing I tried to do after going through the stock presets was to try to emulate my AFXII go to high gain presets, more particularly the Herbert and the 6505 that I absolutely adore. Some of you might even remember them from the video I did long time ago. Well after some back and forth between the units I managed to get the presets on the III to sound very close to the ones on the II albeit not identical. I'm sure with enough perseverance I'd get to something like 99% but I just don't see the point. They sound just as good even with the minor difference.

Once I got those two presets down I started making new ones while taking references from my II presets. That's when the beast began to unleash. I'm amazed at how easy it is to get a great high gain tone. A lot of the time I would load a cab and an amp with all the settings at noon, hit an E power chord, and be like "that sounds good already". Then I would mess around with it for like 5 minutes and voila, I'd be in chugging heaven.

Mind you I've only played around with a few amps (Herbert, VH4, 6505, Recto, all my favorites from the II) but I got a LOT of different tones out of those. And most of them were not something I was particularly looking for, they just sounded so good that I'd just save them. You know that feeling when you're trying to see what you can come up with and out of the blue the planets align and get this amazing tone that makes you go "wow, where did that come from?" Yeah, that also happened (is happening) a lot.

In short, so far the III excels in high gain metal tones and it's very easy and fun to dial in a great tone. It's quite easier to achieve that than the II imo. Which brings us to...

...the elephant in the room. Does it sound better than the II?
To be brutally honest with you, I'm not sure yet, at least when it comes to high gain. It will take me some time to go through all the different amps/cabs the III offers before I can give you a definite answer. I can tell you that 2 days after I got the III I haven't played on the II. I've only turned it on a few times to check what kind of settings I have on a preset. On the other hand if for some reason I don't have access to the III, I'd happily plug into the II and chug away using my favorite presets. That I think is testament to how amazing this almost 10 year piece of technological marvel is still today. In hindsight, it truly was ahead of its time when it was first released and it kept (maybe even keeps?) getting better with constant updates. Yes, the III is obviously a lot more technologically advanced but when it comes to pure tone, and more specifically high gain ones, I cannot yet tell you with certainty if it sounds better. Like I said before, excluding stock presets, I haven't really touched clean, edge of breakup, low to mid gain tones but I'm looking forward to exploring that sooner or later.

I think that wraps my experience up so far with the III. I'm gonna try to do a follow up in a few months and see how I feel then but no guarantee. Keep chugging away!
 
OP, you post on MG too?

I get my 3 soon and I'm hoping to get a nice 5150 tone. Any suggestions are welcome!
 
I just got the 3 and owner ever one prior. In the 3 the part that I find awesome is on a single cab block you can blend 1 to 4 cabinets and then adjust those from there. Always felt the IR responses gave me the most headache when playing the AXE with a FRFR. Could never find the right balance of "softness" in the tone. IR's always seemed stiff to me. Now with being able the blend up to 4 IR's I just have to find the right combination.
 
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