Axe fx III with electric hurdy gurdy

HurdyGuigui

Inspired
Hello,

Now it has been almost two months I put my hands on this fabulous axe fx III, and I would like to share with you how this originally guitar processor works so well with my hurdy gurdy.


1539426525-20180809-101618.jpg


My background with fractal audio : I have used the axe fx II for 5 years I beleive, and last year my setup consisted of 2 axe fx II. Now the III replaces the 2 IIs.

How does the hurdy gurdy work :
It is basically strings bowed by a wooden wheel. Right hand is cranking the wheel and left hand is playing on a keyboard. There is different types of strings : melodic strings (that goes thru the keyboard), drones, rhythmic strings which make a buzzing kind of sound, and sympathetic strings.

Here is a video that shows some of the sounds I can do with my electric hurdy gurdy. Not everything was made with the axe fx on this particular recording, but it is basically how I play it live with effects and live looping, everything only with the axe fx III. I did the animation by the way :D



Well, now that you are familiar with the hurdy gurdy, lets have a look at how I integrated it with the axe fx III

About my HG :
My hurdy gurdy is home made (my dad is a HG maker :)), it has magnetic pickups (9 in total) that I built specially for it, which makes it an "electric hurdy gurdy". Some of the pickups are coupled, and this goes into 6 separate outputs, 1 - melody low, 2 - melody hi, 3 - drones, 4 - sympathetic strings, 5 - rythmic strings, 6 - percussive sounds I make drumming on the HG.

Routing with the axe :
The 6 outputs of the HG are routed in 6 of the 7 inputs of the Axe III. I use to have 4 outputs going in one axe fx II. But then I moded the HG to have 6 outputs so I used 2 axe fx II. Now with the III, I can have all 6 signals plugged directly into it, and everything separated on the grid to be able to put different effects on each signal, which is just soooo awesomeeeee !! I know nothing around here other than the axe fx that would allow me to do that !!! The routing capability of the III is also just incredible.

Amps and effects :
-I use an amp on the melodic strings, I love the Deluxe verb for clean, I also use a few amps for high gain but I am still switching from different ones. I use the second amp block on the drones, all 4 channels going from clean to distorted sounds.
-Lot of eq and compression going on all the channels
-I use a pitch block on the drones, and I control the pitch value with my midi controller, so I can change the pitch of the drones with my feet, just awesome :).
-I use the looper, what I love compared to the use of an external looper is the possibility to put the reverbs and delays after the looper so that when I cut the loop it is smooth and clean. I use also a trick with the looper to be able to do 2 tracks looping (using the left and rights channels of the looper as 2 loops).

1539426414-axe-fx-iii-preset.jpg


About what I like on the III compared to the II :
-Well obviously the extra power, it is a bit like having 6 instruments plugged in, so even if I just want to do only eq, comp, amps and few effects, this is a lot of blocks, and almost all my patches run above 80% CPU.
-I am a front panel user (even on the II), I barely used axe edit, now with the III, it is just amazing to have this bigger screen and everything in color and all the knobs are just wonderful. It is so fast to edit presets now on the ui.
-The extra channels, I can have my basic clean, crunch, hi gain, boost in one amp, and this allow me to have almost all my blocks as globals so it is easy to keep consistency in the sound across presets.
-The 3U shallow, I prefer this to the deeper 2U of the Axe II, it is almost the same volume, but much more handy.
-There is certainly more things, but no I just got used to the III so I don't remember how it felt on the II

Conclusion :
Well so far I am in wonderland :), this is just the dreamed box for me. Of course there is a few things that would improve it for me : flexibility of the tuner, and more looper blocks, a little more added cpu would help too, but well so far I can do the music I want to do, so that is the most important.
Also, I need to say that having studied computer engineering, before doing music for a living, I am absolutely amazed and respectful about how Fractal Audio is working. Having all these updates and this incredible support is just part of the wonderful experience, and makes me trust and love this box, which even if it might not be the most important factor in, helps to make better music I am sure.
I don't know what kind of setup I would have if the axe fx where not available in this world, but hell in analog world that would be a lot of boxes and cables...
 
WOW...AWESOME !!!!

Nice music and nice video (did you make that yourself?)
That's taking the axe to extremes :)
 
Thanks ! :)
About the video, I directed and did most of the animations and effects, a friend did the trees and vegetation and an other did the hand apparition effects.

It's very nicely done, with a bunch of good ideas.
I'm in the vfx/animation business myself....so maybe I can hire you some day ;)
 
This is amazing. The mix of ancient and modern technology is fascinating.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience.
 
Ah bin je n’ai pas perdu ma journée !
Non seulement j’ai découvert un nouvel instrument mais aussi un nouvel artiste !
Franchement, la vidéo est très, très bien, et j’aime beaucoup et le son de ton instrument et le morceau Le château magique.

Wow ! C’est vraiment bien !

:)
 
I agree with the "wow" comments! Both the music and the video were outstanding... Not sure which was better? :)

Nice write up on your use case, too.
 
That was extremely well done.

The animation reminded me a little of of this:



Mixed with this:



Fantastic content man. Bravo!
 
Modernized ancient technology + worlds best 'state of the art' AXE-FX III processor = Sonic Bliss! Brilliant, just brilliant! :)
 
Just watched and listened on the big home AV rig - just outstanding art. Thank you - kinda made my day to see what you’ve done. :cool: :D :)
 
Back
Top Bottom