After a few months of research and lurking in the forums, I finally pulled the trigger and bought an Ultra. It arrived on Friday, January 30. Here's my first impressions of the Ultra after about 2 weeks with it.
Unfortunately, my first impression of Fractal Audio (second if you count the smooth purchase via Yahoo) was not positive. When my Axe-Fx arrived at work, there was a significant hole in the side of the shipping box. Looking inside the hole before even opening up the box, I could see the black metal sides of the unit with nothing between the hole and the unit. Apparently, the geniuses at UPS leaned something up against the shipping box and it punctured the box. Didn't appear to scratch or dent the unit but I was disappointed to not see additional packaging material in the voids within the box. I was thinking, I just spent $2K on the unit and even more on S&H and they skimped on a little more foam for inside the box?? I plugged the unit in at work and at least it powered up. Small sigh of relief...
So I took the unit home after work that night. I'd already cleared the area where my Line 6 POD XT was sitting on my desk. For reference, I've played through the POD XT for about six years - original POD and POD Pro prior to that. I also own a Mesa Boogie Lonestar Classic 2X12 and a Xotic BB Preamp. My primary guitar playing is in my studio and I do a lot of direct recording. Family / demanding job doesn't leave much time for playing live. I've owned and played various Digitech and BOSS multi-effects units over the last several years and have gotten some decent tones out of the Line 6 gear. I own several guitars covering various combinations of woods, scale lengths, and pickups (singe coils, humbuckers, and P90 type). Only thing missing is a semi-hollowbody.
So I connect the unit to my Behringer mixer which feeds a pair of Event 20/20 powered monitors and connect my guitar to the unit. I turned it on and obviously started with the first preset - Sudio Lead. I was blown away by how good it sounded - how alive the guitar sounded and felt - the depth of the reverb - how fat the bass was and yet how articulate each note sounded - how responsive it was to how I played. And then I did what you hope to do when you buy a high-end piece of gear - I just played. Played for like an hour on that single preset. I got lost in the music and lost track of time. I looked at the clock and decided I needed to get through more of the presets and I was able to make it through many over the weekend. Many are way out there and clearly were developed to demonstrate the full capabilities of the unit. But many sound truly incredible and by switching off some of the effects, they are quite flexible. I came to the conclusion that this unit would be worth the money if all you got were all of the presets. The unit sounds that good. But the fact that you can tweak every nuance of the effects and amps is simply incredible and makes this unit an incredible value.
In one weekend, I was able to learn the navigation of the unit; connect it to my PC via my M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 card (Midi and S/PDIF); download, install, and utilize the Editor software; create, download, and export a few presets; connect the unit to an old Art X-15 Ultrafoot Midi controller and configure it for the unit. I was able to get all of these things done pretty easily and rapidly. I was a little concerned that the unit would be really complex and the processes described above much more difficult and cumbersome than they actually were. As you all know, Firmware version 7.0 came out just a few days ago. I downloaded and installed it via the Editor with no problems at all. I'm totally impressed by Cliff and his continued improvement and enhancement of the product via the Firmware. I think back to Line 6 and the way they've turned their backs to the Vetta owners and are all about increasing their revenues by repackaging their rapidly-aging technology instead of innovating new technology. Cliff and Fractal seem to be a company who are closely in touch with and listen to their customers and are set in delighting them.
I'm now in the process of continuing to explore the presets and creating some of my own - pretty basic stuff for now and I'll grow into more complexities down the road. I can't wait to get some tunes recorded to share with a few friends who are tube snobs and a few guys that are on the fence. I'm relatively certain that at least one friend will be buying an Ultra within days of him coming over to play through mine. I'm convinced this unit is the best thing on the market and will be a sonic pallette providing me many years of tone shaping and inspiration.
Thanks for reading,
Randy
Unfortunately, my first impression of Fractal Audio (second if you count the smooth purchase via Yahoo) was not positive. When my Axe-Fx arrived at work, there was a significant hole in the side of the shipping box. Looking inside the hole before even opening up the box, I could see the black metal sides of the unit with nothing between the hole and the unit. Apparently, the geniuses at UPS leaned something up against the shipping box and it punctured the box. Didn't appear to scratch or dent the unit but I was disappointed to not see additional packaging material in the voids within the box. I was thinking, I just spent $2K on the unit and even more on S&H and they skimped on a little more foam for inside the box?? I plugged the unit in at work and at least it powered up. Small sigh of relief...
So I took the unit home after work that night. I'd already cleared the area where my Line 6 POD XT was sitting on my desk. For reference, I've played through the POD XT for about six years - original POD and POD Pro prior to that. I also own a Mesa Boogie Lonestar Classic 2X12 and a Xotic BB Preamp. My primary guitar playing is in my studio and I do a lot of direct recording. Family / demanding job doesn't leave much time for playing live. I've owned and played various Digitech and BOSS multi-effects units over the last several years and have gotten some decent tones out of the Line 6 gear. I own several guitars covering various combinations of woods, scale lengths, and pickups (singe coils, humbuckers, and P90 type). Only thing missing is a semi-hollowbody.
So I connect the unit to my Behringer mixer which feeds a pair of Event 20/20 powered monitors and connect my guitar to the unit. I turned it on and obviously started with the first preset - Sudio Lead. I was blown away by how good it sounded - how alive the guitar sounded and felt - the depth of the reverb - how fat the bass was and yet how articulate each note sounded - how responsive it was to how I played. And then I did what you hope to do when you buy a high-end piece of gear - I just played. Played for like an hour on that single preset. I got lost in the music and lost track of time. I looked at the clock and decided I needed to get through more of the presets and I was able to make it through many over the weekend. Many are way out there and clearly were developed to demonstrate the full capabilities of the unit. But many sound truly incredible and by switching off some of the effects, they are quite flexible. I came to the conclusion that this unit would be worth the money if all you got were all of the presets. The unit sounds that good. But the fact that you can tweak every nuance of the effects and amps is simply incredible and makes this unit an incredible value.
In one weekend, I was able to learn the navigation of the unit; connect it to my PC via my M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 card (Midi and S/PDIF); download, install, and utilize the Editor software; create, download, and export a few presets; connect the unit to an old Art X-15 Ultrafoot Midi controller and configure it for the unit. I was able to get all of these things done pretty easily and rapidly. I was a little concerned that the unit would be really complex and the processes described above much more difficult and cumbersome than they actually were. As you all know, Firmware version 7.0 came out just a few days ago. I downloaded and installed it via the Editor with no problems at all. I'm totally impressed by Cliff and his continued improvement and enhancement of the product via the Firmware. I think back to Line 6 and the way they've turned their backs to the Vetta owners and are all about increasing their revenues by repackaging their rapidly-aging technology instead of innovating new technology. Cliff and Fractal seem to be a company who are closely in touch with and listen to their customers and are set in delighting them.
I'm now in the process of continuing to explore the presets and creating some of my own - pretty basic stuff for now and I'll grow into more complexities down the road. I can't wait to get some tunes recorded to share with a few friends who are tube snobs and a few guys that are on the fence. I'm relatively certain that at least one friend will be buying an Ultra within days of him coming over to play through mine. I'm convinced this unit is the best thing on the market and will be a sonic pallette providing me many years of tone shaping and inspiration.
Thanks for reading,
Randy
It's really the luck of the draw with shipping companies, I got my 40" LCD delivered last week (UPS) and I went out to help the guy and I look in the back of the truck and it's dumped over on it's side with a silver dollar size hole through box, thankfully it was fine