Axe-Fx vs Vetta HD after 10 days of tweaking.

jerotas

jerotas

Experienced
Ok, I still have the Vetta. Glad I didn't sell it. Today I had a friend over and I played through the Axe-Fx straight into my 2 Behringer B212A active monitors. He played through my Vetta Head into 2 Bogner 1x12's.

I've had the Vetta 5 years. I've dialed up some pretty awesome dual tones on the thing. And Bogner speakers are just unbeatable for richness and clarity of tone. I have the CL-80 speakers in them instead of whatever comes stock.

Amp models - I think the Vetta sounds less authentic to the amps it copies than the Axe-Fx. But that does not mean that it sounds worse - just different. Admittedly, there is a level of articulation that I get on the Axe-Fx amp models that just is not attainable on the Vetta.

Obviously, the chrouses, reverb, and delays on the Axe-Fx are superior. As are the routing choices. I really do love the clean tones on the Axe-Fx.

After A/B'ing them for about an hour, I still prefer - by far - certain distorted tones of the Vetta over anything I've dialed up in the Axe-Fx. I definitely wish the Vetta models had the level of articulation that the Axe-Fx models do. With the Vetta, I can get the perfect combination of crunch (clarity) and thump. Haven't been able to do that yet with the Axe.

So far my favorite lead channel on the Axe is the Mesa Mark 4 lead preset, slightly EQ'd for a bit more crunch. It does FEEL better to play on then the Vetta. But it doesn't SOUND as good as my Bogner Uberschall / Diezel Herbert lead sound on the Vetta. I've tried plugging the Axe-Fx into a power amp and the Bogners too, but I haven't been able to beat my setup with the Axe.

Possibly I need to tweak more. Or maybe I just have to make the choice of sound vs. feel. I wouldn't ever get rid of the Axe. But it may become a recording-only component for me. I wanted to gig with it, but it would have to beat the Vetta hands down. Right now I don't think it does.

Anyone live by Seattle? We could have a tweaking party haha.
 
jerotas said:
I've had the Vetta 5 years.
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Hey jerotas,

Can you remember back to when you bought the vetta? My guess is that it took longer than 10 days to dial in your fav tones on that, no? I've had my Axe for over a year now and my tones are still always improving. I've owned a lot of kit in the past and the Axe is no.1 for me but it's not everyone's cup of tea, I believe that you can get almost any tone from the Axe but you sort of need to know how to get there where as with the line6 kit (for me guitarport/toneport) it seemed easier to dial in an ok tone. For me the reward in tone and feel from the Axe is worth the extra time spent tweaking, between the forum, wiki and axechange you should be able to create any tone you want.

Spence
 
It took me well over a year to dial in my main high gain tone with the Axe, since CAE 3+SE was not initially available and I wasn't quite "getting there" with anything else. The tones were great, but not quite "I'm putting all my amps on eBay" great. It would take much less time now. I've owned about $15K+ worth of tube gear in the past, and still have three heads I can't bring myself to part with, even though I haven't been spending much time with them lately. At this point Axe produces the clearest, most articulate and dynamic high gain tone I've ever been able to achieve.

Give it time and have patience. Try different amps, find two or three models you really like and concentrate on those. Add a tiny bit of reverb if things sound "flat". Go through the factory presets - some of them are actually pretty good. Finally, try different speakers. I went from guitar cabs to QSC's to ADAM A7's. Studio monitors sound the best to my ears.

Once you zero in on your tone, however (and I'm 100% confident that you will), there will be no going back to anything else.
 
plexi59 said:
I've owned about $15K+ worth of tube gear in the past, and still have three heads I can't bring myself to part with, even though I haven't been spending much time with them lately.
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I hear what you're saying man. I'm different from most guitarists though in that I never really have played a tube amp that I loved. I've always had (and loved) solid state sounds, for 19 years now. I never wanted a head that didn't have reverb. I HATE practicing without reverb haha.

I will keep tweaking the Axe. Thanks for the encouragement. Yes of course it took more than 10 days to get an excellent tone on the Vetta.
 
honestly, you are probably not getting great sound out of the behringer speakers.

sad to say they aren't the same level of quality as the bogner cabs your other rig is going through.

behringer is generally lower priced, and IMO, the speakers lack the clean highs and tight lows of more expensive speakers. so you're gonna have a lot of mid range and not too much clarity up top... kinda messy highs and loose lows.

so please take that a bit into consideration with your axe setup.

i play through a single jbl eon 15 g2, powered speaker and it sounds great great great!
 
chrisallen8888 said:
i play through a single jbl eon 15 g2, powered speaker and it sounds great great great!
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Strange that you say that. I played through the JBL Eons the same day I tried out the Behringers. And the Behringers sounded way better (for distorted guitar sounds, both were good for clean stuff)...I was very surprised as well, and I know that no one will believe me haha.
I hope to ultimately get a great sound from my Bogner speakers (haven't had any luck so far), and just return the Behringers.
 
I agree about the speakers.

You A/B in somethig through top quality cabs (the bognors) to something through cheap, bottom end monitors. thats NEVER a good thing.

Try putting the axe through the Vettas power section (with amp sims on, cab sims off) into the same Bognor Cabs. Your patches will need to be done from scratch probably as FRFR is different to amp/cab - and a decent PA (either SS or valve) would be even better than the vettas Power section too BUT - i bet you get a LOT closer to the sounds your after.
 
paulmapp8306 said:
I agree about the speakers.

You A/B in somethig through top quality cabs (the bognors) to something through cheap, bottom end monitors. thats NEVER a good thing.

Try putting the axe through the Vettas power section (with amp sims on, cab sims off) into the same Bognor Cabs. Your patches will need to be done from scratch probably as FRFR is different to amp/cab - and a decent PA (either SS or valve) would be even better than the vettas Power section too BUT - i bet you get a LOT closer to the sounds your after.
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or you could compare the axe-fx and the vetta thru the behringer monitors.

both ways would be a fair way to compare sounds.

(FYI: I also had a vetta and i can't image that it can sound better than the axe-fx.)
 
Scott Peterson said:
Both the Behringers and the JBL EON's suck.

That's your issue, not the Vetta or the Axe-FX.
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I am with Scott...Speakers and amplification can make a night and day difference.

I first fired up my Axe through Event BAS2020's..(which are decent reference monitors and many people would probably like with the Axe), and wasn't impressed at all..rather disappointed.

Changed to QSC monitors and am loving them. I would give the idea above a try and plug the Axe into whatever power/speakers you are running the Vetta through and see how that sounds.
 
jerotas said:
plexi59 said:
I've owned about $15K+ worth of tube gear in the past, and still have three heads I can't bring myself to part with, even though I haven't been spending much time with them lately.
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I hear what you're saying man. I'm different from most guitarists though in that I never really have played a tube amp that I loved. I've always had (and loved) solid state sounds, for 19 years now. I never wanted a head that didn't have reverb. I HATE practicing without reverb haha.

I will keep tweaking the Axe. Thanks for the encouragement. Yes of course it took more than 10 days to get an excellent tone on the Vetta.
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I too came from the Vetta II (HD) camp... You are soooo lucky to be starting off with the 7.04 firmware... I started with 5.12 (?) and was not happy with Axe-fx because of the sub par power amp simulation (when compared to 7.04). My distortion patches sounded very muffled and had no balls... I even have a thread talking about how our percussionists Valvetronix distortion sounded much better than my pre-7.xx tone... Now I have the amp sim set at noon for my lows and mids, and my highs are set to around 1 o'clock... The trick is to adjust the depth, damp, sag, master, etc in the advanced parameters page. As I said, pre-7.04 I actually missed my Vetta's ear piercing, high fizz, no low end tone because it was aggressive... Now I couldn't see myself ever going back.

P.S. Haven't I seen your name in the ION forums?
 
paulmapp8306 said:
I agree about the speakers.
Try putting the axe through the Vettas power section (with amp sims on, cab sims off) into the same Bognor Cabs. Your patches will need to be done from scratch probably as FRFR is different to amp/cab - and a decent PA (either SS or valve) would be even better than the vettas Power section too BUT - i bet you get a LOT closer to the sounds your after.
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I'd like to try that, but to my knowledge there's no way to NOT use an amp model on the vetta.
So I'd be listening to Axe-FX amp model into Vetta amp model into power amp into Bogners.
 
jerotas said:
I'd like to try that, but to my knowledge there's no way to NOT use an amp model on the vetta.
So I'd be listening to Axe-FX amp model into Vetta amp model into power amp into Bogners.
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If you put the Axe-FX into the return of the Vetta, and set the Vetta's loop to the end, you'll bypass everything in the Vetta but the digital converters.

If you want a mono signal, just use a standard cable from the output of the Axe-FX.

If you want stereo you will have to have a Y cable that is one stereo split to two mono.
 
Guitar-Tiz said:
If you put the Axe-FX into the return of the Vetta, and set the Vetta's loop to the end, you'll bypass everything in the Vetta but the digital converters.

If you want stereo you will have to have a Y cable that is one stereo split to two mono.
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This is my backup rig...that said I haven't fired up the old Vetta in well over a year! Definitely try this as it will be a 100% comparison to the Vetta this way and you will (I truly beleive) be pleasantly suprised once you get a bit more tweaking under your belt (and let's face it - the Vetta did take a fair amount of "work" to get the "mojo" going - it took me at least six months - the AxeFX came a lot quicker for much better results IMHO)

I usually use a solidstate amp (Rocktron Velocity 300) into a Marshall JCM900 1960A cab and it sounds sublime, but it does sound pretty good through the vetta power amp section into the 4x12 too (I didn't like the Vetta's stock speakers). The Vetta's power amp is not bad as it goes. Try it and you can the EASILY A/B.
 
jerotas said:
...I played through the Axe-Fx straight into my 2 Behringer B212A active monitors. He played through my Vetta Head into 2 Bogner 1x12's.
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:!:

Stop right there.

Seriously.

I haven't even read anyone else's replies and don't know if it's been addressed, but those B212A monitors are obviously the issue. That's why the Vetta could sound better on any level. Comparing sound output from Bogner cabinets to Behringer B212A's is day and night. Check that... Heaven and Hell.

Before you assume that I'm randomly Behringer bashing, please understand that I actually own 4 of those Behringer B212A units. In small P.A. situations, they work fine as a cheap way to hear yourself on stage. But, an AXE FX through them sounds like garbage compared to anything else I've ever put my Ultra through. I've tried it a number of times. Each time I've used those for the AXE FX, I hated the sound, in general. When I'd plug into something else, I always thought, "Oh, Thank GOD! That's more like it." I've got a pair of small M-Audio powered Studio Monitors for my computer that even blow those behringers away sound quality-wise with the AXE-FX plugged into them.

I guarantee that you if you had run your AXE FX direct (FRFR) into ANY better monitors, your opinion would have been different.

That was not a fair sound comparison. Any sound system is only as good as the quality of its weakest component. And, in terms of producing quality sound, these things fail miserably. they're designed to be relatively loud at a cheap price. the sacrifice is sound quality. Speakers / Monitors have a vastly under-rated effect on sound. I urge you to try it again with good full range monitors.
 
Hey Jerotas! Good to see you!


I guess if we wait long enough all of ION will be here.
;) :D :D

I should check on Ernie NoPride. Man, we had some good times on ION.




BTW, stick with that Axe FX. It'll grow with you.
 
jerotas said:
plexi59 said:
I never really have played a tube amp that I loved. I've always had (and loved) solid state sounds, for 19 years now.
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I don't know anything about the quality of different speakers, but your comment above jumped out at me. If you don't like the sound of tube amps, I can see why the sound of the axe-fx would trouble you. ;)

Also, for what it's worth, I HATED my axe-fx on day 10. Took me two weeks before I got to the point where I thought, "This wasn't wasted money." After two months, I was thinking, "This is the best sounding rig I have ever played through." And, as has been said by others, I feel like I am getting better sounds all the time.

-Phil
 
Go back to the Vetta.

Just an opinion, but if you have a tone you already like, and have spent 5 years dialing in, why change? Why you would want to set up Axe-FX presets to be solid state, then not sure you have the right product.

I might think that the Axe-FX is in a different leagues, but it is YOUR opinion that matters.
 
Just an idea ... For these solid-state type of sounds keep Master Level on the amp low and/or Turn down SAG to smth very low like 0.01 or to 0 (effectively disabling the power amp) You might like it that way. Try Drive block into JC120 model with low sag in poweramp...

Mik.
 
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