Axe-II and moving to FRFR, it's not all roses....Yet - My experiences so far.

N

nateb

Inspired
I have had the AxeFX II for about a week now. I am a former Ultra user and I loved that thing. It matched my needs perfectly. My last setup's sounded kick ass. I had two different setups. I was going out XLR to a FocusRite Pro40 into BX8A's and If I was feeling particularly feisty, I would go out dual bogner uberkabs in stereo being driven by SLA's. It sounded killer.

So, I thought I would dive in completely. I bought the a K12 and the Axe-II and dove in. At first, I was having a lot of problems. The clean tones sounded good but, the high gain stuff just sounded like hammered shit(Muffled, boomie.) Now, mind you, I have heard the samples, I wanted this to work. After a couple of days of frustration and a lot of, as my mother use to say 'Fuck-Words', coming out of my office. I went though the manual again, verified my settings, switched to my trusty non-active pickup simple Custom Jackson, verified my input levels and made sure I was tickling the reds. I even got a hold of the AXE-II redwires and Ownhammers just to take to make sure that my cabinet retardness wasn't effecting the situation.

Well in one swift moment, along with a simple chain of TS808, Recto New Red, and a Ownhammer Mesa IR

BANG!

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It sound mean as hell and I now have something I can work with =)

What I want people to get out of this review....

This is not easy stuff. Best thing is to make sure you're set up correctly, keep your signal chain as simple as possible, and just ease your way into it. Not all people have had my experience but, there are some out there that are complaining about woofy-ness in the tone. Keep working at it, and take the things that you don't understand out of the equation and everything will come together.

Now I wonder about Cliff and what is wandering around his head...

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I gotta think about selling 2 bogner uberkabs and get another K12... Crapola.

-Nate
 
hahaha many laughs in this for me! Thanks for the info, its definitely better to start simple and shape up your tone more deeply after you got the basic formed. I kinda had the same issue with my original Standard, I saw all these people with badass patches and kept trying to play with them and make on my own, did the Ownhammer thing and all until I finally nailed my tone starting simple with Mesa IR as well. Just waiting for my Axe II to arrive and see what I can conjure up now that I understand it much better.

Cheers \m/
 
OK... I bow out... I really like the responsiveness of the K12's. For fun (I really don't use it much anymore) I am probably going to keep one Bogner 4x12 cabinet and pick up another QSC K12 and run stereo FRFR with a dry 4x12. I really need to learn how to use the noise gate properly. I like gain too much =)
 
Nice to see the Bay Area represented! If I get the itch to buy the II, I know who to contact. ;-)

Nice review, by the way.
 
Cool, let me chime in by saying Nate is a supercool guy and a pleasure to hang out with. Looks like you've been busy Nate! :D Glad to know you got the AXE II.
 
emperor_black said:
Cool, let me chime in by saying Nate is a supercool guy and a pleasure to hang out with. Looks like you've been busy Nate! :D Glad to know you got the AXE II.
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Thanks for the props Sam. Been wondering where you have been. We need to go check out another show and hang out again =)

As for the custom jackson, I been screwing around with two of them.
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I have been slacking on the 7 string stuff. I am mainly old school 80's-90's thrash.

And Symphx, I did see your post. I am going to start off saying that I like a lot of gain and I am no expert in dialing this thing in yet. If there is anything I can help with, let me know.

-Nate
 
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nateb said:
Thanks for the props Sam. Been wondering where you have been. We need to go check out another show and hang out again =)

As for the custom jackson, I been screwing around with two of them.
DSC_0008-1.jpg

DSC_0006-1.jpg


I have been slacking on the 7 string stuff. I am mainly old school 80's-90's thrash.

And Symphx, I did see your post. I am going to start off saying that I like a lot of gain and I am no expert in dialing this thing in yet. If there is anything I can help with, let me know.

-Nate
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cool well just start slinging any heavy gain patch my way or to the board (Ive posted some) and we can go from there!!!! Id love anything from some great george lynch to meshuggah!
 
I don't play to replicate... I play to have fun and relaxation. Give this patch a shot and let me know if this works for you. Tone is subjective, everyone has a different opinion of how it should be. like I said earlier, this is straight into a K-12. The only reason for the Effects loop is to run out to a cab.

 

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nateb said:
I don't play to replicate... I play to have fun and relaxation. Give this patch a shot and let me know if this works for you. Tone is subjective, everyone has a different opinion of how it should be. like I said earlier, this is straight into a K-12. The only reason for the Effects loop is to run out to a cab.

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SOUNDS COOL, WILL GIVE A TRY!
 
Man, that seven string Jackson looks practically like an Ibanez in parts and some of the layout. What's the tremolo?
 
PM sent.

Nice to see all these Bay Area peeps. We should get together and do an Axe FX jam or something.

What bands are you all in?
 
I play for fun. I haven't played in bands for years. I just got to many other things going on right now. Getting together sometime would be fun.

-Nate
 
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