Axegeddon: How will you survive?

solo-act

solo-act

Fractal Fanatic
Axe-ageddon survival kit -- do you have yours?

Axe-ageddon

Axe-a-ged-don
n.
1. A potential future reality where the greatest guitar modeler of all time is usurped by a more powerful product of near mythic capability.

2. A self-imposed purgatory whereupon one becomes "axe-less" due to the chimerical belief that better hardware is replacing it, a belief reinforced by the continued actions of one Cliff Chase.

3. The time one spends gigging without an Axe-FX and without any knowledge whatsoever of how long he or she must gig without said Axe-FX.

4. Also known as hell.



5693992675_c1b5c3deb5.jpg


5693992677_818f9b6a54.jpg

"change is good............................f***!"
"change is good............................f***!"
"change is good............................f***!"
 
Last edited:
you're not doing this to ebay it, are you? seems a little late in the game to go the ebay route. you could sell it with a buy-it-now and the buyer could wait to pay until the announcement, then not pay if it's a new axe-fx and that's what they want. likewise a seller could sell one and not ship until after the announcement, then not ship if it's not a new axe-fx coming on monday.

seems only cash transactions ala craigslist will go through before the monday announcement.

good luck, either way...
 
mhd1970 said:
you're not doing this to ebay it, are you? seems a little late in the game...
good luck, either way...
Click to expand...
Already paid for and gone, thus the post.

Anyone else in Axe-ageddon?
Is your survival kit ready to go?

Here's mine
5694780358_aa3764c438.jpg
 
Last edited:
Day one of Axe-ageddon is over.
Survived the gig.
Gigging with a single amp/cab sucks.
 
Last edited:
I have a 3-tier survival kit but as with all survival kits I hope I don't need to use it.
  • Headphone rig: iPad with Amplitube and Garage Band
  • Small Rig: Modded Hot Rod Deluxe with small pedalboard
  • Big Rig: Rivera Rake with (same) pedalboard
Jeeze. All that to replace my AxeFX + QSCs. No wonder I like the thing so much!
 
Gig 2 in Axe-ageddon....over at last.

5 hours of similar tone, pedal-stomping and gain staging and tweaking to keep the rig in the sweet spot.

aaaaaarrrrrgggh
 
My Ultra stays at my main band's studio in a 6U rack. We practice three times a week which means I get to use it plenty, but I'm involved with other projects like my church's worship team, so the B rig is used in those situations. The B rig is a guitar plugged straight into a Mesa Mark IV with a Mesa 3/4 back 2x12. It's a great sounding amp, but compared to the Fractal it's no contest. Every now and then I get a chance to take the Fractal rig in for the church service and it sounds way better. The other members of the band even comment on how much better the rig sounds compared to the Mesa.

Looks like I'll need to buy another one! :)
 
So here we are 24 hours into the ULTRA II announcement

1 axe-fx on ebay last night
28 on there tonight
47 for sale in our forum (before I stopped counting)

Welcome to Axe-ageddon

Feel free to share your survival strategies.

I've got three more gigs in Axe-ageddon this week.......*long sigh*
 
I am switching to all acoustic guitar gigs until I get the AxeFx II...

There's a hole in daddy's rack where all the money goes.... :)

Sent the Ultra on to its new home this morning.

- Richard
 
No way I'm getting rid of my AXE-FX until I have version 2 in hand
programmed to satisfaction with a working AXE-EDIT and all.

I'm too old to be AXEless even for 1 day.... and if that will cost me a few bills that's fine with me.

;)
 
I've got my old SansAmp PSA-1 fired up into a t.c.electronic M-One. I've got enough fizz that I won't be needing an Alka-Seltzer until I get a AFX II! I'm glad most of these people that I'm playing for have never heard what a live guitar is supposed to sound like.

It feels good to know I've got a quick and dirty backup system if I need it. Going from an Ultra to a Sansamp is like bailing out of an F-18 and ending up dangling from a parachute. Better than no 'chute though!
 
Solo-act why don't you use a two-amp rig? I've been using two amps into a 2x12" (each amp gets its own 12) for years, it sounds great. Two heads and one cab, not particularly brutal to move to gigs. I've used a variety of amps but always with the same overall setup, one higher wattage higher headroom amp with good lows and crisp highs, and a smaller lower wattage amp that breaks up early and has a nice midrange dirt. With that setup, with the amps set right, there's a whole range of tones from totally clean to totally dirty that you can get just by changing your volume control and picking intensity, and using a clean boost or dirt pedal or even an EQ pedal, which I'd normally do on just one leg of the signal, after the split, so that boost/dirt pedal only affects one of the two amps. Other than potential phase issues with amps that have different numbers of gain stages (which means signals out of polarity with each other) or pedals that invert polarity only driving one amp (so every time you turn the pedal on or off it puts the two amps in phase or out of phase with each other) it's a really simple setup that produces a huge range of tones.

So something like a blackface bassman for the cleaner amp and a 18w Marshall for the dirty one, or a 100w JCM800 for the cleaner one and a Deluxe Reverb for the smaller one, etc. My favorite variants include a Garnet Pro Reverb or Traynor YBA-1A for the clean amp and either a Laney PT30MV, Traynor YBA-2A, or even a 2204 for the dirt amp, depending on how loud and how dirty I need the extreme to get.

If I was able to sell my Ultra without taking a big loss, I'd just go back to using two amps one cab until I got an AxeFx II. Since I only got my Ultra two months ago, it would be super easy for me- I imagine it's substantially harder for people that've been playing the AxeFx for years. My problem is that now I can't sell my Ultra without taking a big hit. Otherwise I'd do it in a heartbeat, as the AxeFx II sounds like it's right up my alley. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom