Call to arms: Where are all the Ultra/Std users?

I have an Ultra, and like many others in this thread, I joined late to the party.

I'm discovering tons of tricks and stuff to get great tone with the Ultra (and it's stock IRs) and would love for these forums to be more active. I think we could all learn a lot by working with each other's patches - even if we're satisfied with the tones we're getting, they can always be better, right?! :D
 
Speaking of IRs... Anyone have the cab_impulses.zip that Cliff posted a a couple years back, it was a huge collection of IRs he gathered for the Ultra/Standard... I think it was on my PC that died as can't seem to find it on my current machine and the link on the forum it dead. Cheers
 
Ultra and II user here. 2 nights ago I dug out the ultra and fired up 'THE BROWN SOUND' preset. Now im all depressed bc I cant get that tone/feel/vibe outta my II. The box is still great and has its own thing for sure.
 
All the fractal stuff is top notch. I have had my standard for a year. The ownhammer and fractal producer packs are worth the money for sure.
 
mesaboog said:
I am a long time Standard user. It is all I need. I play in a regular gigging cover band and I dialed in my core tones long ago. Because I am so happy with my tones, I am not a chaser any more. Sometimes I tweak because I am looking for new effects to spice things up or fit a new song. With regard to IR's, I have been using the same IR for the majority of my core presets. I have purchased some Redwire IR's a while back as well as have downloaded countless ones from this forum. I trust my ears and ultimately, I have a hard time finding an improvement over what I was using... nothing ever knocked my socks off. That was UNTIL I purchased the new Ownhammer Modern pack last week. The first IR I tried from that pack (Scumback), I loaded into User Slot 10. BAM! It was a dramatic improvement over my "go to" Cab I had been using for a couple years now. That's it. I didn't even bother trying another from that pack yet. I had a gig that night and sounded better than I ever have. More girth & balls to my tone, some highs were tamed. Cut through the mix well. I can't wait to dig into these IR's a bit more. If the first one I tried so far sounds THAT good, I can only imagine that there are at least a bunch of killer additional speakers in that pack that are as good or better. I can tell you that that 1st IR alone was easily worth the $20 I spent on the pack.

So as it applies to the original post, I can only assume that there are plenty of Gen 1 users out there who are quite happy with their Axe-Fx and are not feeling the need to have the latest and greatest. I too wish the Gen 1 community here was a bit more active, but there is a massive amount of information, creative ideas in the vaults of this forum that are just a search away.
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I'm getting close to the same situation, hence my decision to buy a 2nd Ultra as a backup, sell my tube gear at my leisure, and look at an AXE II in about 12 months. With all the built in IRs plus 10 user slots surely this is enough to produce some really great gig worthy sounds. 10 of the best top notch 3rd party or Fractal IRs would be more than enough.

I'm organising a jam in the next 2 weeks and I'm looking foward to testing out a few new tweaks based on some AXE II sounds. Most of the core parameters were the same and the SRV strat patch sounds better. Testing in a band context is the ultimate test however.
 
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User IRs are something that I overlooked until now. I guess it's time to start testing!

When dialing a new patch, where do you usually start? I find it easier to first define a "default" chain and then start choosing the parameters of each block, but probably with good IRs the patch should be tweaked arround them. Eventually some blocks won't even be needed. What's your method?
 
I keep my Axe Fx II in the studio, so I still use my Ultra at home everyday.

It's still an amazing piece of gear that prevents me from having hundreds of stomp boxes all over my livingroom. ...now if I could just rid of all the empty beer bottles all over the place I'd be fine.
 
Still using & loving my Standard. For the last couple of years I'd pretty much stopped following the Fractal forums, as there was nothing much happening for Gen 1 users. Recently I purchased the Ownhammer Modern set, and found the IR's were generally great sounding, so a real value. To a large degree, some of them just sound "more right". My only concern is that Ownhammer doesn't seem to use a calibrated reference mic for any of his captures, and many otherwise lovely sounding IRs are plagued by elevated low end due to proximity effect. Even if he recorded some with non-cardioid mics, that would give users a worthwhile option.

Overall, though, IMO the OH's are very nice, definitely worth checking out for a Standard or Ultra.

Nice to see someone trying to inject some forum life for the rest of us!

Brian
 
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Brian G said:
Still using & loving my Standard. For the last couple of years I'd pretty much stopped following the Fractal forums, as there was nothing much happening for Gen 1 users. Recently I purchased the Ownhammer Modern set, and found the IR's were generally great sounding, so a real value. To a large degree, some of them just sound "more right". My only concern is that Ownhammer doesn't seem to use a calibrated reference mic for any of his captures, and many otherwise lovely sounding IRs are plagued by elevated low end due to proximity effect. Even if he recorded some with non-cardioid mics, that would give users a worthwhile option.

Overall, though, IMO the OH's are very nice, definitely worth checking out for a Standard or Ultra.

Nice to see someone trying to inject some forum life for the rest of us!

Brian
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So looks like I'm definitely buying OH's IRs. The problem is where to start: Vintage, Modern, 412-GTR Mes V32 STD? For someone who has all the libraries, what are the pros and cons of each one? Anyone care to share some samples? I'm pretty inclined to try the Mesa pack, but never really heard much about it...

Edit: Well, I found this: https://soundcloud.com/ownhammer. It might be helpful if you haven't heard it already.
 
I am a proud owner of an AxeFx Standard. Have been using it for close to 2yrs now. Bought it from a close friend who upgraded to the II. Have played it side by side with him and his II in the same band. I personally LOVE the standard as it is STILL better than 95% of the rest of the units out there (to my ears) anyhow. I have owned just about everything out there from Digitech to Line 6 and the like and still cannot find better tones than right inside that little black box. It is my go to for church gigs, band gigs both rock and country and for home recording.

I still have a very bad pedal addiction so I keep a JMP-1 and old Digitech Twin Tube for backup units with ADA Microcabs that I can run all the pedals I own front end or in the loop into either power amps or the EV's. Its a great backup solution that frankly doesn't get used very often.

I use the Axe Standard with a GCP>3 expression pedals> tap button for rotary sim slow/fast> 1 or 2 EV 112 monitors. Sure I would love to spend 2K on a II but again the standard/ultra are still better than most everything else out there. I am sitting on mine and will drive it "till the wheels fall off" as they say.

So a resounding YES A call to arms for all those that still love the Gen1 units. Please lets get this forum active again. I personally have reached out to some of the very helpful guys/gals here and received presets, IR's and lots of information. I am always on the prowl for NEW patch info, presets, tips and tricks.
 
I had both the Standard and the II until last Friday when I shipped off my Axe II. It was a nice unit that I tried to love for 11 months and in all that time I could not quite get there. The Standard which I have been using since 2009, is so dialed in for my preferences that anything beyond that for what I use it for (80's covers mostly) is excess.

PS, the OH modern pack is a great place to start. Was for me any way.
 
Bought my ultra quite some time ago before the axe II came out. Still digin the ultra alot. It is good. Evrrytime I think of selling out and going back to a tube rig I will sit down with the axe utra one last time at volume and.............well I stilll have it.

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk 4
 
Vaelthunder said:
So looks like I'm definitely buying OH's IRs. The problem is where to start: Vintage, Modern, 412-GTR Mes V32 STD? For someone who has all the libraries, what are the pros and cons of each one? Anyone care to share some samples? I'm pretty inclined to try the Mesa pack, but never really heard much about it...

Edit: Well, I found this: https://soundcloud.com/ownhammer. It might be helpful if you haven't heard it already.
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The only cabs I use are the ownhammer m75 and h75 but this is highly subjective.

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk 4
 
New ultra user here, I've been busy playing and chasing tones! Posted once before and got a great response from a gen2 user that was pertinent to my gen1 needs. It would be nice to see this forum up and running again. Getting a "live" response would be nice to bounce ideas around. I do search the thread and typically get the answer I'm looking for but its from 2010! This thread is like going to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the answer is there just hard to get to. I am falling into the rabbit hole of tweaking. But I keep my base 20-30 patches unmolested and play from there(train wreck or jtm45 or BE with low gain,hmmmmmm).
 
We should make a big patch-sharing thread. Everyone gets sweet patches and we can learn from each other how to make our Ultras sound even better than IIs :D
 
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