My first Fractal product, AX8 arrived yesterday and I got to spend a couple of hours giving it a test drive last night. I hooked everything up to a mixer feeding two Yorkville NX55p powered PA speakers.
Up until now I have been a mostly clean guitar-cord-amp (Fender) kind of player. I found a bunch of very good presets to give variations on that side of my tone plus the addition of vibe, delay, and light drive which are taking the these really nice clean and cleanish amp sounds to another level for me. Very cool.
What's REALLY cool to me is this new world of gain tones! Until now, I always stayed on the clean side of things because I never found or was willing to keep spending money to find the right combination gear to get the "real" gain sounds I had in my head or hear on recordings. Those days are gone! A IIC+ preset really got my attention and there were SO many more. I'm really anxious to practice with the band and start playing with these great gain sounds.
The top panel amp controls are really nice to have at your finger tips especially since it took a little while for me to get used to navigating (all front panel so far) the screens. All of the control knobs have a very nice damped/fluid feel. The foot switches work very well too. No clicks or associated extra force required to activate them. Just a nice amount of spring pressure that's easy to operate by hand if you've got them on the table in front of you.
The overall look and feel of AX8 is excellent. It's heavier than I imagined. Feels like every bit of interior space is full. Really nice looking screens, buttons, lights. Very nice sturdy looking finishes and labeling on the on the housing. My unit does have several hex shaped light impressions/tool marks under the powder coat on the top of the main panels. They don't bother me at all and I only noticed them because I had the AX8 on a desk in front of me with a bright light and reading glasses.
A couple hours in and I'm really happy with the AX8 and don't foresee any reason that will change. Since I don't usually have to match someone else's sound, I plan to start by dialing in a basic group of maybe 3 presets with my new favorite clean, crunch, and gain sounds and learn from there!
Hope to hear from more new users soon!
