Day 3 with my new AX8

P

Phil Scholling

Member
I wasn't able to stop playing long enough to post earlier than today. This unit is truly outstanding at what it does. I've been sitting on the fence for quite some time on whether or not to jump into the modeling world and if so, what platform. When all was said and done, the AX8 just seemed the best way to go. On a scale of 1 to 10 my level of satisfaction at this point is at 100.

One of the things I have to mention is how extremely helpful everyone on this forum is with sharing information and tips and tricks. I'm looking forward to being able to add to that. From Yek's amp guide to the sticky that Smittefar got started for tips and tricks, the amazing content from people like Leon Todd and AustinBuddy for working with the AX8 and all the little tweaks, and of course, the Fractal team for building such a great piece of gear. Thank you all very much.

In 3 days, here are the things that have helped me out the most:

- Follow the level setting steps for presets, especially building and testing them out at gig volume. The difference in sound from conversation quiet to the recommended 92 - 95 db range is huge. As I will use the AX8 mostly for live, this was extremely helpful when I showed up to practice on the first day with the one preset I built and it sounded great through our PA and with the band playing along.

- Scene controllers are definitely your friend. The ability to make a multi-channel amp from a single channel amp is such a cool thing.

- Walk away even for a few minutes and then come back to see if what you just tweaked sounds like you thought it did 10 minutes ago.

- Navigating the onboard controls are not that big a deal. AXE-Edit is great and makes it easy to dial in sounds but the onboard controls are nothing to be intimidated by despite what some may say. I spent the first day using only those controls and can very quickly tweak the key levels and other common settings that you'd probably need to in a pinch in a live setting.
 
It’s always cool to see a new user who gets it right away....many struggle needlessly..with so much content and heLP here....May I suggest , since you mention the great work of @austinbuddy , that you check out his Naked Amp Pack, which will instantly give you a complete template of every amp in the box with its matched stock cabs....many of us wish we had that at the start of our Fractal journeys....also @fremen and @Moke make great presets worth investigating....and not to forget @2112 Leon’s free stuff.and @yek s....ENJOY AND WELCOME
 
bradlake said:
It’s always cool to see a new user who gets it right away....many struggle needlessly..with so much content and heLP here....May I suggest , since you mention the great work of @austinbuddy , that you check out his Naked Amp Pack, which will instantly give you a complete template of every amp in the box with its matched stock cabs....many of us wish we had that at the start of our Fractal journeys....also @fremen and @Moke make great presets worth investigating....and not to forget @2112 Leon’s free stuff.and @yek s....ENJOY AND WELCOME
Click to expand...
Thanks for the recommendations, much appreciated.
 
All great things mentioned. I would also add do not overlook the cab high cuts and low cuts before you start tweaking the amp. As well as adding some proximity ...not all rigs need the added proximity but the majority IMO benefit from it

For me personally the choice of IR and how you dial in the cab is a major part of the sound. if you can get the amp to sound good first by doing this with the cab block ...then tweak the amps basic parameters.....then fine tune with advanced parameters ...then finally add any FX to really fine tune.

Also I am constantly using the VU meter and making sure every amp,scene, x/y, preset etc is all at the exact same level and using filter blocks to level across scenes and presets.
 
Mateo11 said:
All great things mentioned. I would also add do not overlook the cab high cuts and low cuts before you start tweaking the amp. As well as adding some proximity ...not all rigs need the added proximity but the majority IMO benefit from it

For me personally the choice of IR and how you dial in the cab is a major part of the sound. if you can get the amp to sound good first by doing this with the cab block ...then tweak the amps basic parameters.....then fine tune with advanced parameters ...then finally add any FX to really fine tune.

Also I am constantly using the VU meter and making sure every amp,scene, x/y, preset etc is all at the exact same level and using filter blocks to level across scenes and presets.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'll have to try playing around with the proximity. I did set hi and low cuts (thank you @2112). And yes to the IR's. I should have mentioned that as well. I was surprised at how much of a difference it made with the various IR's. I'm a big fan of the G12H speaker but I tried about 20 different cabs for the first preset I created and finding the IR that was closest to what I was looking for really helped a lot. Much less tweaking to do to get what I was looking for.
 
I have had mine for a little over a week. Had the helix before.

One thing I have learned, you don’t always need to tweak the amp. Simple may be better. I initially tweaked away and I it ended up sounding like..

So I blew the presets up and started over.

Matching the right cab is crucial. Or ir. I did download the Celestion 4x12 greenback, not digging it. In fact, I have gone back to the allure pack greenback 4x12, it seems “clearer.”
 
Welcome to the forum to my fellow Austinite Phil!

Watch this video. This will help you get you presets levels in the right place for live use and recording. You will thank me later!
;)

If you want a tutorial on programming a preset from scratch, there are a lot of them out there on YouTube. Leon Todd (2112) has very good quality ones, check him out.

Here is a video tutorial I did on nailing a Jimi Hendrix first album tone. Some tips and tricks in it that may be useful in making your own tones.

Enjoy, all we forumites are here to help!
 
Not that I don’t like Fractal Cabs but I bought the Ownhammer Heavy Hitters vol1 Cab pack with the suggestions from people on this forum. Found cabs that I liked with minimal tweaking with the amp parameters. Very happy with the results. Looking at Austin Buddy for Fender and Vox cabs now.
 
austinbuddy said:
Welcome to the forum to my fellow Austinite Phil!

Watch this video. This will help you get you presets levels in the right place for live use and recording. You will thank me later!
;)

If you want a tutorial on programming a preset from scratch, there are a lot of them out there on YouTube. Leon Todd (2112) has very good quality ones, check him out.

Here is a video tutorial I did on nailing a Jimi Hendrix first album tone. Some tips and tricks in it that may be useful in making your own tones.

Enjoy, all we forumites are here to help!
Click to expand...

That Jimi Hendrix video you did is stellar.
 
Markstull said:
I have had mine for a little over a week. Had the helix before.

One thing I have learned, you don’t always need to tweak the amp. Simple may be better. I initially tweaked away and I it ended up sounding like..

So I blew the presets up and started over.

Matching the right cab is crucial. Or ir. I did download the Celestion 4x12 greenback, not digging it. In fact, I have gone back to the allure pack greenback 4x12, it seems “clearer.”
Click to expand...
If you like greenbacks check out the OH players pack.
 
I'm the consummate noob right now. Hell, I'm pre-noob; my AX8 is in transit right now. I've just been reading here, watching videos, hoping I can flatten the learning curve at least a little once it arrives. I thought I'd take full advantage of the November sale, since I've been using a Johnson Millennium for the past 20 years, almost. My dilemma right now is figuring out the correct connections; the four-wire method seems at first glance to be the correct way to go. Trying to decide the best direction to go with supplemental equipment going forward, to get the most out of the unit.

So, I'd like to say first of all, hello everybody! And secondly, thanks for the overwhelming, yet excellent info here.
 
xX144Xx said:
I'm the consummate noob right now. Hell, I'm pre-noob; my AX8 is in transit right now. I've just been reading here, watching videos, hoping I can flatten the learning curve at least a little once it arrives. I thought I'd take full advantage of the November sale, since I've been using a Johnson Millennium for the past 20 years, almost. My dilemma right now is figuring out the correct connections; the four-wire method seems at first glance to be the correct way to go. Trying to decide the best direction to go with supplemental equipment going forward, to get the most out of the unit.

So, I'd like to say first of all, hello everybody! And secondly, thanks for the overwhelming, yet excellent info here.
Click to expand...


From my initial experience with the AX8, it worked out well for me to focus on the basics of the unit. The level setting video that @austinbuddy put out is great for doing that as it helped me understand how the signal path is affected by the various levels set along the way. After that, I just worked on a basic preset with only amp and cab blocks, nothing else. I picked an amp that I was familiar with and then tried several different cabs to see just how much that affected the sound. I was amazed at how it changed with each different cab. Once I found the one that got me close to what I wanted for a finished sound, I was able to make just minor tweaks to eq and other parameters and got very good results.

Just take your time and realize there is a lot to the AX8. The videos in the Tips and Tricks thread are all great and many of the resources already mentioned in this thread are fantastic resources.
 
xX144Xx said:
I'm the consummate noob right now. Hell, I'm pre-noob; my AX8 is in transit right now. I've just been reading here, watching videos, hoping I can flatten the learning curve at least a little once it arrives. I thought I'd take full advantage of the November sale, since I've been using a Johnson Millennium for the past 20 years, almost. My dilemma right now is figuring out the correct connections; the four-wire method seems at first glance to be the correct way to go. Trying to decide the best direction to go with supplemental equipment going forward, to get the most out of the unit.

So, I'd like to say first of all, hello everybody! And secondly, thanks for the overwhelming, yet excellent info here.
Click to expand...

Ahhhh, yes! The Johnson Millenium. I had one of those too. Great amp for its' time, lots of good tone memories with that one! :)
 
Like an idiot, I tried everything at a low volume when I got my AX8 last week. I still loved all of the effects and didn’t mind some of the stock amps. Still, I was a little disappointed with the tone. After some research, I purchased @austinbuddy naked amps. They sound amazing even at low volumes!
Bottom line: gig level volume matters. Foolishly, I didn’t realize this and spent many hours trying to dial in the right tone. With the right volume and the Naked Amps, the AX8 sounds outrageously good.
 
Chris Naish said:
Ahhhh, yes! The Johnson Millenium. I had one of those too. Great amp for its' time, lots of good tone memories with that one! :)
Click to expand...
Yep. It's been solid for almost 20 years now. One of the very first modeling amps, to my knowledge. I'll be running the AX8 through it, so hopefully I won't cause some sort of weird guitar modeling singularity where Jimi Hendrix steps through a wormhole playing a Parker Fly through a 5150. :confused:
 
Chris Naish said:
Ahhhh, yes! The Johnson Millenium. I had one of those too. Great amp for its' time, lots of good tone memories with that one! :)
Click to expand...

Oh man! I was a BIG Johnson Millennium guy back in the day, hung out on that early BBS forum and everything. It really was the great granddaddy of all modeling amps!
 
Phil Scholling said:
I picked an amp that I was familiar with and then tried several different cabs to see just how much that affected the sound. I was amazed at how it changed with each different cab..
Click to expand...

THIS! The IR used is half the tone/sound, no question. It's like the audio part to film -- you take that away and the film just doesn't work.

You have to spend time to get the IR right in making presets and use your EARS, not your eyes. I got "real familiar" with all the Factory IRs and how they sound in making the 700+ Naked Amps TonePack, which helped. Some of those presets do not use the Cab you'd "think" is the right one, but my ears told me there were better choices.

Another trick is to try to contrast IRs with Amps: if you have a a bright amp (like a Plexi Treble), then use a dark cab IR (like a Lerxst) to smooth it out. If you have a dark amp, use a brighter Cab IR. Also, blending a dark Cab IR (like the Lerxst 4x12) with a bright Cab IR (like a old BlackBack celestion that may sound awful shrill by itself) in stereo pair often sound fantastic.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom