Difference between Axe-FX and virtual instrument programs

J

jasonsmith

Member
What's the difference between the Axe-FX II and virtual instrument programs?

I'm looking to do guitar recordings and want to use virtual instruments, effects, cabs, etc. I play metal, so I know it can be hard getting a good distortion tone through virtual instruments.
 
chrisallen8888 said:
Quality.
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Mostly this. Sound quality, build quality, no issues with software clashing, and tweakability. You won't get any of this with programs. Of course you can get great sounds using just programs on the computer (Look at Sithu Aye - Isles EP) but this way is much more likely to get you the sound you want. You won't be so limited by the programs.
 
Dedicated processing. Unless you have HD cards for Pro Tools HD or a Mac Pro with multiple cores, Virtual Instruments tend to be heavy on the processing, especially for guitar. Using the axe, its like your just recording a file without all the pesky plug in's hogging up your system.
 
I was also looking at the Kemper. But from what I've read, it looks like the Axe-FX is more suited for recording than the Kemper.
 
jasonsmith said:
I was also looking at the Kemper. But from what I've read, it looks like the Axe-FX is more suited for recording than the Kemper.
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It is in the sense that you can get more tones easily, and the Kemper doesn't have the cornucopia of effects and parameters the AxeFX does.
 
Are there any cheap enclosures for the Axe-FX II? i.e. single unit enclosure with the back open so you can get to the plugs.

If I did get the Axe-FX II. Thought about making something out of wood.

Kinda like turning it into a head or something. As I don't have any rack stuff and would just be setting it on a table or something.
 
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jasonsmith said:
Are there any cheap enclosures for the Axe-FX II? i.e. single unit enclosure with the back open so you can get to the plugs.

If I did get the Axe-FX II. Thought about making something out of wood.

Kinda like turning it into a head or something. As I don't have any rack stuff and would just be setting it on a table or something.
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Basically you're looking for a cheap 2U rack. Ideally you want rack depth from front rails to back to be ~14" or more so nothing hangs out, but in a studio it's probably not a huge deal if it does. If you build something, ideally you should build it with proper rack rails at the right spacing so you can mount it in securely.
 
Has anybody here tried a high quality virtual instrument program that outputs a dry guitar signal (strat, les Paul, etc.) and ran it into the Axe-Fx II?

To me virtual instrument means it is capable of being programmed with notation or tab and the program converts the written music into sound.
 
How is the selection of effects in the Axe FX II? I was playing around in the demo version of Guitar Rig 5, and it had a ton of effects I never heard of before. One that I liked was called Reverse Delay. There were a few others that were nice that were not the typical type of effects that are used.

One problem I noticed with the Guitar Rig 5 is that all the amp models sounded like there was a blanket over the amp. I was listening through my Shure headphones. It didn't have that sound that you get out of a real amp. I was playing around on the distortion amp models and they were pretty noisy and kinda mushy. Like when speed picking it just sounded like noise and mush. I didn't find anything useable that I could use for when playing with distortion. I got better useable distortion sound out of my Fender practice amps. Though I do like the distortion in Fender SS amps.
 
jasonsmith said:
One problem I noticed with the Guitar Rig 5 is that all the amp models sounded like there was a blanket over the amp. I was listening through my Shure headphones.
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If you really want to hear what any modeler sounds like, ditch the headphones. You need acoustic feedback from a live speaker to your guitar to really get the tone—and especially the feel—of the rig.
 
Rex said:
If you really want to hear what any modeler sounds like, ditch the headphones. You need acoustic feedback from a live speaker to your guitar to really get the tone—and especially the feel—of the rig.
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If I had recorded it, wouldn't it sound the same when listening to it back through headphones anyways? I plan on doing recordings and uploading them to the net. I was using studio type headphones. Where as most who would be listening to it would either listen through cheap small headphones, or their laptop/computer speakers.

I'm still considering the Axe FX II. It looks like the II has alot of major improvements over the Axe FX I. I still plan on first playing around with some digital preamp/multi effects units at the Guitar Center. As they have a bunch you can try out. I used to have a huge multi effects DOD pedal that had amp sims. I got some good distortion sounds from that playing it through my amp.

So, I think a stand alone unit would sound better compared to software on a computer.
 
What Rex is getting at, is when you play your guitar in a live setting FRFR or CAB the sound couples into the guitar and resonates your guitar, this adds depth to the sound. When you record direct you lose out on this resonating effect and the tone can sound lifeless and sterile. A lot of people forget about this and when they record direct they wonder why the Axefx doesn't sound like a mic'd up real amp. If you are looking for a quiet route there has been experimentation with a vibrating device I forget what post it was talked about on.


Here's what Cliff had to say:
It's not from the "tubes being pushed". It's due to sympathetic vibration of the guitar itself.

AFD sounds great because it was recorded loud. In fact, Slash had a Boogie combo in the control room pointed right at his guitar. He had a volume pedal controlling it so that he could adjust how much sustain/feedback he got at will.

When you play at low volumes there is little sound coupled into the guitar body and strings. As you turn up the volume the sound couples into the guitar and reinforces certain frequencies and increases the sustain.

I did a test some time ago and the change in the frequency response is quite dramatic. IIRC, I measured over 10 dB difference at certain frequencies. This is huge. The reason I was doing the test is I was trying to see if I could recreate the effect of playing loud but at low volumes.

why-does-axe-ii-any-guitar-amp-need-volume-but-my-albums-dont.html
 
AndrewSierra said:
What Rex is getting at, is when you play your guitar in a live setting FRFR or CAB the sound couples into the guitar and resonates your guitar, this adds depth to the sound. When you record direct you lose out on this resonating effect and the tone can sound lifeless and sterile. A lot of people forget about this and when they record direct they wonder why the Axefx doesn't sound like a mic'd up real amp. If you are looking for a quiet route there has been experimentation with a vibrating device I forget what post it was talked about on.


Here's what Cliff had to say:
It's not from the "tubes being pushed". It's due to sympathetic vibration of the guitar itself.

AFD sounds great because it was recorded loud. In fact, Slash had a Boogie combo in the control room pointed right at his guitar. He had a volume pedal controlling it so that he could adjust how much sustain/feedback he got at will.

When you play at low volumes there is little sound coupled into the guitar body and strings. As you turn up the volume the sound couples into the guitar and reinforces certain frequencies and increases the sustain.

I did a test some time ago and the change in the frequency response is quite dramatic. IIRC, I measured over 10 dB difference at certain frequencies. This is huge. The reason I was doing the test is I was trying to see if I could recreate the effect of playing loud but at low volumes.

why-does-axe-ii-any-guitar-amp-need-volume-but-my-albums-dont.html
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I think the problem I had just had to do with the amp sim in the software.

But I plan on recording direct because I think that is going to give me the cleanest and best recording quality. I did try micing my amp, using an interface, and record that way. But the sound I got was no better than just using a small digital voice recorder. So really poor quality.

I thought the Axe-FX II has amp sims so it sounds like you recorded with a mic from a 4x12?

Anyways, whats the best setup for recording from the Axe-FX II into the computer? I know it has USB, but I think some people record a different way and may be better quality than USB. As I know USB is slow on data transfer compared to Firewire.
 
I had used Guitar Rig since v2 and went up to v4 before going AxeFXII. I had also used Amplitube, ReValver MKIII and a bunch of other stuff either via demo or at friend's houses and stuff. Guitar Rig is great because of the little tape deck thing which does pitch shifting. Its also rock solid in terms of reliability for me. Where it was lacking was that it just sounded like an amp sim and the feel when playing through it was horribly plastic and disconnected. I invested in a nice little tube pre-amp to try to get the feel better and I even tried to convince myself that it was better, but it wasn't. I spent a ton of money in audio interfaces and computer hardware to get latency down to where it felt more alive. Even at the lowest latency it didn't help much.

The FAS stuff is just in a completely different league in every aspect with the AxFXII just being the cream of the crop of the lineup.

I could sit here and list every single thing that is better about having a dedicated standalone system in terms of performance, but at the end of the day if it doesn't sound right it won't matter. Its flat out amazing. Period. Another thing that is great is that it boots up in seconds and you can plug it into a ton of different things from a computer to a set of monitors to a PA system and have all of your patches available for everything from recording to jamming with headphones to live application. And when it comes to flexibility and preset creation it is absolutely second to none.

Now I don't use a whole ton of effects, but say I want to put something in parallel or adjust the mix level of a specific effect a certain way? I can do that where as about 90% of what is out there doesn't have the capability to do either. Its got the best MIDI control integration of any modeling system by light years; I mean it's not even close.

Out of all of the software sims ReValver MKIII was probably the closest in terms of concept to the AxeFX because it can use IR's and allows indepth tweaking. The problem is that the AxeFX stuff still sounds a lot better than it did.

I could be here all day talking about the pros of the AxeFXII.
 
If your recording interface is not-so-good, it could have human detectable latency. Hence some interfaces have direct out monitoring while you're recording your track. It bypasses all that processing, and gives you a direct out tap, making the latency a problem that the computer has to deal with, but not you. If you're using AxeFx, then no problem. Direct out and you get to hear your carefully crafted AxeFX tone. But if you were running a virtual instrument, direct out tap will get you only the unprocessed guitar tone. Want to hear your awesome Revalver or Amplitube tone while you track? You'll have to live with the latency of your system.
 
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