Do you realize how spoiled we all are with the Axe? I just did.

Etudica

Etudica

Inspired
So I used my lunch break today to visit a small shop nearby that I used to frequent often back in the day. I knew there were some vintage LPs there and possibly some other gems. The owner is a super cool dude and usually has something extraordinary laying around on a workbench. Amazing luthier too.

Long story short, I pick up this vintage LP custom (don't remember the year) and the salesman gives me the whole "I'll patch you into the best amp we have" line, and flips on a BadCat combo. Loud for it's size? Yes. Good tone? Pffffff. I couldn't stand playing it for more than a few minutes. And the price? Well over $3K!!! For basically one clean and one dirty sound with ridiculously springy reverb. That's it. $3K.

10 years ago I might not have given it a second thought, but It's been somewhere around 2-3 years since I sat in a store and played through a traditional amp. I don't remember it being as awkward as it was today. I was driving home in shock wondering why anyone would drop that much coin for what I just played (the amp that is). Of course I had many traditional amps over the years before Fractal, and during that time they were some of my most prized posessions, but now that I took the plunge and my eyes are wide open I'll never go back. Ever. I can't imagine life without the Axe now.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fractal & Cliff, keep up the amazing dedication and you have a customer for life.
 
I love your post. I bet other people have had this kind of experience too. I know I have. A truly great amp is very rare, and there are many very expensive ones which don't deliver.
I thought this was going to be about how lucky we are to own a piece of gear which makes us look at all the NAMM press releases and see through to how un-exciting they are.
 
Admin M@ said:
I love your post. I bet other people have had this kind of experience too. I know I have. A truly great amp is very rare, and there are many very expensive ones which don't deliver.
I thought this was going to be about how lucky we are to own a piece of gear which makes us look at all the NAMM press releases and see through to how un-exciting they are.
Click to expand...

The Fractal firmware releases are more exciting to me.
 
Meh, price tag does not equate to gear that you're more likely to like. I've played a $7,000 Les Paul that I was amazed could be so lifeless. I've owned a nice high end Ibanez that, for what I wanted tonally, was less capable than a run of the mill Mexican Strat.

Do you think that nice Bad Cat amp just needed to be pushed to reach it's sweet spot? Perhaps a good attenuator would've helped.
 
I've actually heard the owner of this store use a bad cat at his last gig and it sounded fine. Although he was also running quite a few pedals in front as well. It suited his style of playing Zepplin covers and others from that era. It's just not appealing to me. Now I'm left with wondering what that LP would have sounded like through the Axe. Let me just say that amp did not aid in selling that guitar at all.

The real point was why drop $3500 when you can have it ALL for less?!
 
I hear you, it's hard for me to play a line 6 spider!! Haha I kid but seriously. I don't know what it is; either I'm finally "maturing" as a player or I've been lost the last couple of years but the axe fx has changed everything in my playing. I try to play clean, hardly use any heavy gain, and I most importantly don't feel too lost when trying s tube amp.
 
After all I learned about IIR's amp simulations since owning the Axe Fx, I don't even look at any amp anymore; don't understand the use of it having only one or two or maybe three sounds through channel-switching and too few color possibilities. Even for a backup solution I'd rather try any type of cheaper and smaller FR solution. Amp's are just not 'sexy' anymore IMHO. And when I used to have amps, most of the time it would take me 2-3 months of deciding about the mods and tube replacements until it sounded how I wanted it to sound.

Howbeit; if there hadn't been any amps...there wouldn't be any Axe Fx today. I guess tt's a bit like "Why are there boats ->...because there is water"
 
I used to go to music stores and try out all the goodies and always bought something but since the axe I don't even get exited about going to a music store at all. went to international guitar show in Orlando 2 weekends ago and didn't even look at any thing but a couple of charvels(if you didn't know I like to collect charvels (about 40 at this point) the axe as forever changed my enjoyments.
 
While I agree with the sentiment in your post, I have to say that there are several amps that I would've really loved to own since I went Axe FX. Namely, a BadCat Hot Cat 10th Anniversary (serial number 1). That was a FANTASTIC amp. The other one was a Splawn Quickrod through a 2x12 Splawn cab. That amp had me questioning my switch to digital for a week or so... but when I updated to FW14, I re-dialed my main patch around the Fastrod model and that went away.
 
IF you've ever played a tube amp, you'd notice that sometimes they feel stiff. Sometimes they don't. It must be the humidity or something, I don't know, but all I know is that the AXE is consistent everytime. And it's never stiff... unless you want it to be, by turning a few 'virtual' knobs!
 
I have owned five 1. gen. Bandmaster Reverb tops, two of them with fantastic sound after heavy restauration and costly RCA Black Plate 6L6 tubes. Had to sell them all due to finances - but especially the sound from one of them in tandem with a cab. with very old Jensen 10" kept ringing in my memory years later. And did I regret the sale ...???.
Not any more actually. The amount used on purchase of the amps, stocking NOS tubes, finding resistors, caps etc. is fortunately yesterday.
Now my old, sold ear-candy is digitized. But it took me a while to get my brain accustomed to the freedom without soldering, the often soggy smell of hot amp and hiss/buzz.
Life's good in the Axe-Hood.
 
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