Do you use your III as a mixing tool?

I tried this route for many years with little success. Thankfully with all the plugins included in Logic, you shouldn't need more than a few to get an adequate "mixed guitar tone". Doing the mixing before even touching the record button is certainly possible, but I find that things don't always sound how you want them to once all the instruments are added.

My workflow usually goes like this:

1. Use a baseline preset I'm familiar with that best represents the tone I'm after for a particular track.
2. Adjust any scenes or EQ in the preset to get closer to my mental ideal for the guitar tone.
3. Record into logic (Double Track, Hard Panning L/R).
4. Use Logic plugins (the stock presets are a great place to start) to begin sculpting my tone relatively to what I'm looking to achieve (usually cutting the frequencies 80hz and below).

I know many like to record a dry signal then reamp later if they need to change the tone, but this has never worked for me. Often it is the spontaneity in the moment where I come up with the best takes, but reamping is always an option if you know more or less what you want.

The problem I have run into with trying to mix the guitar too much before recording, is I don't have a reference for the bass, drums, keyboards and so forth. Once everything gets added it's usually easier for me to cut what I don't need from the guitar and possibly add what I need a little more of. It's usually best to try and get in the ballpark with the source though, otherwise you'll spend all day EQ'ing a track (which I totally wouldn't know anything about).

I'd say if you know exactly what you want going in, it's more than plausible to get a mostly "mixed down" guitar track from the Axe III. Just be careful with sculpting too much before dropping the track in Logic, since it can be a pain to add frequencies in after the fact (or having to re-record altogether). Also as someone who recently switched over to Logic from GarageBand, I can tell you that Logic makes the workflow much smoother and the post-processing area relatively painless to the point where I wish I converted years ago. Good luck!
 
I've used the III's FX as outboards for sessions many times. The reverbs, especially, go toe-to-toe or surpass any plugin or external effect I've every heard. I've used the delays, chorus, and flanger on sessions, as well.
 
For what its worth I am just working on solo material at my leisure and dont have lofty engineer or producer aspirations. I just want my stuff to sound half decent.

From that description, I would not recommend you use the AxeFX for outboard processing during mixing. It can be done and you can get great results, but using external h/w effects processors takes a bit of investment in time and effort to get it to work well. You have to contend with latency issues and it's not simple to get bounces/exports to work. I believe you'll be happier using plugins.
 
I'm going to be making the jump from garageband to logic X this winter. I know that I can use USB-in to process tracks from logic and then put them back in the session. Logic also comes with a lot of plugins for processing in terms of compression and EQ.

Is anyone using their III to process tracks after recording? I suppose another good question is do people apply all their compression and eq to their preset and leave the resulting track untouched?

For what its worth I am just working on solo material at my leisure and dont have lofty engineer or producer aspirations. I just want my stuff to sound half decent.

Thanks!

IMHO it would only complicate stuff, make recall harder and slow you down.

and all the effects eq, compression etc, use them if it makes you perform better and change your tone drastically in the direction you want. if not, keep them off later for mixing stage. this way you have more options with your tracks. otherwise its already compressed/EQed and you cant really undo it.
 
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That's a rabbit hole I don't plan to go down haha.

Just wait! You’ll be sitting there one day when Waves puts out another sale and you’ll innocently think to yourself, “No harm in looking around.”, and then 30 minutes later your blood is rushing through your veins as you‘re thinking about which plug-ins you’re going to get after you cash out and Waves sends you the e-mail to redeem your free plug-ins because you just bought $300 worth of them.

When I got my iMac, I just had a few specific plug-ins I wanted to replace that were on my MacBook, but Waves kept having sale after sale and I’m weak. I think the last thing I bought was Superior Drummer 3, it’s been a few months since I bought any other plug-ins. That said, I belong to a FB group that just posts sales on plug-ins, so every couple days I have to fight the urge to buy more when they pop up in my feed. I just made a deal with myself that I’ll only buy something now if I run into a situation where I find a legit need for it, which I don’t anticipate anytime soon.
 
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