Faith restored in my Axe :)

Ugly Bunny

Power User
I got my Axe in June-ish of last year, maybe later. It was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Replaced my Helix Floor almost instantly. Over time, though, as I changed guitars, I started to fall out of love with the tone I was getting. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't inspiring and lively like I thought it felt when I first got it.

A couple months ago, I picked up an HX Stomp which is so amazingly easy to get great tone out of almost immediately (as was the Helix, then the Axe, but you know how you always fall in love with new toys during the honeymoon period and think they're better/easier than what you had before). I had started using that exclusively for rehearsals and home jamming since it was so small and convenient and great-sounding and took pedals amazingly well.

Last week I got my King of Tone pedal after 27 months on the waiting list; I loved the way it sounded into my Mesas in the Helix, but I couldn't for the life of me make it sound good in any of my patches in the Axe. I still can't make any pedal sound good going into the FRONT of the Axe, but I'll digress. But then I started to have technical problems with my Stomp (they're overnighting me a new one; Line 6 has superb customer care).

So, on a whim last night, I loaded up one of @austinbuddy's thousand million hundred presets (Try Axis) and swapped out the reverb with a cloud reverb, threw the King of Tone in loop 3 (Right to red channel and left to Yellow channel) and fell in love all over again. The amps sound great, the reverb is to die for, the King of Tone warms my soul like no pedal I've ever played in my life (so glad I sprung for the 4 jack version!). I did go into the cab block and panned the two cabs hard right and left and added some air and room reflections.

Anyway, I'm in love again! I still love my HX Stomp and the Line 6 family, but holy crap, this bad boy sounds amazing. I had to get up early today but I still ended up playing guitar until almost 0200 :D

Cheers, y'all!
 
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And, in case anyone cares, both side of the KoT sounds fantastic going into the "Clean" scene. The Yellow as a clean boost with a little bite sounds chimey and powerful, and the Red side with gain at about 3 o'clock is just raw and cutting :)

In this preset, @austinbuddy has set up a TS808 as the sole drive (although it's never turned on in any of the scenes by default). I decided to use the KoT's Yellow channel to boost some of the other scenes' amps and it sounds great.

I just love how I can have the In/Out 3 set up, using opposite panning in channels A & B (in the Out 3 block) to determine which channel of the KoT gets used. I can't believe how the Axe just seems to anticipate all the crazy configurations we can come up with!
 
Man I have a KoT pedal and I love it with any single coil guitar. I am actually NOT a real tube screamer fan myself, but the KoT does what the tube screamer is supposed to do but KoT instead sounds organic and pleasing and not artificial, to my ears anyway. Cool! Glad you are digging it!
 
KoT ... sounds organic and pleasing and not artificial
Very well-said. When I turned on the drive block and heard it, I was like, I bet that's an 808 (I was right) and then I was like, "I wonder..." and tried the Yellow channel in place of the 808 and it sounded wonderful - like you said; it does the same job, just better and more organically.
 
Of course, now I have to figure out a way to attach, route, and power the KoT inside my allready too-crapmped 4-space rack :D

Sounds like we should rally for this magical drive to get added to the axe :)
It's gonna be in the next Helix update. I just wonder how they're gonna pull it off. I suspect they'll make it a single channel drive with the toggle option of Red/Yellow, another toggle for Boost/OD/Dist, and then the tone, volume, and drive knobs. That seems reasonable, rather than trying to somehow recreate all the options available to a fully decked out KoT pedal.
 
Sounds like we should rally for this magical drive to get added to the axe :)
The next firmware is getting a Drive block makeover. I've "cracked the code" on drive pedals and figured out a way to do a SPICE simulation in real time without using gobs of CPU. It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it before but none of the papers even approach anything resembling the technique.

This will bring "Ares" level modeling to the Drive block.
 
The next firmware is getting a Drive block makeover. I've "cracked the code" on drive pedals and figured out a way to do a SPICE simulation in real time without using gobs of CPU. It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it before but none of the papers even approach anything resembling the technique.

This will bring "Ares" level modeling to the Drive block.

That sounds incredible, congratulations.
 
The next firmware is getting a Drive block makeover. I've "cracked the code" on drive pedals and figured out a way to do a SPICE simulation in real time without using gobs of CPU. It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it before but none of the papers even approach anything resembling the technique.

This will bring "Ares" level modeling to the Drive block.


That is exciting news! Sadly the new FW will be out before I ever finish the DIY KoT clone I’m building lol
 
I've "cracked the code" on drive pedals and figured out a way to do a SPICE simulation in real time without using gobs of CPU. It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it before but none of the papers even approach anything resembling the technique..

THAT sounds like something you could monetize in all kinds of ways that have nothing to do with MI. Good on ya!
 
The next firmware is getting a Drive block makeover. I've "cracked the code" on drive pedals and figured out a way to do a SPICE simulation in real time without using gobs of CPU. It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it before but none of the papers even approach anything resembling the technique.

This will bring "Ares" level modeling to the Drive block.

Put a huge smile on my face.
 
The next firmware is getting a Drive block makeover. I've "cracked the code" on drive pedals and figured out a way to do a SPICE simulation in real time without using gobs of CPU. It's so simple I can't believe no one ever thought of it before but none of the papers even approach anything resembling the technique.

This will bring "Ares" level modeling to the Drive block.

Wow that is great news!
 
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