philipacamaniac
Fractal Fanatic
Short version: Fractal modeling rules!
Long version:
I've never played through or used any Fractal Audio gear until now. I've been obsessing over the FX8 and now the AX8 for almost a year now. I'm on the AX8 list (take my money!). I've provided some help here on the forums mainly via studying the manuals and the Wiki. I'm surprised how many players don't read the manual.
Tonight, I finally got to hear an Axe FX II XL+ with Quantum v1.00. A local player mentioned that he owned one (there aren't very many in the Tucson area) and he was gracious enough to bring it down to the large church where I'm FOH engineer and TD. We plugged into the L-Acoustics PA and dialed some stuff up at full volume, it sounded stunning to say the least.
He hadn't had time to dial in any presets (fairly recent purchase), so we started with the factory sounds, scrolling through via the MFC-101. In no time at all, hooked up Axe-Edit and built a preset from scratch. I started with a Blues Junior (fat channel) since we had one sitting there to compare to, and just matched the knobs. Sounded awesome! The real Junior was hooked into an offstage hand-built closed-back 2x12 with British V30s - is there a factory cab with similar configuration?
Then he asked for a way to loop a clean rhythm that he could play dirty leads over. I added a mixer block, looper block, amp 2 and cab 2, and then attached a couple modifiers on the Mixer block to Scene Controller 1 so that Scene 1 was the Blues Junior and Scene 2 was a Friedman BE, both going into the Looper. I know I could have used X/Y or just disabled either amp per scene, but I wanted to also show him how he could crossfade between the two with an expression pedal. Added a Studio Comp and dialed in the settings I use on my Empress Compressor, and a BB Pre with the drive very low for some sweet boosty goodness. He requested a little chorus on the clean, and I suggested a little analog delay on the dirty. A touch of Studio C on everything. I was impressed with everything I heard (and this guy has fantastic chops, which helped. My chops aren't terrible but not nearly as fun). The only thing I couldn't figure out on the fly was how to control the looper block via the MFC. I assume there's a dedicated looper mode. I know the MIDI CC's to use, but didn't know enough about the MFC to program those CC's to IA switches. So I controlled the looper for him via Axe-Edit.
Other amp models played through (sorry I can't remember all the fake names, so real names are used to protect the innocent): AC15TB, Morgan AC-20, Bassman, Plexi 100W Jumped, Carol-Ann Tucana, Mesa Subway Blues (that's the closest approximation to the Maverick that is dear to my heart), and the Mesa Mark IIc+. Tried a bunch of the factory IRs as well, and tried to stick with matching amp/cab combinations (but occasionally strayed). The Axe FX realllllly excels at the bluesy, edge-of-breakup tones. Holy dirty strat, Batman!
Advanced amp/cab settings I played with: power supply sag, cathode squish, room level, air level. Cool stuff. I'm used to Class A and tube rectos, so stuff needs to feel squishy and chewy.
I quickly put together another preset with parallel delays (dotted 8th 2290 and 1/4 digital mono), both into a parallel shimmer (multidelay plexi shift into ambience reverb), and all into a Medium Room verb. That was a whole lotta fun right there. Over the PA, I couldn't really hear much difference between high quality and normal quality, even though our L-Acoustics rig has tremendous clarity and definition. However, I plugged in headphones a little later, and the high quality Medium Room and Studio C are so much better than the built-in verbs on our house console (a $30k CL5). It's not even funny. We need to add outboard verb plugins apparently.
Bottom line: I can't afford an XL+, but I am more excited than ever to pick up an AX8 and join the Fractal family.
Long version:
I've never played through or used any Fractal Audio gear until now. I've been obsessing over the FX8 and now the AX8 for almost a year now. I'm on the AX8 list (take my money!). I've provided some help here on the forums mainly via studying the manuals and the Wiki. I'm surprised how many players don't read the manual.
Tonight, I finally got to hear an Axe FX II XL+ with Quantum v1.00. A local player mentioned that he owned one (there aren't very many in the Tucson area) and he was gracious enough to bring it down to the large church where I'm FOH engineer and TD. We plugged into the L-Acoustics PA and dialed some stuff up at full volume, it sounded stunning to say the least.
He hadn't had time to dial in any presets (fairly recent purchase), so we started with the factory sounds, scrolling through via the MFC-101. In no time at all, hooked up Axe-Edit and built a preset from scratch. I started with a Blues Junior (fat channel) since we had one sitting there to compare to, and just matched the knobs. Sounded awesome! The real Junior was hooked into an offstage hand-built closed-back 2x12 with British V30s - is there a factory cab with similar configuration?
Then he asked for a way to loop a clean rhythm that he could play dirty leads over. I added a mixer block, looper block, amp 2 and cab 2, and then attached a couple modifiers on the Mixer block to Scene Controller 1 so that Scene 1 was the Blues Junior and Scene 2 was a Friedman BE, both going into the Looper. I know I could have used X/Y or just disabled either amp per scene, but I wanted to also show him how he could crossfade between the two with an expression pedal. Added a Studio Comp and dialed in the settings I use on my Empress Compressor, and a BB Pre with the drive very low for some sweet boosty goodness. He requested a little chorus on the clean, and I suggested a little analog delay on the dirty. A touch of Studio C on everything. I was impressed with everything I heard (and this guy has fantastic chops, which helped. My chops aren't terrible but not nearly as fun). The only thing I couldn't figure out on the fly was how to control the looper block via the MFC. I assume there's a dedicated looper mode. I know the MIDI CC's to use, but didn't know enough about the MFC to program those CC's to IA switches. So I controlled the looper for him via Axe-Edit.
Other amp models played through (sorry I can't remember all the fake names, so real names are used to protect the innocent): AC15TB, Morgan AC-20, Bassman, Plexi 100W Jumped, Carol-Ann Tucana, Mesa Subway Blues (that's the closest approximation to the Maverick that is dear to my heart), and the Mesa Mark IIc+. Tried a bunch of the factory IRs as well, and tried to stick with matching amp/cab combinations (but occasionally strayed). The Axe FX realllllly excels at the bluesy, edge-of-breakup tones. Holy dirty strat, Batman!
Advanced amp/cab settings I played with: power supply sag, cathode squish, room level, air level. Cool stuff. I'm used to Class A and tube rectos, so stuff needs to feel squishy and chewy.
I quickly put together another preset with parallel delays (dotted 8th 2290 and 1/4 digital mono), both into a parallel shimmer (multidelay plexi shift into ambience reverb), and all into a Medium Room verb. That was a whole lotta fun right there. Over the PA, I couldn't really hear much difference between high quality and normal quality, even though our L-Acoustics rig has tremendous clarity and definition. However, I plugged in headphones a little later, and the high quality Medium Room and Studio C are so much better than the built-in verbs on our house console (a $30k CL5). It's not even funny. We need to add outboard verb plugins apparently.
Bottom line: I can't afford an XL+, but I am more excited than ever to pick up an AX8 and join the Fractal family.
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