First Night With My Ultra

T

tomaburque

Member
I blew up my credit card and pulled the trigger on the Ultra and a pair of quality monitors, Focal CMS 50s. Because of work and life last night was the first night I was able to spend much time with the new toys. I got the Axe-Edit up and running and spent the entire evening auditioning amps, cabs, drives and so on with a PRS Torero.

The Axe Fx lives up to the hype. It was like being locked in a room overnight with 100 varieties of single malt Scotch and 25 kinds of Cuban cigars. (And I do have a bit of a hangover.) Everything sounds good, much of it very good. Everything sounds different. Everything can be modified 57 different ways. It's over-whelming. As a guitar playing kid growing up in the late 60s and early 70s I literally dreamed about guitar amplifiers. This is my childhood dream come true.

One question: I have a expression pedal, a Rocktron Utopia, and I could not get it to work plugged into the pedal jack for anything. Is this the wrong kind of pedal or am I doing something wrong?

Tom in Albuquerque
 
Tom, I live in Albuquerque and would help you out if you need it. if you could pm we could set up a time, Id be glad to help.
thanks
chuck
 
tomaburque said:
One question: I have a expression pedal, a Rocktron Utopia, and I could not get it to work plugged into the pedal jack for anything. Is this the wrong kind of pedal or am I doing something wrong?

Tom in Albuquerque
Click to expand...

Tom:

Grew up in Santa Fe, and went to school in 'Burquetown'. (Go Lobos!)

Anyway. Are you using the correct cable for your expression pedal? The Axe should be able to auto-detect, so I suspect it's the cable or some configuration on the pedal itself if it can't see it.

Ron
 
The Utopia works. I bought one recently to test out. (looking for the best "swing" for the whammy)
It was recommended in another thread by "xrist04".
 
Now that I own a Axe Fx and a Eleven Rack here's my 25¢ review and comparison of the two products.

The Axe is vastly superior for high gain tones that could cut meat and shear tonnage of stuff to play with. But the Eleven does hold its own and definitely has it's own thing going. Just talking about the models and ignoring the fact that the Eleven Rack is a nice, guitar-friendly interface for my computer and it comes with Pro Tools LE 8, the tones in Eleven are very warm and authentic in comparison. Authentic in a "warts and all" kind of way.

I read the developers of Eleven included real aspects of the amps they were modeling like ghost notes. Why? Ghost notes are not something I want to hear. So the tweed Champ model really does sound like a ratty 50+ year old amp. Searching for words to describe sounds, I think the Axe is shinier and tighter and more perfect. It sounds more new. But lets say you don't want perfect. Let's say you want a bit of ugly in your tones and you want your virtual amp to sound more like a genuine old amp. I think the Eleven sounds like old amps a bit more authentically.

But if you want to cut and be aggressive, the Axe is a razor and the Eleven is a dull knife. For bite and bark it's not even close.

So do what I did and buy both and cry when you look at your credit card balance ;)
 
I just got mine on Friday, very cool.
I am having trouble getting the midi to work with the Axe Edit.
I am using the Motu Fast lane.
any luck?
 
"How do you rate the focals?"

I have no reference point since I'm new to computer music production. I bought them based on reviews. So far I'm very happy with them and trust they are accurate by their reputation and forum chatter by people who seem to know what they are talking about.
 
Here it is:

DSCF1089.jpg


Also, would something like this:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/XMIDI1x1Tab/

be a good solution to get midi in and out of the computer. I'm using the Eleven now. Or should I just use the Eleven? Only downside is that I have to leave the Eleven running anytime I'm using the Axe with the Axe-Edit.
 
tomaburque said:
Now that I own a Axe Fx and a Eleven Rack here's my 25¢ review and comparison of the two products.

The Axe is vastly superior for high gain tones that could cut meat and shear tonnage of stuff to play with. But the Eleven does hold its own and definitely has it's own thing going. Just talking about the models and ignoring the fact that the Eleven Rack is a nice, guitar-friendly interface for my computer and it comes with Pro Tools LE 8, the tones in Eleven are very warm and authentic in comparison. Authentic in a "warts and all" kind of way.

I read the developers of Eleven included real aspects of the amps they were modeling like ghost notes. Why? Ghost notes are not something I want to hear. So the tweed Champ model really does sound like a ratty 50+ year old amp. Searching for words to describe sounds, I think the Axe is shinier and tighter and more perfect. It sounds more new. But lets say you don't want perfect. Let's say you want a bit of ugly in your tones and you want your virtual amp to sound more like a genuine old amp. I think the Eleven sounds like old amps a bit more authentically.

But if you want to cut and be aggressive, the Axe is a razor and the Eleven is a dull knife. For bite and bark it's not even close.

So do what I did and buy both and cry when you look at your credit card balance ;)
Click to expand...

How much more difficult is the axe-fx to tweak compared to the 11r?
 
Cover'd

The Torero rocks! If you think they don't make good guitars in Korea, try one. Big, wide through body maple neck with ebony fingerboard. Mahogany body. You seem to know a bit about EMGs. Nothing to not like here.

SloeGin

Programming the AXE from the device will take a bit of practice to get fast with it. And you have to consider the Axe has orders of magnitude more stuff to program than the Eleven. But from the Axe-Edit software it's easy peasy. I don't know why the software is beta. I've found it to be entirely stable.

s0c9

Thanks for the tip. Ordered one from Sweetwater.
 
tomaburque said:
Cover'd

The Torero rocks! If you think they don't make good guitars in Korea, try one. Big, wide through body maple neck with ebony fingerboard. Mahogany body. You seem to know a bit about EMGs. Nothing to not like here.
Click to expand...
Oh I know Tom, you're preaching to the choir here as I bought my black cherry Torero a month ago, straight after getting the Ultra - I felt I needed something tasty to plug into it! :D

It's a fantastic instrument and I simply cannot fault it. Loving it - a lot!

Clive
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom