First show last night with my AxeFx...

Surrealistic Brillo

Surrealistic Brillo

Inspired
...got lots of compliments on the performance/music and got a lot of really nice feedback from various musicians in the audience as well as the guys we shared the stage with...one group in particular were die hard tube/analog guys that I've shared stages with over the years and they were pretty blown away and said it sounded like I always have but more articulate and balanced. Still able to get wooly and skronky sounds when I needed to but just better versions of them.

And the teardown and setup...SOOOOOOOOOOO much easier and quicker.

I think based on a lot of the clips one hears online and the artists who seem to gravitate towards the AxeFx it's easy to get the impression it's kind of a metal/shredder tool, but if you use an amp to get your tone for whatever style, pretty much everything you need to get your sound (and develop new ones) is in this box. This was really the last test of the AxeFx for me and I couldn't be happier or more confident that this technology will allow me to do anything I could ever possibly want to do with a guitar without many obstacles or limitations. Red Sails Davis.jpg
 
Philthy said:
cool - what is that guitar btw? It has a Mosritey flavour.
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It's a Richmond Dorchester. I've got a few of them. They don't make them anymore so I snatch them up when I find a good deal on one on eBay. :)

Here's a pic of my main guitars these days. They represent about a little less than a quarter of my collection.

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Sexy!

Is that a PT Pro? What do those boss switches do? You running 2 guitar cabs for stereo?

Thanks for posting the pics
 
Alabama man said:
Sexy!

Is that a PT Pro? What do those boss switches do? You running 2 guitar cabs for stereo?

Thanks for posting the pics
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Yep.

The switches are set to switch various parameters in a preset.

I'm using two Mesa Boogie 2x12 Lonestar cabs each loaded with a Celestion C90 and an Eminence Tonker.

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Here's one of the videos from the show that I wasn't completely unhappy with. One of my concerns before purchasing the AxeFx was that like other digital modeling amps I've tried, it wouldn't be able to keep up with a band in a live situation. My experience with the AxeFx was that it played and sounded like a real amp. There was no disconnect at all.

 
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Here a video of the same song from the show before the one in the video above where I was using my tube amps and pedalboard setup. Different venue but same phone and recording quality. I feel I'm getting the same basic tones with my AxeFx that I am getting in this video but without the hassles associated with my old rig.

 
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Yeah, the axe rig sounds spot on compared to the old rig.

Do you do anything special for running the 2 separate cabs? Any initial phasing issues?

I'm wondering if I asked you this at one point. . .
 
Alabama man said:
Yeah, the axe rig sounds spot on compared to the old rig.

Do you do anything special for running the 2 separate cabs? Any initial phasing issues?

I'm wondering if I asked you this at one point. . .
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Thanks. Nothing special, really...I just make sure they're spread pretty far apart. I keep one by me and the other on the other side of the stage next to the bass amp (not the side that's between him and the drummer but the other side).

Here's another track from the first show with the AxeFx that came out kinda OK. I really wish we could get a board mix of these that I could swap out the iPhone audio for (or at least blend in) but I don't see that happening what with setup time being as short as it is. Anyway...here's one more.

 
Great tone, great playing, and that's a phenomenal vocalist from what I can hear. ^^ Congrats on a successful show and a great rig.
 
Crapshoes said:
Great tone, great playing, and that's a phenomenal vocalist from what I can hear. ^^ Congrats on a successful show and a great rig.
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Thanks. We've been in various bands together over the years but this was our third show with this new band. I'm really loving the AxeFx in this group...it's literally changed pretty much everything in terms of HOW I get my sound without changing my sound, if that makes sense.
 
Oh...by the way. For those who were curious about the Dorchester, this arrived for me yesterday...

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This should be arriving for me next week from Japan...

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So those guitars finally arrived and I set them up and took a pick with their cousins and my amp collection that I keep in the "songwriting" room of my at home rehearsal space (my acoustic kit is to the left in the main rehearsal area with my bass rig and Fractal/Matrix/Mesa setup that I use live). You can't see it clearly but there are two Fender Michael Landau HRD's to the far left next to the sliding door of my engineering room.12717367_1136879052990443_5561111500885482433_n.jpg I've got a gold sparkle Reverend Pete Anderson RT coming today and a pewter Reverend Reeves Gabriels Spacehawk coming later this week. :)
 
You are a fortuned man ;-). Some very nice guitars. You realy proof that axe fx works also fine with real cabs!! Any good tips for having them cut well trough the mix. For me that is the biggest challenge.
 
yves vanmeenen said:
You are a fortuned man ;-). Some very nice guitars. You realy proof that axe fx works also fine with real cabs!! Any good tips for having them cut well trough the mix. For me that is the biggest challenge.
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Thanks. I'm not sure if I have any real tips for that other than I was pretty happy with the way my analog rig sounded in terms of cutting through in the mix and I spent a lot of time a/b'ing the two setups until I couldn't hear a difference between the two and BAM...I'm cutting through in a mix just like I did with my tube amp setup.

One thing that definitely helped was changing up the speakers a bit. In each of my cabs I replaced one of the stock Celestion C-90's with a high powered Eminence Tonker. That speaker made me even happier with the Fractal/Matrix rig than I was with my analog setup.

So while I can see the benefit of a full range setup in terms of being able to use the cab modeling, I stopped and thought about how I play live. I've always gravitated around a handful of speakers for live use and recording and was familiar with how various amps sound through them. I wanted that same experience with the AxeFx...it sort of limits my options but there are so many that it can actually be helpful to do so. I use cab models for direct recording but for live I just prefer the traditional guitar cab...and since the AxeFx/Matrix combination with the cab models turned off really do sound like the amps they model I get exactly what I expect to get when I pair a certain amp type with my speakers of choice. I couldn't be happier. :)
 
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