Promit
Inspired
Okay, first time Axe FX owner here, just a few hours in! I've been using the Eleven Rack quite happily for a long time, but for a variety of reasons I decided I'd like to try and upgrade to better equipment. I use it entirely as a studio/recording/practice tool, not live performance, and I'm not huge on deep editing stuff. Just wanted something that would let me pull up a reasonable variety of guitar tones that I like and maybe explore a few that I haven't met yet. I also wanted to gain a better understanding of how people were dialing in tones for recording, and what recorded tracks sounded like. Plus, I'm really a dry player at heart: guitar->amp->cab->ears. Occasional reverb, and maybe I'll have a crazy day with delay or a light chorus.
For these reasons, I didn't actually buy an Axe FX first - I bought a competing product which I thought would 'Compare'
Suffice it to say that I was completely underwhelmed by this product at the price paid. I don't know why we didn't get along, exactly, but I felt that most of the available sounds for it were very lacking. There were some very usable ones, but I really didn't feel like it was doing anything to justify a price of five Eleven Racks. The "it" factor just wasn't there for me; a "bit better" doesn't stack up. I'm not going to make any technical claims or try to dig into what I didn't like, because I know a lot of very competent and knowledgeable people use and love this product. There's a lot of frankly scary fighting between the camps and I don't want to fuel that fire at all. I just couldn't hear the step up in quality I was looking for, and spending half my day searching their cloud for presets that sounded like what I wanted was getting old very quickly. I know I want an SLO today, why am I here looking through dozens of bizarrely different sounding options under half a dozen different names? Just not what I wanted.
I also use the 11r as a full time audio interface, and having a separate interface to support this thing turned out to be an unwelcome extra hassle and extra expense. The older Axe FX boxes were ruled out for the same reason. As the Compare I have is very well regarded by many people, I was worried that I'm just a tin eared jerk who can't actually hear the subtleties that make high end equipment worth two thousand dollars. But after much belly aching, I decided to plunk down for an Axe II. I had to try.
Hoooly crap. A minute or two with the Deluxe Verb gave me everything I could ever asked for. It's the same story throughout many of the models in this box, though it pays to spend just a couple minutes dialing them in by ear and ignoring any experiences with the real world equivalent of that amp. I do get why there's some hate out there directed towards the Axe II, which I have to admit pushed me towards the competing tool first. The front panel interface is taking some real getting used to, and honestly because of my setup it's much smoother to just do everything through Axe Edit. There are so, so many knobs on each possible block that I can imagine many people feeling like they're drowning trying to understand them all. But I'm just keeping it simple. Pull up the amp I want, try a couple cabs until I settle on one that's close to the mark, then start pushing the EQ around with no preconceptions of where to land up. And that just works out.
I do have to admit that the Eleven Rack provides a lot of bang for the buck here. I had specific reasons for wanting to move on, but considering the price point I think it does an excellent job when put back to back with the Axe II, despite being clearly and dramatically outclassed. And it IS outclassed. There's a texture to the amps in the Axe II that feels fantastic. I don't care whether it's an exact match for the exact amp that it's claiming to be and whether the knobs all behave the same way. Do not care. I care about getting to a variety of tones I know by experience (Deluxe Reverb, AC30, SLO, Recto, etc) and coaxing them to sound the way I want to hear them. I did happen to load Glenn Fricker's tone matched presets and those are great too, so I definitely need to explore some more of that stuff.
And all this is after half a day. I'm really looking forward to what else is hiding under the hood of this fantastic creation.
For these reasons, I didn't actually buy an Axe FX first - I bought a competing product which I thought would 'Compare'
Suffice it to say that I was completely underwhelmed by this product at the price paid. I don't know why we didn't get along, exactly, but I felt that most of the available sounds for it were very lacking. There were some very usable ones, but I really didn't feel like it was doing anything to justify a price of five Eleven Racks. The "it" factor just wasn't there for me; a "bit better" doesn't stack up. I'm not going to make any technical claims or try to dig into what I didn't like, because I know a lot of very competent and knowledgeable people use and love this product. There's a lot of frankly scary fighting between the camps and I don't want to fuel that fire at all. I just couldn't hear the step up in quality I was looking for, and spending half my day searching their cloud for presets that sounded like what I wanted was getting old very quickly. I know I want an SLO today, why am I here looking through dozens of bizarrely different sounding options under half a dozen different names? Just not what I wanted.I also use the 11r as a full time audio interface, and having a separate interface to support this thing turned out to be an unwelcome extra hassle and extra expense. The older Axe FX boxes were ruled out for the same reason. As the Compare I have is very well regarded by many people, I was worried that I'm just a tin eared jerk who can't actually hear the subtleties that make high end equipment worth two thousand dollars. But after much belly aching, I decided to plunk down for an Axe II. I had to try.
Hoooly crap. A minute or two with the Deluxe Verb gave me everything I could ever asked for. It's the same story throughout many of the models in this box, though it pays to spend just a couple minutes dialing them in by ear and ignoring any experiences with the real world equivalent of that amp. I do get why there's some hate out there directed towards the Axe II, which I have to admit pushed me towards the competing tool first. The front panel interface is taking some real getting used to, and honestly because of my setup it's much smoother to just do everything through Axe Edit. There are so, so many knobs on each possible block that I can imagine many people feeling like they're drowning trying to understand them all. But I'm just keeping it simple. Pull up the amp I want, try a couple cabs until I settle on one that's close to the mark, then start pushing the EQ around with no preconceptions of where to land up. And that just works out.
I do have to admit that the Eleven Rack provides a lot of bang for the buck here. I had specific reasons for wanting to move on, but considering the price point I think it does an excellent job when put back to back with the Axe II, despite being clearly and dramatically outclassed. And it IS outclassed. There's a texture to the amps in the Axe II that feels fantastic. I don't care whether it's an exact match for the exact amp that it's claiming to be and whether the knobs all behave the same way. Do not care. I care about getting to a variety of tones I know by experience (Deluxe Reverb, AC30, SLO, Recto, etc) and coaxing them to sound the way I want to hear them. I did happen to load Glenn Fricker's tone matched presets and those are great too, so I definitely need to explore some more of that stuff.
And all this is after half a day. I'm really looking forward to what else is hiding under the hood of this fantastic creation.
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