Got my Axe Fx.....but not impressed so far.

The Roland Cube series of amps are great for what they are, very affordable practice amps. No way I'm running my AxeFx through a Cube and expecting it to sound stellar. Hopefully you can find a way to get a better monitoring option and you will likely have a very different experience.
 
I have a room PA with a pair of QSC K10s and a Ksub; when I play with the trio the guitar and bass both run through that setup. If it was just a guitar in standard tuning, a single K10 would be more than enough.

I also have one JBL EON 610 that, to me, sounds every bit as good as a K10. The 610's $350 street price is half that of the K10.

If you don't need the thump in the chest that you get from playing at high volumes, you can go smaller. A good pair of studio monitors will give you a great representation of what your source (the Axe-FX in this case) *should* sound like. Yamaha HS5s are good-sounding, compact and street for $400/pair. Especially if you're playing right in front of the monitors, stereo can be nice.

You can definitely go upmarket with studio monitors. I've read good things about the Event Opals, but they're difficult to buy. After a nine-month wait I was told that they're not going to be available any more. I don't know whether that's just the reseller giving up on the ridiculously long production delays or if it's Event telling the reseller "no more". Either way, I bought Genelec 8040s instead; they're a definite step up over my nearly two-decade old Alesis M1s.

Consumer headphones are notorious for sculpting the frequency response. What you want to look for is, ideally, a set of "reference monitor" headphones. The AKG K712 is fantastic, but it's also $500.

Heaphones marketed for studio use are usually OK, but you need to read the description carefully. I've had good luck with Sennheiser HD280pro `phones.
 
rich2k4 said:
I've been playing with it all day today, but from what I am hearing so far, I'll be honest and say I am not really impressed.

I want to be up front and say that I do not have a pair of studio monitors. I so far have monitored the axe two ways. One with headphones, and one through my Roland Cube 30x going from Output 1 left of the axe fx into the Aux Input of the Cube. This bypasses all the modeling and tone stack of the cube and goes straight to the speaker.

I set output mode to stereo when using headphones and Copy L To R when using the cube.

I am using an american series Telecaster.

I've gone through most of the presets, and have messed around in Axe Edit, creating things from scratch. Out of the two monitoring methods, I prefer going into the cube because it sounds more amp like, and is a bigger fatter tone obviously. The headphones sound sterile and hi fi, but some of the stereo effect presets sound pretty cool through headphones.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong. I have the input level in the I/O menu at a decent level, and not clipping. I do notice that it doesn't take much to get pretty loud through both head phones and the cube. I just have to turn up the output 1 knob just a tiny bit, and it starts to get loud.

I don't know if It is just me, but it seems like the presets and the Axe in general favors guitars with higher output/humbucking pickups. I guess the pickups in my tele are pretty low output, and it shows for example when I pull up a EVH brown sound preset or the Eruption preset. For me, the preset is pretty clean, but I imagine if I plugged in a Les Paul or similar, it would be high gain.

Right now, nothing I am hearing is earth shattering. I think I was expecting god like tones from all of the hype. I would go so far as to say that I prefer plugging directly into the roland cube.

One of the first things I did was recreate Tyler Grund's SRV patch, and download his Little Wing patch, as this is what inspired me to get an Axe Fx in the first place. I am bummed out because from my end, it sounds nothing like what I hear from his videos. Especially the Little Wing patch. Could be a combo of different things. Different monitoring setup, different guitars (although it shouldn't be that different, tele vs strat), or it simply reaffirms that its 95% the player and the touch.

My plan was to get a good pair of monitors but I am now hesitant to spend any more money since I don't know if It will really drastically improve what I am hearing.

I fully expect people to criticize and jump all over me, which is fine. I am hoping to get insight from others to see what perhaps I may be doing wrong, or if perhaps the Axe Fx just isn't for me?
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The AxeFx sounds incredible thru my Apogee and monitors just using factory settings. After tweaking I like to think my presets sound even better. I have to admit that I just haven't had the bad experiences that others note, that said my complaints reside in hardware design and implementation, while at the same time extolling the great work of everyone at FAS. Truly the best on the market which is why I will be buying more.
 
I never liked the axe FX through headphones, even for clean stuff. I think this is partly because I'm not a music producer and its hard to get my head around headphones. Er, uh, maybe that should be the other way around...Cuz also my ears do stick out; after twenty minutes wearing them, no matter how I adjust them, I usually feel like taking them off and throwing them in a trash compacter.

Anyway, I did find a pair of AH-D 1100 (Dennon) that had a more "in the room sound" (i.e. good soundstage), but during the process I discovered how hard it is for headphone manufacturers to achieve this. Even with the Dennon's I would really only use headphones, for inspiration as a musician while playing or writing, for clean work; or else I would be extremely forgiving of what I was hearing and remember that it isn't ideal.

The most important thing for me to realize is that a significant amount of real lead overdrive/distortion appeal is the nuance provided by feedback from cab speakers or monitors back into pickups. That is why, IMHO, there is a certain amount of volume required to get a great feeling from the axe II rig. Its not so loud that it would disturb anybody, or make inaudible a person speaking in the room, but loud enough that you would need to focus a bit more on what they were saying to understand them. (I could be totally wrong on this because I don't know the science...)

As for the cab you're using, I don't imagine it is going to give you the coloration for a variety of sounds like I'm assuming you want, particularly if you want to play lead guitar or riff guitar.

You can get used monitors on Craigslist for less than $100 many times (if you live in an area serviced by the site), and I would say that a lot of them might work okay. Tannoy has some very affordable monitors called the Reveal series; something like that used, in the 3" woofer size, would probably, as a pair, run about $150.00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tannoy-501a-Monitor-Speakers-/272272596646

Best of Luck!
 
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tallcoolone said:
Strange post...you find that 99% of the presets sound the same? Do you own an AXE FX?
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Yes, I own an axe and if you do not use the cab blocks (I use real cabs) the distortion patches do sound the same except some have more treble and some don't -
 
ML SOUND LAB said:
I bet you're not a metal guy right? :) I would say metal guys are just as picky with their tone as old school rock guys. Someone like me who tries to be a little bit of everything might say that there's no genre that is harder to tweak than the other. More gain will rely more on the IR being used so if you're just changing the amps and not the IR you may in fact end up with similar tones.

It did take me a bit of time to get my sound just like I wanted it but that was in the Axe-Fx Standard days. Anyways in the end my lesson was "less is more". 90% of all my clips you'll hear are the amp and cab block only and the amp has pretty much default settings. It really is super easy. F.ex. check this video:

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I'm not an old school rocker, I play a range of music from Soul, jazz, funk and blues...... It took me a while to pull the trigger on the Axe at first as I could only find demos of metal etc and a lot of players in my circle are usually quite surprised to see me with an Axe as they associate it with metal.... Minds are changed however when they hear it.
As far as IR goes... I bought an FRFR cab and the cab blocks do make a difference but I just could not get away with the FRFR sound on stage.
 
I went to GC and got a pair of JBL LSR305 studio monitors, based on good reviews here and on TGP in regards to both the Axe FX and Kemper. I haven't had a chance to set them up yet but I hope that this is the missing link.
 
I think you'll find it helps at the very least. I don't quite get on with headphones on my axe, but am quite happy with the sounds I get using FRFR near field monitors and my powered PA monitor for live use.
 
rich2k4 said:
I went to GC and got a pair of JBL LSR305 studio monitors, based on good reviews here and on TGP in regards to both the Axe FX and Kemper. I haven't had a chance to set them up yet but I hope that this is the missing link.
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It will be a step up from headphones or a Roland Cube. But when trying them for the first time, realise they are just 5"ers. They won't flap your pants legs like a 4x12 will. All of these symptoms are laws of physics stuff, those laws won't be bent. Keep that in mind, it takes some getting used to.

That said, the key to going frfr is the cab sims. IRs. It will take some time and knowledge to find the ones that will work for you. For me it takes a combination of two in a stereo cab block to be happy. There are some singles that sound good to me, but until now, adding a second has always improved it.
 
Fwiw, those Tyler Grund patches I think are from old FW's. I rarely d/l any patches but of the ones I have, the only ones that haven't sounded like a total bag of shit were ML's. And even those needed some slight tweaking to my particular setup.
I wouldn't get caught up on trying to d/l others patches, this IMO doesn't seem to work very well. What you need to understand is that all those tones that you have heard are in there and are achieveable, you just have to learn how to achieve them with your setup.
 
When you are ready to invest in an FRFR solution, try a few before buying if you can. I started with a QSC K10 and was very happy with the sound of it, but it definitely was not flat and the patches I created using that monitor (where the monitor added more bassy richness) ended up being very thin and weak when going into a recording studio. When I heard what was recorded, I sold the QSC K10 and bought the Atomic CLRs.

For the record, I owned an old Digitech multi-effects modeler about 25 years ago, and had a Line6 AX2 2x12 for a few years. Both of those gave much more out-of-the-box satisfaction to have a variety of dialed patches ready to go. I never actually customized patches with those, just had the preset numbers I liked.

Then I bought a Line6 Pod HD500 and the out-of-the-box patches sucked ass. I started getting into patch tweaking with the idea it would sound better, but then I gave up because of the mechanical construction of the knobs on the floorboard that broke too easily. Then I wanted a sturdy floorboard and rack-mount unit, which brought me to the Fractal AxeFX II XL. Again, not a great out-of-the-box experience because of the quality of the patches for clean to classic rock stuff that I like. But the rave reviews and forum support helped me stick with it and now the quality of the sounds is very real to me, rich, with lots of tonal diversity and behavior/responsiveness between the different amp models. If you invest the time, and get better monitoring capabilities, you will be thankful. For me, the AxeFX exposed weaknesses in my monitoring, in the electronics in my guitar, and in my cables, not to mention my own playing. It's like cleaning part of a wall or ceiling, then you notice all the other parts that need attention.
 
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welp. The studio monitors helped a little but I'm still not satisfied. Ultimately I feel like this modeling, FRFR stuff isn't for me. I plugged in direct to the roland cube, and got a much better tone that way than through the axe. I think it is the amp in the room feel that I like. With the Axe and the monitors, It feels like the sound isn't really there if that makes sense. And I guess that's correct since it is simulating a mixed amp in another room.

I am thinking that I will return the Axe. $2000+ is a lot of money and for me and what I like to hear it's not justified. kind of sucks because I will be losing money on all of this. The monitors have a 15% restocking fee. I bought some XLR cables that cannot be returned, and I will lose out on shipping with the Axe, and perhaps the rack case.

It will be an expensive lessen for me to not believe the hype, listen to your heart when it comes to how you typically use gear, and if you have something that already sounds good, don't try to fix it.
 
rich2k4 said:
I went to GC and got a pair of JBL LSR305 studio monitors, based on good reviews here and on TGP in regards to both the Axe FX and Kemper. I haven't had a chance to set them up yet but I hope that this is the missing link.
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Those monitors aren't very good. You should get better ones. Yamaha HS series or better....
 
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rich2k4 said:
welp. The studio monitors helped a little but I'm still not satisfied. Ultimately I feel like this modeling, FRFR stuff isn't for me. I plugged in direct to the roland cube, and got a much better tone that way than through the axe. I think it is the amp in the room feel that I like. With the Axe and the monitors, It feels like the sound isn't really there if that makes sense. And I guess that's correct since it is simulating a mixed amp in another room.

I am thinking that I will return the Axe. $2000+ is a lot of money and for me and what I like to hear it's not justified. kind of sucks because I will be losing money on all of this. The monitors have a 15% restocking fee. I bought some XLR cables that cannot be returned, and I will lose out on shipping with the Axe, and perhaps the rack case.

It will be an expensive lessen for me to not believe the hype, listen to your heart when it comes to how you typically use gear, and if you have something that already sounds good, don't try to fix it.
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Looking forward to your inevitable seller's remorse
 
You find yourself in a challenging position. It's difficult to gauge what will sound good to you though with a larger perhaps more powerful monitoring system your results might be different. In my case I'm running an Axe-Fx like yours through a pair of Friedman Asm-12s and in that scenario there's definitely some sound there. You've kind of created a catch 22 scenario. I don't know that you"re going to get a sense of filling a room with a 5 inch speaker set. However it's all good. People like different things. For me the Axe-Fx has lived up to its good reputation. Best of luck.
 
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Do you have a quality stereo receiver with big Speakers? if so run the axe fx through that(that's how Tyler Grund does it any ways)before spending any more on monitors.
 
clarky said:
I have a pair of HS7's and they're mounted on IsoAcoustic stands..
great value for money
ok so my lil' studio is not exactly Abbey Road.. lol..
but it works for me… love it..
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Yeah, those are good monitors. I had the HS8's and they were great...
 
rich2k4 said:
welp. The studio monitors helped a little but I'm still not satisfied. Ultimately I feel like this modeling, FRFR stuff isn't for me. I plugged in direct to the roland cube, and got a much better tone that way than through the axe. I think it is the amp in the room feel that I like. With the Axe and the monitors, It feels like the sound isn't really there if that makes sense. And I guess that's correct since it is simulating a mixed amp in another room.

I am thinking that I will return the Axe. $2000+ is a lot of money and for me and what I like to hear it's not justified. kind of sucks because I will be losing money on all of this. The monitors have a 15% restocking fee. I bought some XLR cables that cannot be returned, and I will lose out on shipping with the Axe, and perhaps the rack case.

It will be an expensive lessen for me to not believe the hype, listen to your heart when it comes to how you typically use gear, and if you have something that already sounds good, don't try to fix it.
Click to expand...

it took me a while to dial my ears into the Axe.. and like yourself, a few weeks in I was wondering if I'd made a mistake..
the penny dropped for me when I realised just how crucial matching the cab IR's to the amps was in my studio [with Yamaha HS7 monitors]..
in an FRFR setting [either studio <with near field monitors> or live <with FRFR monitors>] you'll always get the "mic'd cab" tone and feel which is not the same as being stood next to the real thing.. it's more like playing in the control room with your amp in a studio or booth..
but that's not a bad thing.. it's just a different thing…
live, I use a Matrix power amp [which is very powerful and very transparent] and a pair of Marshall 4x12 cabs..
and that delivers the whole pants flapping experience.. which when on stage I adore..

I know that the Axe is not for everyone..
a few pals of mine have switched between the Axe, other modellers, real amps, back to the Axe and then back to a variety of real amps and cabs several times over.. some of them ended up going back to real amps, found what they were looking for and stayed there…
in my case I stuck with it, found my sweet spots with the Axe both in the studio and live.. and now cannot imagine life without it..
horses for courses as they say…

anyways… whatever you choose to do..
best of luck and I hope you find your tone utopia..
 
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