Guitar head with axe-fx and FRFR powered cabinet

David Johnson

New Member
Sorry if I've missed this in the posts, but here's my question:

Can I use some form of 4CM style routing to add a guitar amp to the signal path when using the axe-fx with a FRFR powered cab?

Specifically, I'm using my axe-fx II into a Friedman ASC-12. It's wonderful. However I've always also ran a tube amp with a guitar cabinet in 4CM mode, so I have the best of both worlds: pure digital FRFR bliss on some patches, tube amp awesomeness with digital effects on others. It's an obscenely indulgent set up and I love it.

However I recently sold my tube amp and cabinet, and I'll likely get another one soon (not that it should matter, but probably a Mark Five head). I hope to be able to just get an amp though without a cabinet, and find some way to wire it up to always use the Friedman and always sound good. I'm thinking something like the 4CM, except that the return from the amp will be a loaded signal from the speaker out and the 4th cable going back to the amp won't be there. So:

guitar -> axe-fx input -> axe-fx loop send-> amp in -> amp speaker out -> load -> axe-fx loop return -> axe-fx out -> frfr powered cab

The idea is that the external amp inside the axe-fx loop will behave like a regular amp block. I think it's feasible, although I'm not sure the tone of the amp would be the same after going through the load and (likely) cab sim in the axe-fx and then the FRFR amp and cab.

EDIT: noticed that the Mark Five has a slave out, seemingly designed exactly for this purpose ;-)
 
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Ah, yes, for the Mesa the Slave Out does not preclude using a speaker load. Most load boxes have speaker sim and their own output, which makes the Slave Out questionably useful for this scenario. Still might be fun.
 
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