I was lucky enough to talk to him after the Aristocrats show in Philly. I asked him why the Badger instead of the AxeII. He said he had updated the firmware just before he left for the tour and did not have a chance to get comfortable enough with it for live use. This was right after 10 came out.
I also asked him if he went straight for the Badger model in the AxeII and he said no, actually he prefers the Freidman models.
It really does take time, careful planning, extensive preset tweaking and data management to make the most of the AXE FX II so that it is set up by the user to be the go-to stress-free no-brainer tool of choice for
all gigs and applications.
Re: Guthrie - its pretty easy to see why a hired gun might forego dragging a rackmount case around the planet to Australia, opting instead to rent amps locally, and simply slip a peddle board into a suitcase with clothes and lug only that and a guitar around.
I used to travel internationally a lot in the '90s, Australia and elsewhere, for weeks at a time on business (quarterly US telecom/IT standard setting meetings and various trade mission delegations around the globe), and all while I was also attending law school. I would have a laptop bag, a suitcase full of suits, etc., and another full sized suitcase full of wood (basically law school books, court opinions and class notes). It was a colossal pain in the ass (and the back and the neck) to haul that for 20-24 hours with connecting flights ... and that was
before the stiff baggage fees that we see today.
So its really easy to see why Guthrie may not have had his Axe in Australia (aside from the another possible reason that the OP mentioned above - Guthrie had updated the firmware just before he left for the Aristocrats tour and did not have a chance to get comfortable enough with the update for live use).
There is also another issue to consider - stereo v. mono presets. Lets say a Fractal artist has finely honed stereo presets that were created for and extensively used on the artist's own records or in their own live trio or quartet gigs where the guitarist wants a stereo footprint. These stereo presets in their AXE FX II might not translate well - or might not be welcome at all - at
someone else's 5-6 piece gig (or larger) where the sonic landscape only calls for a mono guitar signal panned left of center from a FOH perspective.
Occasionally, I play with some folks in 5-6 piece bands that want mono instruments only that are then panned variously (L-R) to create a stereo landscape not of the guitar, but of the overall band (i.e., they do not want individual instruments in stereo - maybe keys and drums - but not individual guitars in stereo).
This stereo v. mono conundrum might be an area for FAS and its pro-artist and advanced Forum members to address over time - how to make the AXE FX II stereo-mono transition seamless for all gigging applications, without have to recreate two version of their favorite presets (one in stereo, one in mono). Maybe some sort of global effects block swapping or a Mono Mode switch like Cliff's excellent no-brainer Bass Cut switch.
:lol - I really have no idea what I am thinking here :lol truly clueless!
... and I would be delighted to hear that my thinking is over complicated and flat out wrong about this alleged stereo v. mono conundrum!
