Has your AX8 made you a better guitarist?

No amp, sim or guitar can make you a better guitarist. Only your hands, head, heart, determination, imagination and work ethic can do that. But it can certainly aid in finding those sounds!!
 
Schmokes said:
No. The unit can't make you a better player. No piece of gear can. It can certainly inspire you to practice more, but the practice is making you better not the gear.
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I agree, but only up to a point. Example: if you've been driving Fords all your life, a week behind the wheel of a Ferrari will make you a better driver, because it's less forgiving of inaccuracies.
 
It's definitely made me more interested in playing which I hope leads me to playing different things and learning new techniques. I loved my Hughes & Kettner GM36 but playing through the AX8 is more inspiring to me.
 
The great tone from my AX8 has caused me to play , and play , and play ,..... to the point where my callouses have worn thru , and my family has considered filing a missing person report on several occasions , due to my lengthy time in the studio. Too many late nights playing and not enough sleep. This thing is killing me.
BUT , play more = play better.
 
"No. The unit can't make you a better player.............."

I have to disagree with this statement. In the OP, I mentioned that I can hear my mistakes much clearer now that I am playing with the AX 8. Thus, to practice to correct those mistakes means that the AX 8 is either directly (or in directly if you wish) has made me a 'better player.' Not hyperbole but a very subjective perspective.
 
True, the AX8 allows me to practice with the exact same tones as I perform with, so I hear all my mistakes the exact same way as the audience would. Before I got the AX8, I would mostly practice without amplification or through a POD 2.0/Yamaha THR10.

The above would be true for any modeller good enough to perform with. I just never had such a modeller before.
 
Smittefar said:
True, the AX8 allows me to practice with the exact same tones as I perform with, so I hear all my mistakes the exact same way as the audience would. Before I got the AX8, I would mostly practice without amplification or through a POD 2.0/Yamaha THR10.

The above would be true for any modeller good enough to perform with. I just never had such a modeller before.
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:smiley:
 
Anything that inspires you to play more - a new guitar, new strings, a new box, will ultimately help you get better. As we all know - practice is what counts - and if the AX8 makes practice easier, more fun, and just drives you to play, then yes, it can help you get better.

The trick is to spend those extra hours as productively as possible. Running the same old scales over the same old progressions will only get you so far. As the saying goes, there is a difference between 10,000 hours of experience and having the same 1 hour experience 10,000 times.
 
Can't say that I'm better but the AX8 has made me play more. With all the great tones and preset possibilities I do find myself sitting down in my music room, plugging into the AX8--and next thing I know--a couple hours have went by.
 
The ease of getting good tones and recording them has been the biggest factor in rediscovering my love of guitar and improving as a player. What I considered good for jamming or playing live, just simply doesn't make the cut when you hear yourself played back over a recording. Vibrato, pick attack, etc are things that I think are very hard to fine tune about your playing if the only feedback you're getting is while you're playing and not listening to your recording whilst not having to actively go through all of the attentional processes involved in playing guitar.
 
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