I Nearly Decided to Sell My Axe, And I'm Glad I Didn't

Paulg2uk

Power User
Hi guys,

I thought I'd post this and see if any of you have ever done the same or considered it?

Recently I made a pretty big decision and was going to sell my axe fx rig off and go down the more traditional pedalboard route with a loop switcher etc. It was gonna cost me quite a bit to make the change but it would be worth it in the end. We all say that don't we? lol

The main reason I decided to do this was carting about my 6u rack case with me was and is still a pain but you do it because the axe sounds so good. I also have the RJM Mastermind GT as my midi controller so I had complete control over my patches, scenes and amp channels on my Boogie.

Anyway fast forward to last night at my band's rehearsal we were going through some new songs and I've got a small pedalboard on the floor with a couple of Strymon's, compressor, Source Audio Ventris Reverb which has presets that can be stored. Plus a few others. I've got like 10 pedals on my Pedaltrain Novo 24.

I've basically now lost the ability to change sounds with one press of a pedal. I should probably mention that being the only guitarist in the band I have to cover quite a lot of sounds and switching with one press of a foot-switch is ideal for me. Plus the GT can be programmed anyway you like as well all know.

There's nothing wrong with those stomp boxes they sound good but they aren't for everyone. They were a good option as they stored presets and they had midi as well.

Back to the story. We were in the middle of playing through a song and it hit me, What am I doing? I thought to myself this doesn't sound any good to my ears anyway, plus I'm now pissed off I can't change presets with one press of a foot-switch. Let's just say I had my chorus sound on and it just sounded really sterile and well "digital". I don't remember the axe sounding like that and in fact it doesn't.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I've now decided to keep my axe and go back to my rack. Yes it's heavy but it sounds really good and gives me complete control of everything. I know there are other units out there like the FX8 and AX8 but you like what you like at the end of day. I think it was fate that my Axe didn't sell on ebay and it's been on there a month. I only sold my phantom power box and my EV-1 which I will have to buy again but it could be worse. I'll more than likely upgrade to the III at some point but not yet.

I know a few of you will be saying "What the hell did you do that for " "you can't replace the axe with a couple of Strymon's" lol In my defence I'm a guitar player, that's what we do isn't it? lol

Thanks for reading guys, I'd be interested in hearing your gear stories and if you've come close to selling the axe. Or even went through with.

Cheers

Paul
 
Were you a bass player in a previous life or something? :p

When you play relatively straight forward music you can get by with an amp and traditional pedal board, but if you need to cover a lot of ground then having something like the Axe becomes a must. You can do it with a traditional pedal board, Radiohead does, but then again they've started to use midi controllable switchers as well. Which basically turns a pedal board into an analog multi FX. And I don't know about you guys, but in my experience the more complicated you make a setup, the more likely it is it will break down at some point. And nothing makes you swear faster, sweat harder and stress more when you're suffering from a catastrophic pedal board failure during a changeover and you have at best minutes to figure out where in your complex chain the culprit lies. And the more pedals and cables you have, the harder it will be to track the culprit down. And that's excluding the stress of adjusting pedals between or during songs, while also changing guitars, and have your bandmates look at you going 'you finally ready?'

If it works, it will sound glorious, but in my experience convenience and reliability are qualities on their own rights. Most of us don't have roadies so keep it simple stupid should be our motto. I'm keeping my old pedal board around, for nostalgia's sake, or fun, if it works right, but also to remind me from time to time how good I now have it with the Axe.
 
I’ve been using the axe fx ii for several years now and lately I’ve been getting antsy, wanting to try out some new stuff, maybe a real amp for a change.

I’m in the opposite camp, I really don’t need a lot of sounds, a good heavy metal distortion tone, maybe a lighter gain tone and clean (and I’m less picky about those two) and I’m a happy camper. I’ve always used recto models like 80% of the time or more, so I bought a used Dual Rectifier, and I’ve been blown away by how quickly and easily I’ve got a big punchy tone out of it. Super happy with the low gain and clean tones also.

Total shift, not being able to just save a patch and switch to another, or throw an eq or something anywhere I want. Limiting in some ways, freeing in others.

I did consider selling the axe fx ii, but with the release of the iii (and the depression in resale of the ii’s that comes with it) coupled with the fact that I’m not sure I can give up its flexibility for when I do want it, I think I’ll probably keep it. I have used a tube poweramp with it for a while now (2/50/2) so I’m thinking I may sell that and get a solid state poweramp, and go full-SS, lightweight rig with the axe. I guess we’ll see how that goes.
 
I've kept several nice amps (all Boogies) in addition to my AxeFXII & Ultra. Now and then I go
back to a standard setup with amp/pedals. But after a rehearsal with an amp setup, I always miss
the consistently great sound and ease of switching from one to another entirely different rig with
one click. If I was to go back to an amp/pedal setup, I would invariably add a loop switcher to flip
from one "scene" to another with one click and end up with a pile of pedals, cables and 50 potential problems.
The amps are good, but each one only has a few good base sounds, whereas the Axe has 100's.
And it's dead quiet, consistent from night to night and venue to venue. Plus any sound at any volume.
I truly think my amp/pedal days are behind me for live shows. I'll still use them at home for practice,
but for live there is no comparison for me.
 
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