I never thought I would play without an amp on stage! But.....

Muzz

Muzz

Member
I have had my AXE FX MkII Turbo for a few months now. I have worked on sounds and FC-12 programming at least 3 afternoons per week for 2 hrs at a time. The last 2 weeks coming into Christmas I left the Marshall at home. I can't believe how good this thing is. I have been a 100W Head and Quad guy since 1992. I get all distortion etc from my 3Ch 30th Anniversary head. The only pedal was a TC Electronics Tripple Delay. Amazing Rock/Blues/Country and Pop sounds as you would expect. I didn't think that I could ever play a gig without an amp. I was proven wrong in a big way.
First I chose a Preset with a scene that I liked. I changed and tweaked all of the scenes to be exactly how I like them. High pass and Low pass on the sounds. I run IEM's when I play, our PA is awesome but I still need a wedge so I get some feedback through the PUPs. After every gig I have just tweaked a few things to make things better and this weekend I will take my laptop so I can have AXE edit open and make some fine tweaks in the breaks. The sound Guy loves it. I love it. The punters love it.
The singer and other guitarist ditched his Fender Twin and Boss pedal and bought a Fender Tonemaster pedal. It is a better sound than his Boss pedal but doesnt have the flexibility of the AXE FX.
 
Muzz said:
I have had my AXE FX MkII Turbo for a few months now. I have worked on sounds and FC-12 programming at least 3 afternoons per week for 2 hrs at a time. The last 2 weeks coming into Christmas I left the Marshall at home. I can't believe how good this thing is. I have been a 100W Head and Quad guy since 1992. I get all distortion etc from my 3Ch 30th Anniversary head. The only pedal was a TC Electronics Tripple Delay. Amazing Rock/Blues/Country and Pop sounds as you would expect. I didn't think that I could ever play a gig without an amp. I was proven wrong in a big way.
First I chose a Preset with a scene that I liked. I changed and tweaked all of the scenes to be exactly how I like them. High pass and Low pass on the sounds. I run IEM's when I play, our PA is awesome but I still need a wedge so I get some feedback through the PUPs. After every gig I have just tweaked a few things to make things better and this weekend I will take my laptop so I can have AXE edit open and make some fine tweaks in the breaks. The sound Guy loves it. I love it. The punters love it.
The singer and other guitarist ditched his Fender Twin and Boss pedal and bought a Fender Tonemaster pedal. It is a better sound than his Boss pedal but doesnt have the flexibility of the AXE FX.
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I, also, was a dedicated tube amp guy who thought digital could never cut it live. I, as you might imagine, was also proven very wrong by Fractal gear.

Another thing you’re going to love is the consistency. You know the weird things that happen to your tone when the wall power gets too high or low? Yeah, that’s a total non-factor on an Axe FX. It sounds the same every time, everywhere. You’ll eventually find yourself making that opposite statement: “I don’t see myself playing live with a traditional amp setup.”

Welcome to the no-herniated-disk club :cool:
 
It’s really great but be careful of the obsessive tweaking, especially since you’re bringing a computer to the gig now. If you can’t accomplish the minor tweaks from the front display you should start familiarizing yourself with that. It is such a great tool though.
 
GuyJames said:
It’s really great but be careful of the obsessive tweaking, especially since you’re bringing a computer to the gig now. If you can’t accomplish the minor tweaks from the front display you should start familiarizing yourself with that. It is such a great tool though.
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I think this is good advice. Several years ago when I got my first Fractal, the Axe FX 2, I really hindered my workflow by never learning how to navigate the front panel and relied too heavily on the computer editor. Granted the UI is so much better on the Axe FX 3 modules, the same principle still applies.

You can also set up your perform pages to the parameters you like to tweak often if you feel the need to. It doesn't take long to learn to navigate the front panel though, and makes the need for the editor more seldom.
 
GuyJames said:
It’s really great but be careful of the obsessive tweaking, especially since you’re bringing a computer to the gig now. If you can’t accomplish the minor tweaks from the front display you should start familiarizing yourself with that. It is such a great tool though.
Click to expand...
I only really needed it to get the levels right between sceens. This was a bit hard to do with studio monitors or in the rehearsal studio. There is nothing quite like a live performance to get these all right.
 
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