K Paul
Member
I am a bona-fide tube amp snob, having had probably close to one hundred amps pass through my hands and having wrangled my current population down to about 20. I gave modeling a go with the Line6 PodXT Pro through a Mackie SRM 450 back in the day and quickly shut that whole idea down. When the Ax8 price came down in December I jumped on it, figuring it would be good for late night noodling that wouldn't wake the child or annoy the wife. Main amps I use for shows nowadays are RedPlate Magica, Two-Rock Akoya or Jet Signature, and Balthazar Audio Systems FN50, current band plays Celtic Rock from trad to punk treatments, requiring anything from cleans to bluesy overdrive to high-gain. Acoustic is through the biggest Fishman Loudbox (whatever that model number is).
So, after about one month I would say I don't hate the Ax8. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in breadth. I find high gain is a more forgiving implementation in general - the more your sound is like a square wave, the less the subtle harmonics seem to matter. People are fooling themselves if they think the clean sounds on an Ax8 are near the sublime depths and heights of a dialed-in tube amp, and certainly if you are a audio-taper treble bleed volume knob player who uses minimal effects, the clean-to-mean response is somewhat of a weak spot (although some of the Trainwreck models come close).
Stage clutter-wise, this is a winner though. I mentioned two amps, plus minimal pedalboard (tuner, fuzz, wah, trem, phase) and I would anticipate a much smaller footprint should I bring the Ax8 out (monitor and Ax8) since I could play the acoustic and electric through same rig. Haven't done this yet because live playing is the only time I get to crank the shit out of a premium tube amp and why would I want to stop doing that? Well, I suppose one of these days I will bring it out and we will see.
I will tell you the biggest impact is likely to be financial. Compulsive amp buyers who continually tweak their tone and are promiscuous about brands can shell out thousands of dollars everytime the GAS takes hold, and it is a hell of a lot cheaper to get twitchy about a library of IR's!
So, after about one month I would say I don't hate the Ax8. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in breadth. I find high gain is a more forgiving implementation in general - the more your sound is like a square wave, the less the subtle harmonics seem to matter. People are fooling themselves if they think the clean sounds on an Ax8 are near the sublime depths and heights of a dialed-in tube amp, and certainly if you are a audio-taper treble bleed volume knob player who uses minimal effects, the clean-to-mean response is somewhat of a weak spot (although some of the Trainwreck models come close).
Stage clutter-wise, this is a winner though. I mentioned two amps, plus minimal pedalboard (tuner, fuzz, wah, trem, phase) and I would anticipate a much smaller footprint should I bring the Ax8 out (monitor and Ax8) since I could play the acoustic and electric through same rig. Haven't done this yet because live playing is the only time I get to crank the shit out of a premium tube amp and why would I want to stop doing that? Well, I suppose one of these days I will bring it out and we will see.
I will tell you the biggest impact is likely to be financial. Compulsive amp buyers who continually tweak their tone and are promiscuous about brands can shell out thousands of dollars everytime the GAS takes hold, and it is a hell of a lot cheaper to get twitchy about a library of IR's!