I wasn't quite expecting such a difference between the III and the II

Orvillain

Orvillain

Power User
So I just picked up an Axe III mkII yesterday, and I'm pretty blown away.

I had an Axe FX II years ago and made many songs with it, but it always nagged at me a little. I didn't like the tones as much as my valve amps, I didn't like the delays, and I was always running into DSP limitations and tonal annoyances. I remember putting PEQ blocks before and after the amp to tame certain frequencies, and I remember loads of people here doing the same in their patches too.

The III is a totally different kettle of fish kebabs. Totally different.

With the III you literally can go: guitar > amp > cab > output.

That's it. It sounds amazing.

And even without the cab... into a real cab.... well... I did that today into a Seymour Duncan Powerstage 200 and then into my Egnater 4x12 with V30's... tweaked the speaker LF resonance frequency a bit..... Running the Diezel blueface ch3..... it sounded and felt like an amp. I like it just as much as the real silverface that I own!

The delays are SOOOOOOOOO much better than the Axe II. It's unreal. I'm one of those who whinged about them not being dirty enough... well .... compander has changed all that for me.... and the oscillations sound so juicy; like moist muffins on a window sill of pain. Love it.

This might be honeymoon period bloviation; but I don't think so. I'm seriously impressed. Seriously. Impressed.
 
When I first seriously considered Fractal last year, I talked at length to a friend who had had an Axe II, and I thought about buying a used one.
But it's posts like this that make me glad I went for a new III instead!
 
I have a III-mk1 into a II-mk1 to offload reverb and a couple of other things. Have to say, I'm really starting to think a 3 Turbo would be better than my III + II as the II is really starting to show it's age. There's been so many improvements over the years that almost any fx block I offload to the II is inferior to the III somehow not to mention the lack of even x/y channels on most of the II-mk1 blocks never mind having A/B/C/D. We've come a loooong way - still, I will hang on for Axefx4 and have IV+III rig at some point. What's amazing also, is that my ten year old II-mk1 still blows away many good modellers from other brands.
 
My III Turbo arrives tomorrow. My last was a 3-MK I, so I don’t think it’ll be as drastic as the OP, but I’m expecting a great experience.
 
Yeah, I had the same experience. Especially if you're coming to the Axe 3 recently like I did, where there have many major advances in firmware since Ares on the II.
 
sprint said:
I have a III-mk1 into a II-mk1 to offload reverb and a couple of other things. Have to say, I'm really starting to think a 3 Turbo would be better than my III + II as the II is really starting to show it's age. There's been so many improvements over the years that almost any fx block I offload to the II is inferior to the III somehow not to mention the lack of even x/y channels on most of the II-mk1 blocks never mind having A/B/C/D. We've come a loooong way - still, I will hang on for Axefx4 and have IV+III rig at some point. What's amazing also, is that my ten year old II-mk1 still blows away many good modellers from other brands.
Click to expand...
Bump the II off, then shift the III down and make room for a Turbo.... :)
 
AndyTNBD said:
So I just picked up an Axe III mkII yesterday, and I'm pretty blown away.

I had an Axe FX II years ago and made many songs with it, but it always nagged at me a little. I didn't like the tones as much as my valve amps, I didn't like the delays, and I was always running into DSP limitations and tonal annoyances. I remember putting PEQ blocks before and after the amp to tame certain frequencies, and I remember loads of people here doing the same in their patches too.

The III is a totally different kettle of fish kebabs. Totally different.

With the III you literally can go: guitar > amp > cab > output.

That's it. It sounds amazing.

And even without the cab... into a real cab.... well... I did that today into a Seymour Duncan Powerstage 200 and then into my Egnater 4x12 with V30's... tweaked the speaker LF resonance frequency a bit..... Running the Diezel blueface ch3..... it sounded and felt like an amp. I like it just as much as the real silverface that I own!

The delays are SOOOOOOOOO much better than the Axe II. It's unreal. I'm one of those who whinged about them not being dirty enough... well .... compander has changed all that for me.... and the oscillations sound so juicy; like moist muffins on a window sill of pain. Love it.

This might be honeymoon period bloviation; but I don't think so. I'm seriously impressed. Seriously. Impressed.
Click to expand...
The Ares firmware was pretty good, good enough that I could see the point where Fractal's modeling was going to equal tubes in a few years, but Cliff surprised us when he announced he'd noticed something about the way that the sound through tubes changed as the signal died out that wasn't being modeled correctly, so he rewrote some of the code, and as he implemented it, it affected other things for the better, until finally it was so significant that they released it as Cygnus.

I'm seriously impressed by where Fractal is with modeling too. Cygnus is a big improvement, and I think it puts tube amps on notice. With the prices of tubes going up and up, and the tube quality going down, I can't see any reason to buy another tube amp, well, unless I sell my remaining two and consolidate into one that'd be my forever tube-amp for those times I need super fast setup or a smaller footprint on stage.
 
Must seem absolutely night and day to you OP. I was a relatively early adopter of the Axe FX III, and still had an AFX II. While it was better back then, the leaps forward in firmware over the last couple of years have been immense.

I just spent the evening in my studio with the intent of fine tuning, and inventing a couple of new presets for the AFX III. It feels kind of a good sign that I landed on my "home" band preset, and then I just played some guitars. Didn't so much as tweak an amp tone control; guitar volume and tone, and my hands made all the changes in expression I could ever need. I will get back to tweaking, but I just enjoy playing so much on whatever amp I land on. Thinking back to AFX II days, yes, loved it, but I was endlessly tweaking to try to get the "feel" right.

Liam
 
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