If the Ax8 can achieve these tones without CPU trouble, I'd be satisfied.

R

rich2k4

Inspired
Still deciding between an Axe Fx 2 and Ax8. I've been thinking about what tones I am looking to get out of either unit and have come up with the following. If I can cop these tones on the Ax8 without having CPU trouble and without having to compromise by rearranging things because of CPU, I will be happy. They are as follows:

1. Eric Johnson Clean and lead tone:
As seen on these two videos. and

For cleans it seems like it is a Fender Twin reverb, with two delays, chorus, perhaps a small amount of reverb, although I don't see reverb on his pedalboard, he might be using a touch of it from the twin. Could be from the room.

His lead tone as seen toward the end of the first video, and the basis of the second video. Seems to be a cranked marshall, with delay, fuzz face, and perhaps a tube driver as well. Flanger is also used to cop the High Landrons tone.

Overall it doesn't seem like to complicated of a signal chain. But I know drives, reverbs, and delays take up a large amount of CPU.

2. Andy Timmons tone:
As seen on this video.

He uses the Lonestar clean and lead channels. He seems to get his tone from just the clean with a combo of drive pedals. I hear reverb from the lodestar as well. He uses 2 delays, chorus, octa fuzz.

Again doesn't seem like a complicated signal chain but again not sure about the CPU limits of the Ax8.

3. George Lynch tone:
Pretty much what you hear on Back for the attack. Basically hot rodded marshall, with lots od delay, and lots of reverb. Ax8 seems like it would choke on this.

4. Van Halen
First two albums specifically. again cranked marshall, phase 90, flanger, delay, reverb. I'm pretty sure Ax8 might choke on this too.

5. Various great clean tones.
Think SRV Little Wing, Rivera paradise, etc. Cool funky tones like The Fixx's One Thing Leads To Another, etc.

I hear some people saying to save on CPU, use spring reverb. While that might work for the first 2 in my list. Using spring reverb for lynch or van halen is not going to cut it.

I'm looking for peoples thoughts based on what I want. Will the Ax8 handle it? If anyone could take time out of their day to use their Ax8 to try to run the same rigs as above and post clips or tell me if they ran in to CPU trouble, that would be amazing.

Thank you.
 
I think Ax8 will be fine, if you are OK with splitting the sound across several presets. For instance, you may need to have EJ clean and lead as two different presets.

Both Ax8 and AXeFX II struggle with fuzz tones due to the fact that fuzzes loads the signal from the pickups, and the Ax* does not.

You may have to do small tricks to fit every thing, but I don't think so. If you want to cover all Van Halen 79--84 tones in one preset, it cannot be done, but I do not think there is a single VH song that uses more effects than what Ax8 can handle within a single or mayb two preset(s).
 
All of those tones have been nailed in the Axe FX at one time or another on this forum. Just dig through the recording section and you will eventually find them.

Recreating them in the AX8 can be done to will just have to spend the time. "Rocco" does a great job at recreating VH tones amongst others. you might be able to do the conversion on the ones that he has built and load them into the AX8. These should wet you'er appetite



 
Great tones Lynch/EVH...Want to hear the other 2 players though, hope someone nails them (sharing presets is always a cool thing too)
 
I just got the AX8 and I was looking for exactly this capability as far as tones go. I got rid of the AXE FX that would do the EJ clean and EJ lead tones in a single preset. At first, I was bummed that I couldn't seem to create a patch that would do this but after creating a clean patch and a lead patch that does the Tube Driver and Fuzz tones, I'm happy with this setup. You can put these two patches adjacent to each other in a bank...in slots 1 and 2 for example and then assign one of the foot switches in preset 1 to be "select preset 2" (the lead patch) and then in preset 2 assign the same footswitch to be "select preset 1" so the same button selects the-other patch. I haven't had the AX8 long so there may be better ways to do this sort of thing but this seems to work well. Really nice to not-have the rack, the mfc etc...just one pedal that has the same great AXE FX sound. Really glad I switched.
 
May I ask how much CPU the EJ presets take up?. Can you take a screen shot of ax8 edit? This is a large purchase for me, so I don't want to regret not going with an axe fx
 
Dr Git said:
Great tones Lynch/EVH...Want to hear the other 2 players though, hope someone nails them (sharing presets is always a cool thing too)
Click to expand...

All you have to do is search YT there is a plethora of stuff out their.



 
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rich2k4 said:
May I ask how much CPU the EJ presets take up?. Can you take a screen shot of ax8 edit? This is a large purchase for me, so I don't want to regret not going with an axe fx
Click to expand...

I think my presets are high 80s CPU, noticed 87% for the lead preset today. I'm at work now but I'll try to do that later on. I haven't seen other EJ patches created by the guys here that are really good at creating patches, mine probably isn't anything special but it's good enough until I find one made by somebody that knows what they're doing or I figure out how to improve mine.
 
hmm idk. 87% seems pretty high. cutoff is 90% i think. It's hard because for me an Ax8 + monitors + audio interface would cost me the same price as a brand new XL+. But if I'm constantly having to make compromises then yeah it might be cheaper, but I'd feel like I half assed the purchase.
 
Does it matter if it's 87% CPU usage if it's achieving the desired tone?

I'd only be concerned if I was at that level of usage and still couldn't build the preset I wanted.
 
I was a Axe Fx standard guy for several years so i guess the AX-8 is similar to me as far as CPU usage goes. I don't do any U2 stuff so i haven't had any restrictions with the AX-8 yet, most of my presets are around 70%
 
Here is a screenshot of a preset I made

Screenshot%202016-05-08%2014.09.06.png

I am pretty sure, the reverb is not a spring as it was used for a volume swell effect. Note that there is compressor, chorus drive, multidelay, reverb and delay along with a few minor blocks.

This should give you an idea about what is possible.

The preset contains 8 scenes
Scene 1 - Volume swell (exp pedal 1 attached to the vol/pan block) - no amp used, clean tone shaped by GEQ block
Scene 2 - Funky clean - no amp
Scene 3 - Amp, Cab and Chorus - nothing else - edge of breakup
Scene 4 - Using filters to clean up the amp and raise the level backup, beautiful single note lines here
Scene 5 - Using the y state of the filters to make a treble booster kind of sound
Scene 6 - Using the BB pre to get a modern drive sound - reverb plus delay
Scene 7 - Using Ruckus drive to achieve the same thing - Multidelay
Scene 8 - Volume swell using the amp for tone shaping

Here is a clip of what this preset does

Here is the preset http://forum.fractalaudio.com/threa...h-preset-switching.114463/page-3#post-1370162
 
dbun said:
Does it matter if it's 87% CPU usage if it's achieving the desired tone?

I'd only be concerned if I was at that level of usage and still couldn't build the preset I wanted.
Click to expand...

I wasn't complaining about the high level at all, just pointing out that the unit could do the sound in 1-patch.
That high level would only be a problem if I were trying to do both-sounds in 1-patch. I did try that initially and
even though I could get the EJ Clean patch down to 70ish by changing reverb params, I couldn't use X/Y amp
and cab settings to add in a Marshall amp and have it sound correct so I gave up. I did at one point seem to
have a patch that had both amps in it and come in under the wire but the Y amp/cab sounded thin and "wrong"
compared to a single patch that had only a Marshall amp in it with the same settings. Not sure why that was
but I just went to 2 patches at that point and they both sound pretty good now.

I'm really happy I changed to the AX8 and the little changes in the way I setup presets
is well worth the small size with the same great tones.

I would add that If somebody good at creating patches would like to take this EJClean and EJ Lead in a single-patch as a "challenge" well.... :^)
 
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