A patch I built using a Wah, Drive, Amp, Cab (stereo UltraRes with preamp on) Chorus, Delay, Pitch and Reverb on high quality exceeds CPU on Axe. That's not using 20 blocks or the kitchen sink. It's ok, I'm working around it and find the increase in quality of tone to be well worth the effort. Certain blocks eat more CPU than others. Load a Compressor, 2 Drive blocks, Amp, Stereo UR Cab w/Preamp on, Multi Delay and Reverb on high quality and see where you're at. Now add modifiers etc., pushes limit real fast.
I'm more than happy with this unit and would love to see even more improvements, even if it costs CPU to use them. Like said above, I'll take quality over quantity everytime!
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I hesitate to chime in on this because it may come off as negative whining [I'm Jewish - It's an ethnic thing with me
] and I still really love my Axe II.
My Presets are similar to Bill's.
Wah > Comp > Drive > Amp > Vol > Pitch (for stereo detuning/chorus) > Mono Dly (Slapback) > Dly (Echo) > Rev > Cab > Out 1
> FXLoop (after the Rev Block) > Out 2
My Presets are designed for stereo power amp + cab (via Out 2) and stereo FRFR (via Out 1) simultaneously.
My Cab Block is set up to sound very similar to my real cabs.
It's a stereo Cab Block.
That routing doesn't really seem all that over-the-top to me.
Except for the Cab Block it's exactly how I'd be routing with real amps and separate effects/pedals.
I use I/A switches for the Wah, Comp, Drive effects.
The Bypass state of my Delays and the Rev are stored per Preset but I also have I/A switches for them.
(I'm still using an FCB1010 UNO btw.)
I'm not using any scenes and all my Presets have only 1 Amp Type.
I have 5 Presets like this for my Strats and 5 more for my humbucker-equipped guitars with the only difference being a different Amp in each Preset (Clean Bright, Clean Dark-Jazz, Bluesy Breakup, Mid Gain, Hi-Gain).
This routing never taxed the CPU in my Ultra days and it never taxed my II until recently.
It stays pretty low on the CPU usage if I use either a Low Res Stereo Cab Block or Normal Quality in the Reverb Block.
I've settled on using the Low Res Stereo Cab Block because the normal Quality Reverbs don't sound all that good to me and I can live with the lower res Cab Block.
So, IMO, the CPU capabilities of the Axe II are fine unless you want to use all the new goodies that Cliff is throwing our way like High Quality Reverbs and UltraRes cab IRs.
But if you're like me you'd be more satisfied w/o that limitation.
So it seems obvious to me that Cliff has already hit the threshold of what the II is capable of and that he'll need to come up with something else (an Axe III or a different way of coding for the II) if he wants to continue with the types of advances he seems to want to continue with.