it's been a long road, and a lovely one at that.

komorebi_dayo

Inspired
I got my Ultra in 2010, my AX8 in 2016, and now the Memorial Day package deal in 2021. It's been such a long, fulfilling road up till now and I'm immensely grateful to everyone I've learned from along the way.

My ADHD brain will attempt to distill down a few things it wants to say, so here goes that:

1) Headroom and gain reduction metering

It's hard to overstate the quality of life improvement here; whether you're setting levels for a live performance or recording, you have so many divergent pathways to ensure you'll be comfortably situated in a mix or spotlit as circumstances call for. The sheer usability of compressors such as the JFET, Optical EL Foil, and Studio FB 1 before or after (or both!) gain stages puts you in control of your dynamic range, transients, and headroom before clipping. And the Compander algorithm that Cliff's implementing soon will only expand that control if you seek to wield it.

2) Don't sleep on the Cab block preamps

If your workhorse presets have some CPU to spare, consider adding flavor with the preamp in High Quality mode. Try it with Drive at 7, Saturation at 1.35. The models I like best so far are FET I, Modern, and Transformer.

3) If the options seem overwhelming, start with the 16.02 Bank A factory presets, close your eyes, and spin the knob

Thanks to the hard work of so many who contributed to the newest round of factory banks, just about anywhere you land in Bank A is going to have something sweet to hang your cap on for a while. If you like what you find, you can make a couple tweaks to see where you land; otherwise, spin again. You'll find something that gels, guaranteed.

If you've been on the fence and you have the means available, this is the right time to leap for it. The III is a mature product, a definitive crowning achievement of so many incredible minds who have conspired to avail artists of all the tools they would conceivably need in their kit.

Cheers to everyone on this road with me, and to many more adventures yet to be discovered.

-Claire
 
I got my Ultra in 2010, my AX8 in 2016, and now the Memorial Day package deal in 2021. It's been such a long, fulfilling road up till now and I'm immensely grateful to everyone I've learned from along the way.

My ADHD brain will attempt to distill down a few things it wants to say, so here goes that:

1) Headroom and gain reduction metering

It's hard to overstate the quality of life improvement here; whether you're setting levels for a live performance or recording, you have so many divergent pathways to ensure you'll be comfortably situated in a mix or spotlit as circumstances call for. The sheer usability of compressors such as the JFET, Optical EL Foil, and Studio FB 1 before or after (or both!) gain stages puts you in control of your dynamic range, transients, and headroom before clipping. And the Compander algorithm that Cliff's implementing soon will only expand that control if you seek to wield it.

2) Don't sleep on the Cab block preamps

If your workhorse presets have some CPU to spare, consider adding flavor with the preamp in High Quality mode. Try it with Drive at 7, Saturation at 1.35. The models I like best so far are FET I, Modern, and Transformer.

3) If the options seem overwhelming, start with the 16.02 Bank A factory presets, close your eyes, and spin the knob

Thanks to the hard work of so many who contributed to the newest round of factory banks, just about anywhere you land in Bank A is going to have something sweet to hang your cap on for a while. If you like what you find, you can make a couple tweaks to see where you land; otherwise, spin again. You'll find something that gels, guaranteed.

If you've been on the fence and you have the means available, this is the right time to leap for it. The III is a mature product, a definitive crowning achievement of so many incredible minds who have conspired to avail artists of all the tools they would conceivably need in their kit.

Cheers to everyone on this road with me, and to many more adventures yet to be discovered.

-Claire
I started right behind your introduction to the Ultra, mine in 2011. It’s been a real experience going from the all-programming-from-the-screen days to where we are today. You just can’t beat this company’s commitment to constantly raising the bar and never resting on their laurels.
 
The depth of features on the Axe-Fx III really put it ahead of the pack when it comes to modeling. A lot of people claim that their unit of choice from another brand sounds equally as good as the Axe-Fx III. Even if you were to grant that as true, the deep editable parameters, the complement of I/O, the modifiers, the processing power, the flexibility of the FC units, the build quality of the hardware, the pace of firmware updates, the quality of the software editor, and the top tier customer support all combine to tip the scales so heavily in favor of FAS over the competition.
 
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