Just bought Axe-Fx Ultra - Need Help

Arterial

New Member
Hey all, new to this forum;

I've recently bought an Axe-Fx and have been researching and contemplating getting a power amp to go with it. I plan on using the axe-fx for home practice and eventually recording, and my friend has told me that for my situation, possibly getting Yamaha HS80M monitors would be a better choice instead of getting a power amp?

Does anyone have any experience with these and do you guys think i'm going about this the right way? Any input and help would be great guys.

Cheers, Dan.
 
Are you Arterial/Dan as in, the guy I bought an RG560 off a couple of months ago?

Either way, welcome to the Axe-FX world. :)

If you're only using it for home practice and recording, I'd say a pair of monitors would be a good way to go. You'd need to get some for recording anyway, so you're basically killing two birds with one stone. :) I've been running my Axe this way since I got it and have been perfectly happy with it. May soon need to get an Atomic wedge for the band it looks like I'm joining, but at home the monitors do just fine. And running this way, rather than say through a poweramp and guitar cab, means I have all the poweramp modeling and cabs to play with.

Can't comment on the HS80Ms myself though.
 
Welcome, Arterial.

If you don't need gig-level volume, studio monitors can be a good choice. A lot of folks prefer their sound over foldback monitors. As to whether the HS80Ms are the right choice, I haven't heard them, so I don't have a first-hand opinion. Yamaha advertises them as being "in the tradition of the NS10M." That monitor is used by many studios for mixing, not because it's particularly good, but because it's a good approximation of the mediocre consumer stuff most people have at home.

Surprisingly, Yamaha says of the HS80M, "If Your Mixes Sound Good On These, They'll Sound Good Anywhere." That's like giving a NASCAR driver a Mack truck and telling him, "If you can win a race driving this, you can win a race driving anything." Not exactly a compliment on the truck.
 
hey Nick =)

Yeah I went for it! asked the missus for permission and got a yes and i was like awww hell yeahhhh!

Thank god im on here now, I have so many questions I need answers to.

I'm definitely keen on getting some studio monitors now. Another question...Will I only need a poweramp when I begin gigging or can I do something like hook the axe-fx straight into the place's PA?

btw, hows the 560? done any modding to it yet?

also, moved out of that tiny house yet?
 
You can do the Axe straight into the PA — you'll want to do that whether you're using your own speakers or not. For gigs, you'll need either a power amp and passive monitor, an active monitor, or a power anp and guitar cabinet. With that last option, you'll be giving up the Axe's cab sims, and you may choose to mic your cab into FOH.
 
hey Nick =)

Yeah I went for it! asked the missus for permission and got a yes and i was like awww hell yeahhhh!

Thank god im on here now, I have so many questions I need answers to.

I'm definitely keen on getting some studio monitors now. Another question...Will I only need a poweramp when I begin gigging or can I do something like hook the axe-fx straight into the place's PA?

btw, hows the 560? done any modding to it yet?

also, moved out of that tiny house yet?

So did you have to sell the Mark IV rig to fund it, or do you still have that? Coz if you've still got it, that's another option for you. Run the Axe into the Mark IV's FX return, disable the poweramp modeling and cab modeling, run the output of the amp into your cab. Would be an immediate solution without having to buy anything, and would work as a live rig.

Otherwise yeah, for live playing you can run it straight to the PA. I'm in the process of joining a band, and if we end up going ahead with it I'll just get one of the Atomic wedges. For rehearsals I'll just sit it on its side for all of us to hear, for live playing I'd use that as my guitar monitor on the floor and run the Axe to the PA. Band has an upright bass and a violin, so blasting huge volumes in rehearsal or on stage could be a problem. So the Axe will work perfectly for this. Great tones at any volume. :) If you want stage volume besides what you get from the house monitors, you'd have to add some kind of amplification (poweramp/cab, your own FRFR monitor, Atomic, etc.).


Haven't modded the RG560 at all yet. Will get around to it when things have settled a bit, but for now my work situation is a bit iffy, hence why I also haven't moved yet. Will hopefully be doing that in the next month or so.
 
You can do the Axe straight into the PA — you'll want to do that whether you're using your own speakers or not. For gigs, you'll need either a power amp and passive monitor, an active monitor, or a power anp and guitar cabinet. With that last option, you'll be giving up the Axe's cab sims, and you may choose to mic your cab into FOH.

For the bolded part, did you mean
1) Power amp and passive monitor
2) active monitor
3) power amp and cab
?

because the way the sentence is structured its a bit confusing.

for gigs, i couldnt use the active monitor im buying anyway? or am i confused?

So did you have to sell the Mark IV rig to fund it, or do you still have that? Coz if you've still got it, that's another option for you. Run the Axe into the Mark IV's FX return, disable the poweramp modeling and cab modeling, run the output of the amp into your cab. Would be an immediate solution without having to buy anything, and would work as a live rig.

Otherwise yeah, for live playing you can run it straight to the PA. I'm in the process of joining a band, and if we end up going ahead with it I'll just get one of the Atomic wedges. For rehearsals I'll just sit it on its side for all of us to hear, for live playing I'd use that as my guitar monitor on the floor and run the Axe to the PA. Band has an upright bass and a violin, so blasting huge volumes in rehearsal or on stage could be a problem. So the Axe will work perfectly for this. Great tones at any volume. :) If you want stage volume besides what you get from the house monitors, you'd have to add some kind of amplification (poweramp/cab, your own FRFR monitor, Atomic, etc.).


Haven't modded the RG560 at all yet. Will get around to it when things have settled a bit, but for now my work situation is a bit iffy, hence why I also haven't moved yet. Will hopefully be doing that in the next month or so.

i havent sold the mark IV yet, but I do plan on selling it so that I lose as little money as possible. and since i bought the axe fx anyway, i want to have as little as possible rig, since my room isnt exactly the biggest.

I think i will worry about gigging later on.

what happened to "i dont want to be in a band...too much trouble?"
 
For the bolded part, did you mean
1) Power amp and passive monitor
2) active monitor
3) power amp and cab
?

because the way the sentence is structured its a bit confusing.

for gigs, i couldnt use the active monitor im buying anyway? or am i confused?



i havent sold the mark IV yet, but I do plan on selling it so that I lose as little money as possible. and since i bought the axe fx anyway, i want to have as little as possible rig, since my room isnt exactly the biggest.

I think i will worry about gigging later on.

what happened to "i dont want to be in a band...too much trouble?"

Yep, he meant one of the three. You can pretty much run the thing however you want. You can have the full processed (incl. poweramp and cab) sound straight to the desk and/or your own amplification (in which case you'd want some kind of FRFR amp/speaker set up), you can remove the cab section and run a clean SS poweramp into a guitar cab, you could turn both off and run it through a tube poweramp/FX-return into a cab, etc. And if you're doing one of the latter two, you can also split the signal at whatever point so that you have one like that, and then one that does have the cabs/poweramp to run to the desk anyway. Many different ways of doing it; it's up to the user to decide what works for them.

Monitor in that case wasn't meaning nearfield monitors like what you'd have on your desk for recording.


And yeah, I didn't really want to join a band again, but an opportunity that came up that looked too interesting to ignore. Had a bit of a jam with the two core members last night and it went pretty well. Will definitely be a mental challenge to keep up, but it should also be quite interesting. :) It helps that they've been playing together as a duo already, they're good at what they do, and it's not the kind of thing where I'd basically be the only one working on material. So those things alone basically automatically reduce the amount of bullshit involved. :)
 
For the bolded part, did you mean
1) Power amp and passive monitor
2) active monitor
3) power amp and cab
?
You got it. The three options are separated by commas.


for gigs, i couldnt use the active monitor im buying anyway? or am i confused?
A studio monitor won't supply enough volume for a live gig — plenty for in-home monitoring, though. Also, studio monitors aren't rugged enough for gigging.
 
Hi, newbie Ultra owner (and first post) here who did end up going with a pair of HS80's for bedroom volume/recording. I thought these sounded the most natural of the speakers I auditioned (the others Rokit 8s, JBL2328P). Running them directly via XLR connectors in stereo, with cab sims on. For my ears (YMMV), these were the most flat sounding of the speakers I auditioned. The JBLs sounded great but a bit high/artificial in the mid section. A great set of speakers for a second reference point and something I'd consider for my home stereo. The Rokit8s just didn't do it for me. The bass was too pumped.

(For extra thump when the family's out, I run the second out to my power amp.)

The "only" thing that concerns me is that, because I'm running the HS80s directly out of the ultra is, even at low volumes, the output clipping light on the ultra comes on occassionally. I realize distortion (clipping) is not a good thing for a speaker. I assume it doesn't have to be loud to ruin a speaker, correct? One of the patches where it becomes a problem is with the violin patch. If you hit the string hard, it does clip. I'm sure its a matter of a learning curve adjusting the parameters better - global, input and output settings to be appropriate.
 
The "only" thing that concerns me is that, because I'm running the HS80s directly out of the ultra is, even at low volumes, the output clipping light on the ultra comes on occassionally.

OUT1 clip LED means your signal is clipping internally. turning down the Axe's output will do nothing to prevent that. Amp LEVEL is the appropiate control to lower.
 
Hi, newbie Ultra owner (and first post) here who did end up going with a pair of HS80's for bedroom volume/recording. I thought these sounded the most natural of the speakers I auditioned (the others Rokit 8s, JBL2328P). Running them directly via XLR connectors in stereo, with cab sims on. For my ears (YMMV), these were the most flat sounding of the speakers I auditioned...
Thanks for the feedback. It's good to hear someone's personal experience with a product instead of my speculation based on manufacturer's literature.



The "only" thing that concerns me is that, because I'm running the HS80s directly out of the ultra is, even at low volumes, the output clipping light on the ultra comes on occassionally. I realize distortion (clipping) is not a good thing for a speaker. I assume it doesn't have to be loud to ruin a speaker, correct? One of the patches where it becomes a problem is with the violin patch. If you hit the string hard, it does clip. I'm sure its a matter of a learning curve adjusting the parameters better - global, input and output settings to be appropriate.
When the Axe's output clip LED comes on, there's internal clipping happening before the output. Turn down the output, either by turning down the Level parameter fo the amp sim, ot turning down the overall patch level (Layout menu / Mix page / Main parameter). Fortunately, studio monitors are usually built to endure a little distortion without damage.
 
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