Just took the Axe FX plunge...

TommyVonVoigt

TommyVonVoigt

Member
Well, after years of being a hold out, I finally decided to give modelers a try. I ordered an Axe FX III Mark II Turbo.

I've been a pure tube guy for years. Block letter 5150s way back, then a series of hot rodded Marshalls, and then a Ceriatone King Kong 50. I go for huge 80s rock, pop and metal tones. Then I discovered stereo rigs, and I'm currently rocking a rack with Synergy modules, an Eclipse and a PCM 81, all into a pair of OS Mesa Recto cabs. But I still can't get that 80s clean tone. You know the one. And, as portable as I've made this rack, it's still a bear to take to gigs and rehearsals.

At a rehearsal last night, the other guitarist showed up with a Helix floor unit. His cleans buried mine, and even some of the high gain stuff (Friedman, some JCMs, some Mesas) sounded great. So, I'm going to give this a try. I'm not going to lie, I'm really, really nervous! My few experiences with modeling have been plug-ins in Logic. The built in amps, the Mercuriall stuff, and AmpliTube all left me with a very, very poor taste in my mouth.

I'll be running the Axe into my Fryette 2502 stereo tube power amp, and into my Mesa cabs. I'm not too interested in going FRFR with no tube power amp, but I do like the idea of also sending a stereo feed to the PA at larger venues. I really like that it has the flexibility to do this.

I've been reading the manual all weekend, and watching a ton of videos, waiting for it to ship. It is stunning what I can do with this thing. If I like it, it looks like I could possibly sell the whole Synergy setup, the Eclipse, the PCM 81, my DBX 160x, all 3 MIDI Rack EQs, my parallel mixer, and maybe even my ISP Pro Rack G (though I'm not totally sold on that yet). That would be pretty cool. Wish me luck!
 
Man, if its Marshalls and Mesa you want, you purchased well my friend.

A polite nod to Leon Todd's (@2112) Marshall and Mesa videos on YouTube, you cant go wrong. Also check out @austinbuddy Gold Pack...... Well worth a purchase

Welcome to the Rabbit Hole, the only thing down the Rabbit Hole is another Rabbit Hole.
 
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Being an FRFR guy, I can only pass along what I have learned\read in this forum for over decade. Solid state power amps to your Mesa cabs are the best choice for what you are looking for. so if you are underwhelmed with the sound\feel see if you can get a hold of a solid state amp to try with your Mesa cabs.
Although for you the tubes may work.
 
Regarding the plugins you tried I hear your pain. I found plugins give you either sterile clean sounds or very compressed high gain with a lot of fizz. The dynamics for anything Edge of breakup just wasnt there for me.

Honestly, this thing is a beast. JCM800 clean with a bit of chorus and that 80s sound is there. Personally, when it comes to Marshalls and Mesa, this thing excels. I am not a massive Friedman man, but I am warming to the BE. Check out the Splawn amps.... Phenomenal.

Also if you are using a physical stereo cab, try a Mesa and JCM panned left and right with there own cabs.... Very big sound.
 
ShatteredVitreous said:
Regarding the plugins you tried I hear your pain. I found plugins give you either sterile clean sounds or very compressed high gain with a lot of fizz. The dynamics for anything Edge of breakup just wasnt there for me.

Honestly, this thing is a beast. JCM800 clean with a bit of chorus and that 80s sound is there. Personally, when it comes to Marshalls and Mesa, this thing excels. I am not a massive Friedman man, but I am warming to the BE. Check out the Splawn amps.... Phenomenal.

Also if you are using a physical stereo cab, try a Mesa and JCM panned left and right with there own cabs.... Very big sound.
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Yup, you are so right about the plugins. Anything high gain in particular just sounded like harsh digital noise to me. It doesn't help that I seem to have bat ears, particularly when it comes to high gain tones.
 
Welcome to the Fractal family! My love is also in the tones you describe and Fractal products give me that plus any other tone I’ve needed for various situations over the years. I think you will be impressed.
 
TommyVonVoigt said:
But I still can't get that 80s clean tone. You know the one.
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Likely that tone doesn't include a cab or even an amp. You can get close to it through guitar speakers, but that is the limiting factor. With the AxeFX3, you can run an amp block with no cab at all without worry of damaging something. That or a direct guitar with compression and EQ is the key. Sounds best direct ir through a good FRFR cab. Will likely sound decent through your tube power amp and cabs, but the top end won't quite be there.

TommyVonVoigt said:
Wish me luck!
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Good luck. At least give the direct sounds a try through some studio monitors before making up your mind about your monitoring amp rig. Bringing the speaker coloration inside the box and monitoring via FRFR gives you a lot of power to control your sound, and there are a couple tricks that can get you the 'amp in the room' feel/sound at the end of the chain....
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Likely that tone doesn't include a cab or even an amp. You can get close to it through guitar speakers, but that is the limiting factor. With the AxeFX3, you can run an amp block with no cab at all without worry of damaging something. That or a direct guitar with compression and EQ is the key. Sounds best direct ir through a good FRFR cab. Will likely sound decent through your tube power amp and cabs, but the top end won't quite be there.



Good luck. At least give the direct sounds a try through some studio monitors before making up your mind about your monitoring amp rig. Bringing the speaker coloration inside the box and monitoring via FRFR gives you a lot of power to control your sound, and there are a couple tricks that can get you the 'amp in the room' feel/sound at the end of the chain....
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Pretty close / not quite there will still likely be closer by far than what I'm getting now, so, hey, it's possible I may be none the wiser :laughing:
 
Hold on tight...you're in for a hella fun ride! I run mine into powered FRFR speakers, both at home and at gigs. I'll echo the suggestion to at least give it a try through a pair of decent studio monitors. Having the availability of thousands of speaker IRs really opens up the sonic possibilities.
 
TommyVonVoigt said:
I'll be running the Axe into my Fryette 2502 stereo tube power amp, and into my Mesa cabs.
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I loved my VHT power amp. They had this punch that was very unique. But, no matter what I dialed up, it always had that VHT powered Mesa cab footprint. But, as others have mentioned, when I switched to powered speakers and turned the power amp/cab modeling on it really opened up a whole new world of what the Axe-III could do. Don't rule it out without trying. Axe-III is so much more then just a pre-amp/effects unit.
 
Apart from learning the intricacies of the AxeFx, the biggest hurdle is finding the right equipment to listen to it through IMHO.

You might be lucky and find that your Fryette and Mesa cabs work fine for you, but it's also possible they may not. Many here have been on a journey in buying and trying different things before ultimately settling on one solution.
I've done this, and ended up keeping everything I've bought so I have a choice of FRFR, Power amp/cab and still own a Mesa amp/cab.
I tend to go for my Freyette LXII with the Mesa cab stuffed with 2 Celestion F12-X200 speakers for live gigs, but like FRFR at home.
Sometimes I like to plug the whole lot in at once when at home (means building specific presets for the purpose) and man it sounds freakin awesome in a W/D/W setup!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if at first you can't get the tones you're looking for, keep at it. There are a lot of good/experienced folks here who are ready and willing to help.

Good luck man, you're in for an interesting ride.

Edit: you may find this interesting
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/building-an-80s-rack-preset.177928/#post-2169498
 
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You landed in the right place, and there is not a single post in response that I wouldn't agree with. I'm about 5 years into the Fractal Audio Systems trip, and my only suggestion would be to think of the Axe FX as 2 rigs in one. For me, the first rig is the one that I use to set up and record with at home, but the second rig is the one I rehearse and play live with. Fortunately they both exist in the same box (AFX III original for me), but they play back through substantially different equipment. I went with a mono FRFR setup for live in early days, but as a stereo tube power amp user with a 4 x 12 each side of the stage back in the mid 90s, I would not rule that out as a setup, depending on style you are playing, and size of venue.

You timed this pretty well, as the modelling has advanced really remarkably in recent times. Used to be that with a few hours tweaking I could get something like a representation of my favourite Marshall (which I never achieved with Orange, for example), but I'd need to do a bit of work to get Fender or Vox tones to ring through as something I could still work with when changing presets mid-set. Nowadays it's every amp and pedal I ever loved, instantly, without much more than occasional tone/drive/volume control tweaking. I spend more time moving the pickup switches and guitar volume and tone controls than looking into the models. To me that's a good sign!

It will still be a learning curve, but it just keeps getting better. Don't rule out FRFR. I only own a single 4 x 12 cab and a few "combo" amps nowadays (I just didn't need the rest anymore). One big "live" FRFR setup, and a decent studio monitoring for general studio use gives me access to every guitar tone I could ever need. I always give the FOH engineer the choice of mono or stereo for their feed at gigs. They always go for stereo, and they have never asked me to change anything. That's also a good sign. I may never put a microphone in front of a cab at a gig again, which feels weird. I'll still be doing it in the studio for now, and maybe as a sanity check in the studio for many years to come, but with the Cygnus firmware release, guitar amp modelling finally came of age in a big way. I think you're going to love it.

Liam
 
Welcome! 5 years in and every time I plug in I revel in the glorious tones. For me it’s the clarity of tone and consistency of it. I know the sound will be there, not have to hope things will sound good today or that I need to stand in a certain spot.
 
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