Mesa Tripple Rec vs Axe FX II (Real World)

M

Madhatter10-6

New Member
I have been on the fence for years about trying out the world of modeling. 20 years ago when some of the early Digitech stuff came out I tried some and it was just cringy bad. 200 awful tones in one box. But from what I had seen reviewed online the technology had come light years.

So after geeking out on this forum and watching reviews the winning combo seemed to be Axe FX + Atomic CLR Neo 2 (There are obviously other great reviewed FRFR’s but this one came up everywhere). I picked up and Axe FX II with the foot controller and got everything setup right next to my Mesa.

My honest review is that my Mesa Triple Rec Crushes this thing. Even after tweaking on the settings with axe edit software I got the tone fairly close to the Mesa but doing A/B comparisons right next to each other in the real world the Mesa just wins...and it really isn't close. The Axe kind of sounds cheap / digital / processed etc.

All of that being said people LOVE the fractal setup and I know that a lot of pros use it. Do I need to get the Axe FX III to get this sound? Do I need to run dual Atomic CLR’s?. What I am missing here….why does everyone love this so much when it doesn’t sound nearly as good as the real deal to me?

Also I am very open to the idea that I might have something configured wrong lol.

Open to advice / suggestions / comments.

Thanks!

mesavfractal.jpg
 
Musikron said:
It's not gonna be louder, or more massive sounding.
Ditch the CLR and cab block, go into the FX return of your mesa and start there. Frfr ain't all it's cracked up to be honestly.
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I tried that and the 4CM before going with the CLR and didn't love that either

When I watch youtube videos this thing sounds awesome
in the real world next to a real rig its meh
 
Madhatter10-6 said:
I tried that and the 4CM before going with the CLR and didn't love that either

When I watch youtube videos this thing sounds awesome
in the real world next to a real rig its meh
Click to expand...
Keep working it. You'll get there.
Basically I'm saying it's you not the fractal. I'd wager good money that I could dial it in to where you couldn't tell which is which.
Just keep figuring it out.
 
I was able to match my axe fx to my friends triple rec. If you plugged the amp and axe fx through the same cab IR you would get very similar if not near identical results.
 
Well....this sounds like a me problem then lol. I may end up doing that master class on setup and just messing around with it more.
 
FRFR won’t sound like a cab in the room. It will sound like a mic’d amp though a monitor but personally I don’t find that tone anywhere as pleasing as standing in front of a guitar cab.

If you use a high wattage high quality solidstate power amp into the same cab, it should be a lot closer, but in my opinion the recto models are not as easy to work with as a real recto.

I can get close-ish to my dual rectifier in the room (into matrix power amp into the same guitar cab) by keeping the axe FX model master very low (under 1), turning the bias down a bit, increase bright cap size a bit, but honestly I got better results using the 6505+ model and getting as close as I can, and then doing a tone match.

I had my recto going into a quality reactive load, into the axe FX, so I had it set with one scene being the recto > load > axe FX bypassed > solidstate power amp > cab, the other scene being axe FX model > solidstate power amp > cab, so a/b comparison was easy. Feel was slightly different still but I felt it was close enough.
 
The guitarist of Blind Guardian, Markus Siepen, wrote the same in the german Fractal-Forum: The AxeFxII doesn´t even sound close to his Rectos. He is using Friedman-Models on his AxeFxII. He is always playing with in-ears.
 
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