Not exactly a review but an initial impression on the AFX ultra. I got mine after driving 100+ miles to meet with a nice seller (forum member) who also have to drive 600+ miles. I’ve never been this excited with a gear before, i’ve lusted on the standard for months but here i am getting the ultra - i couldn’t sleep and wait for the next day to meet the seller.
When i connected it to my studio monitors, the sound was awful than my first line 6 product (a $75 guitar port). It was due to bad connectors and not reading the manual (input level was too low), now the sound is okay but nothing spectacular. A vypyr tube 60 that i once owned sounded better, i checked if the amp and cab sims are off but they’re on so i have the correct settings. I tried all the presets and didn’t find one that i really like or could use except that by now I know what the AFXu is capable of. This is a powerful guitar processor which is capable of doing many things but it still sounds like any other modeler. I thought i will be getting rid of it sooner than i think.
I updated it to 9.03 and installed Axe-Edit and restored all presets to factory. I still don’t like what i’m hearing for a very expensive modeler until i came up with a sweet child preset that is very close to the recording. I installed some redwirez IRs (very recommended) and now i’m listening to the best tone i’ve ever heard from a modeler. I seriously can’t distinguish the tone i’m producing from the real one but still the rest of the presets are “fake”. My wife even thought i was playing the recorded version instead of a backing track, i told her to notice that vocals were missing.
I spent some time creating my own patches but with no success, i really have to read the manual or the Axe-Edit guide/manual. My AFXu is 2 days old and i know what it’s capable of but to expect it to sound like what others are saying or what you hear in youtube is foolish, you have to spend some time to get the tones that you want.
The presets and patches that i dial myself still sound very modeled as if the the noise gate and compression is turned very high, they all sounded plastic. But i have this 1 preset that i got from this forum that tells me how good this unit can get with the correct settings. So that tells me to keep learning or keep looking for good shared presets that i can tweak. Hope this helps to those thinking of giving up with this unit.
When i connected it to my studio monitors, the sound was awful than my first line 6 product (a $75 guitar port). It was due to bad connectors and not reading the manual (input level was too low), now the sound is okay but nothing spectacular. A vypyr tube 60 that i once owned sounded better, i checked if the amp and cab sims are off but they’re on so i have the correct settings. I tried all the presets and didn’t find one that i really like or could use except that by now I know what the AFXu is capable of. This is a powerful guitar processor which is capable of doing many things but it still sounds like any other modeler. I thought i will be getting rid of it sooner than i think.
I updated it to 9.03 and installed Axe-Edit and restored all presets to factory. I still don’t like what i’m hearing for a very expensive modeler until i came up with a sweet child preset that is very close to the recording. I installed some redwirez IRs (very recommended) and now i’m listening to the best tone i’ve ever heard from a modeler. I seriously can’t distinguish the tone i’m producing from the real one but still the rest of the presets are “fake”. My wife even thought i was playing the recorded version instead of a backing track, i told her to notice that vocals were missing.
I spent some time creating my own patches but with no success, i really have to read the manual or the Axe-Edit guide/manual. My AFXu is 2 days old and i know what it’s capable of but to expect it to sound like what others are saying or what you hear in youtube is foolish, you have to spend some time to get the tones that you want.
The presets and patches that i dial myself still sound very modeled as if the the noise gate and compression is turned very high, they all sounded plastic. But i have this 1 preset that i got from this forum that tells me how good this unit can get with the correct settings. So that tells me to keep learning or keep looking for good shared presets that i can tweak. Hope this helps to those thinking of giving up with this unit.
