khawk
Inspired
I'm going to try to keep this as straight and to the point as I can but everyone tells me I struggle with that. LOL!
I was a very happy Ultra owner years ago and then the Axe II was announced. I work in the technology industry so I understand the product refresh cycles. It's a healthy thing IMO! I was at a family reunion at the beach when the wait list hit so I wasn't able to get on it until the 20th in the evening. Up to that point, my only issue with the Ultra was my own difficulty in understanding how to shape my tone. I didn't have a lot of amp tweaking experience so the options were a little intimidating to me.
While waiting for my name to come up, I contacted one of the other forum members and asked their opinion of Greg Germino and the amps he builds. He had nothing but great things to say. I immediately called Greg, told him my plans to outfit my basement with a Club 40 and 4X12 and he laughed at me. He said, "Kyle, I don't make master volume amps! You're going to bring your house down!" I persisted just based off of the clips I'd heard online. Here in SW Virginia, Youtube is really the only way we can hear different amps. Really poor method I know, but it's all I've got! I ordered that setup and was able to go down and meet Greg in person in Central NC. What a GREAT individual! He talked with me as long as I wanted to talk, showed me around his workshop and then proceeded to WAIL on my new Club 40. My jaw hit the ground. My goodness that guy can play...and the amp sounded phenomenal. I drove home with a huge smile on my face. I knew it wasn't a permanent solution for me but what a great experience.
A few weeks later, I became addicted to the modded Marshall tones I was hearing on the web. Enter Mike Fortin. Here's a guy who also must really know what he's talking about...just ask Metallica. Hahaha. Mike is another brilliant amp builder. He wasn't taking any new orders since all of his time was taken up with Kirk and James...I understood completely! He still took the time to help me out and I eventually found a Fortin Cali modded 1959. Wow...another great amp! Now all of a sudden, I had an amp with a RIDICULOUS amount of options to shape the OD channel. Presence, depth, saturation, dual gain/master volumes. It was about this time that I received the coupon code from FAS.
I thought, well, I'll trade my Fortin for one more amp and then I'm ready. It was another modded Marshall except this one had two channels. Now I have a clean channel with it's own Treble/Bass/Volume controls in addition to the modded OD channel. I was actually learning what tones I liked and how to shape them. It was months after receiving the initial coupon and I felt like I was ready to buy the Axe II.
I sent FAS Support an e-mail at 8:23pm on a random Wednesday night, asking if my code was still good. If not, I was fine with hopping back on the list. My expectation was a return e-mail within 48 hours given how busy FAS is these days. At 8:31pm, I received an e-mail from Marty with the go ahead. 8 minute response time. It's this type of service that keeps me as a long time customer. FAS and those in the forum have always been awesome to work with!
Several of you have said it before and it's so true...it's a great time to be playing guitar! All of these tones that I've described are now in this one little box. And better yet, I have a baseline understanding of how to mess around with the settings! In the middle of typing this, the UPS man knocked on the door and brought what you see in the picture below. I had to take a break, run downstairs, hook everything up and run through the presets. A huge grin was on my face and I haven't a clue of what rev of software is on it! I'm assuming 5.x and now I've got something even more to look forward to with 6! I'll be listening through headphones until my A7X's arrive and I'm fine with that.
I saw a thread in another forum where someone was asking if people had sold off all of their pedals once they received the Axe II. I didn't even think twice about it. Sold most of them before the II arrived today!
So, I apologize for the long post but it's been a real learning experience for me over the past few months. I'm just blown away by all the cool people we have in our industry. I'm sure I'll still have a lot of questions but I know a heckuva lot more now than I knew before. i lost money flipping amps but I consider it money spent on my education. Hahaha.
I was a very happy Ultra owner years ago and then the Axe II was announced. I work in the technology industry so I understand the product refresh cycles. It's a healthy thing IMO! I was at a family reunion at the beach when the wait list hit so I wasn't able to get on it until the 20th in the evening. Up to that point, my only issue with the Ultra was my own difficulty in understanding how to shape my tone. I didn't have a lot of amp tweaking experience so the options were a little intimidating to me.
While waiting for my name to come up, I contacted one of the other forum members and asked their opinion of Greg Germino and the amps he builds. He had nothing but great things to say. I immediately called Greg, told him my plans to outfit my basement with a Club 40 and 4X12 and he laughed at me. He said, "Kyle, I don't make master volume amps! You're going to bring your house down!" I persisted just based off of the clips I'd heard online. Here in SW Virginia, Youtube is really the only way we can hear different amps. Really poor method I know, but it's all I've got! I ordered that setup and was able to go down and meet Greg in person in Central NC. What a GREAT individual! He talked with me as long as I wanted to talk, showed me around his workshop and then proceeded to WAIL on my new Club 40. My jaw hit the ground. My goodness that guy can play...and the amp sounded phenomenal. I drove home with a huge smile on my face. I knew it wasn't a permanent solution for me but what a great experience.
A few weeks later, I became addicted to the modded Marshall tones I was hearing on the web. Enter Mike Fortin. Here's a guy who also must really know what he's talking about...just ask Metallica. Hahaha. Mike is another brilliant amp builder. He wasn't taking any new orders since all of his time was taken up with Kirk and James...I understood completely! He still took the time to help me out and I eventually found a Fortin Cali modded 1959. Wow...another great amp! Now all of a sudden, I had an amp with a RIDICULOUS amount of options to shape the OD channel. Presence, depth, saturation, dual gain/master volumes. It was about this time that I received the coupon code from FAS.
I thought, well, I'll trade my Fortin for one more amp and then I'm ready. It was another modded Marshall except this one had two channels. Now I have a clean channel with it's own Treble/Bass/Volume controls in addition to the modded OD channel. I was actually learning what tones I liked and how to shape them. It was months after receiving the initial coupon and I felt like I was ready to buy the Axe II.
I sent FAS Support an e-mail at 8:23pm on a random Wednesday night, asking if my code was still good. If not, I was fine with hopping back on the list. My expectation was a return e-mail within 48 hours given how busy FAS is these days. At 8:31pm, I received an e-mail from Marty with the go ahead. 8 minute response time. It's this type of service that keeps me as a long time customer. FAS and those in the forum have always been awesome to work with!
Several of you have said it before and it's so true...it's a great time to be playing guitar! All of these tones that I've described are now in this one little box. And better yet, I have a baseline understanding of how to mess around with the settings! In the middle of typing this, the UPS man knocked on the door and brought what you see in the picture below. I had to take a break, run downstairs, hook everything up and run through the presets. A huge grin was on my face and I haven't a clue of what rev of software is on it! I'm assuming 5.x and now I've got something even more to look forward to with 6! I'll be listening through headphones until my A7X's arrive and I'm fine with that.
I saw a thread in another forum where someone was asking if people had sold off all of their pedals once they received the Axe II. I didn't even think twice about it. Sold most of them before the II arrived today!
So, I apologize for the long post but it's been a real learning experience for me over the past few months. I'm just blown away by all the cool people we have in our industry. I'm sure I'll still have a lot of questions but I know a heckuva lot more now than I knew before. i lost money flipping amps but I consider it money spent on my education. Hahaha.
