New Axe-Fx user - first impressions

Andy G

Inspired
I bought an Axe-Fx II (MkII) recently, after lots of deliberation and research. I was after something that could give me tube amp tone at bedroom levels (or through headphones), as I live in a share house. I was going slightly crazy only being able to get the tube amps out when everyone else was out.

Enter the Axe-Fx.

I bought it second hand, and had a quick listen (before buying) through studio monitors with the down-tuned cheap guitar that the seller had in his studio. I wasn't overwhelmed with the sound, but put it down to a rubbish guitar and old strings. Clean tones were nothing stand-out, and the high-gain sounds weren't my thing. I bought it anyway - I'd heard what people could do with it in various sound clips.

I got it home, and pretty quickly got it set up and plugged in, listening through a pair of Shure SHR-840s and with a guitar that I trusted.

It was fun, but there was a slight disappointment that began to slowly rear its head. I love edge-of-breakup tones, and this just wasn't doing it. The transitions were a bit too abrupt perhaps, or the distortion was a bit too harsh and digital sounding. I could get a semi-reasonable high-gain sound, but again, not really my thing. Sure, the effects sounded nice, but without that killer amp sound, who cares? I'd downloaded all the latest firmware onto my PC before actually getting the unit, but my SO had told me to just enjoy playing for a bit without getting stuck in the trap of editing and not playing.

Thankfully, I couldn't help myself.

I checked the firmware on the unit - 14.0? Was that a recent one? 2014 wasn't too long ago...

I had Q7.0 downloaded and ready to go, so why not? A quick update, and...

All of a sudden it made sense. What everyone says about this unit. I had the biggest grin on my face as I was playing the stock presets. The change with the firmware updates was incredible. Lovely clean sounds, great break up, and incredible responsiveness. And I hadn't even tweaked things to suit my guitar setup.

Now with a few more weeks of use under my belt, I can still say that this is everything I'd hoped it would be. My go-to amp models so far are Vibroking and Boutique 1, although the Atomica High is becoming a favourite for high gain tones. The level of tweaking available is incredible, and from someone that has built a couple of tube amps, such a welcome addition. Although I'm finding that I'm doing much more playing than tweaking which is the way it should be. Now I just need a MIDI controller and a FRFR speaker...
 
Welcome to the madness!

The Axe FX does a good job curing amp GAS, but it creates other types of GAS to fill the void, as you've discovered (MIDI, FRFR... dare I say more guitars). :D

Q7.02 is the current release version if you're interested.
 
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