New AXEFXII - better with ACTIVE pickups? My passives sound terrible

J

JohnRaptor

Inspired
I just noticed something. I have only had my Axe for two days and have been glued to it. I have been playing my new Carvin DC700 7 string guitar with active pickups and it sounds unbelievable! The tone is so clear, heavy, and deep. I have 4 other Carvins with passive pickups and I decided to see how they sounded with the Axe. Compared to my DC700 they sound horrible. The tone is thin, weak and they have no power. Funny though they sound pretty good out of my Line 6 spider III amp. As a primarily high gain player I am getting what I wanted thru my DC700 and the AXE but now I fear I wont be playing my other guitars. :(

Does the AxeFXII just sound better with active pickups compared to passives? Maybe the pickups in my Carvins are just weak? I dont know. Anyone else notice this? Does your Axe sound better with active pickups?
 
No it doesnt sound better with active pickups. Its just that itll show clearly what you put into it (your guitar)....just like any good tube amp will. Try out some new passive pickups on your other guitars like Motor City, WCR, Wolfetone, Bareknuckle, SDuncans, Dimarzios etc.etc.etc......you might want to try high output passives, theres alot of good ones out there. Here are a few that come to mind.

WCR Ironman
Motor City Afwayu
Bareknuckle Nailbombs
 
Nope. Passives sound great to me. PRS, Gibson, Ibanez, Parkers, Vox, all sound great. Then again I don't ever like actives (I've got 2 EMG 85/61 equiped guitars), through an amp or the AF2.
 
Have you adjusted the input levels in the I/O panel for the differences in levels? If so than either you and I have different tastes or something because I think that passive pickups really excel in the AxeFXII where passives are just kind of there for the ride. :)
 
Active pickups are generally hotter, so you may want to increase the input to 'tickle the red' with the passives and give it another shot.

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Thanks for the comments. I have alot to learn. :) I've started reading the Wiki and learning a little as I go. Good to know I can still get great tone from passives. I think the levels need to be set better, I'll just have to keep working with it.

I didnt mess with the I/O levels with my passive guitars but I did on my new DC700.

I'll keep reading and I thank you all for your help. There is a whole lot more to the AXEFX than I anticipated, but in a good way. I learned how to load IR's today and I tried that awesome violin patch that I found in the forums. I was floored!!!
 
The last weak I came just to the opposite opinion, I have a Hellraiser-C-1 (EMG 89/81tw) that I almost never play and the last weak I try it for the first time with the Axe Fx II and I hated the way it sounds with my moderate gain presets. It sounded nice and good with complete clean or hi gain presets, but from breakup to moderate gain it sounded terrible. So I went back to my passive loaded guitars.
 
I have both use both but most of my passive pickups sound great; my carvins NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEVER DID, and in fact I just put an invader in one, and am selling the other, interested in a piezo fully loaded dcm 400?
 
You just got to set input level, active and passive have diffrent input levels, same as humbucker and single coil PU.
 
maybe he should adjust the input level. i dunno, sounds good. maybe it has to be over 9000.
 
I would recommend creating presets for each guitar individual, Thats what i've done and each guitar & it sounds so sick (also create/tweak presets for studio recordings). Give that a shot and find the right tone that you like for each one of them but regardless of pickups just create or copy a preset to a new slot and tweak it to w/e sound you like brotha.
 
My Petrucci model has passives in them and they sound amazing.
The Axe FxII,shows the capabilities of the guitar,the characteristics and all just like a real tube amp. Try some other good passive pickups,I would say go with the Bareknuckles
 
Adjusting the input level in I/O does has no effect on tone... neither on gain ...

Axe-Fx II manual: "The sole purpose of the input trims is to optimize A/D drive level for the best signal-to-noise ratio and distortion performance."
 
I object your honor. Vague and ambiguous. OK, be that as it may. Then why Alexander, why are the levels even there? Why are they prominently placed? Why should we attempt to "tickle the red"? Why do I have such success using the Input levels to balance the signal going into my AXE-FX when changing from hot to mild guitars (or vice verse)?? Do you suggest that he just go ahead and ignore those useless Level Controls?
"if you don't set your levels, how do you get good sound? I'm still wonderin"
 
To paraphrase a well known musician - "Batteries are for flashlights"

Since moving to BKP's a few months ago, I haven't looked back. I immediately got rid of all my active pickups and swapped them with passives. I have a nice organic tone now, not a sterile tone that sounds identical in every guitar that i use. It's nice to hear the subtle differences in the woods that I never got using Blackouts or EMG's.

But hey different strokes for different folks.
 
You may also want to try changing the input impedance. I am not sure if you will hear a big difference, but worth a try. This is from the wiki, but more is written about it if you go to the wiki page itself


Input Impedance
The INPUT IMP parameter appears on the page with Noise Gate parameters, but is not part of the Noise Gate. Instead, it changes the actual analog circuitry of the INSTR input jack to alter the way the Axe-Fx II interacts with your guitar. This recreates the way that some classic effects (e.g. Vibe) “load down” the pickups, causing a change in frequency response. The Axe-Fx II recreates this effect by switching various (real) resistors and a capacitor in and out of the signal path.
 
You can't use the input controls to "balance" mild and hot guitars. Simply because the signal is always normalized. Increasing the input level will not make a soft pickup sound louder, or increase its gain, or change its tone. The input level just provides an opportunity to achieve an optimal signal-to-noise ratio. This is vey different from the way Input Level works on the Standard and Ultra versions.
 
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kerrlehr said:
I object your honor. Vague and ambiguous. OK, be that as it may. Then why Alexander, why are the levels even there? Why are they prominently placed? Why should we attempt to "tickle the red"? Why do I have such success using the Input levels to balance the signal going into my AXE-FX when changing from hot to mild guitars (or vice verse)?? Do you suggest that he just go ahead and ignore those useless Level Controls?
"if you don't set your levels, how do you get good sound? I'm still wonderin"
Click to expand...

As yek stated, they are there so you get an optimal signal to the A/D converters. This gives you better SNR.
As your turn up the input level on the front panel, the Axe-fx II turns down the level after the A/D converters to compensate. This keeps the signal level = to your guitars output. It does the so the simulated amp will see the same level as if you plugged your guitar in to the real amp.
 
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