On the truck for delivery!

Akstrat

Akstrat

Experienced
Just checked FedEx and my first Fractal unit will be here tomorrow!:)

I'm very excited, yet overwhelmed and possibly a bit sceptic at the same time. I'm an old school guy that plays very good gear, vintage or high end guitars and amps. I play in a large cover band with horns and I need to cover a lot of tonal ground. Over the years I've tried the Line 6 stuff, Boss units..... and always find myself building bigger and better boards analog boards. Something about a good tube amp on the verge of break and a good pedal! I have gotten better at the tap dance!

I have been playing close attention to all the threads here over the months waiting for this day. I've learned a ton from the Fractal veterans! I bought an RCF NX12SMA, Humbuster cable, EV-1 and TRS cable. My thought is to build a modest board with the AX8, EV-1, Tuner, power supply and my wireless unit.

After plowing through all of the presets, I'd like to initially find/build two banks of eight presets, eight for my Les Paul and eight for the Strat. I should be able to cover a bunch of ground with 16 presets! WOW! I like the idea of having 4 scenes on the bottom row and effects on the top row of buttons. Sound like a good idea? I hope I understand the presets, scenes, and bank idea correctly??

Would it be better to use a XLR cable from the AX8 to the monitor or the Humbuster? Would the Humbuster work well on the front end between the guitar and the tuner? I will be running mono at first.

I bought Chris's video on the AX8 for idiots and it was exactly what I needed! Thanks Chris! I should have a pretty good start about trying presets and setting up levels for both of my guitars per preset.

I'll need to dial in some presets for the usual genre's of music, rock, blues, funk, country. Any particular presets you think I should look closely at?

Any words of wisdom would be appreciated! Super stoked and ready to rock! Thanks to all the guys at Fractal!
 
As it's your first Fractal product, read up on the ins/outs, the grid layout and how all that works.
Bookmark the Wiki page: http://wiki.fractalaudio.com/axefx2/index.php?title=AX8_amp_modeling_and_multi-fx_pedalboard
Load AX8-Edit onto your computer and have a USB cable at the ready. Editing is much easier via computer.
Take you time and have fun. Don't stress about it, and expect to do a few tweaks. Take a note pad to the first gig or rehearsal and make notes of what you want to change. It'll help later.

If there was one word of advice I would give that is particular to the AX8... Use those knobs on the unit! That is a great advantage over even my XL+ for tweaking on the fly.

Note: I should mention I have the AX8 also... and love it!
 
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Congrats man! I think you will enjoy the AX8 immensely! I played through an AxeFx Ultra for 6-7 years before that exclusively. The effects are incredible! I thought the amp models in the Ultra sounded amazing as well until I tried the AX8. The amp models sound stunning. I couldn't afford to sink enough money into an AxeFx II but the AX8 was a lot easier to swing once I sold my Ultra. I have no regrets. Enjoy!
 
Akstrat said:
Just checked FedEx and my first Fractal unit will be here tomorrow!:)

I'm very excited, yet overwhelmed and possibly a bit sceptic at the same time. I'm an old school guy that plays very good gear, vintage or high end guitars and amps. I play in a large cover band with horns and I need to cover a lot of tonal ground. Over the years I've tried the Line 6 stuff, Boss units..... and always find myself building bigger and better boards analog boards. Something about a good tube amp on the verge of break and a good pedal! I have gotten better at the tap dance!

I have been playing close attention to all the threads here over the months waiting for this day. I've learned a ton from the Fractal veterans! I bought an RCF NX12SMA, Humbuster cable, EV-1 and TRS cable. My thought is to build a modest board with the AX8, EV-1, Tuner, power supply and my wireless unit.

After plowing through all of the presets, I'd like to initially find/build two banks of eight presets, eight for my Les Paul and eight for the Strat. I should be able to cover a bunch of ground with 16 presets! WOW! I like the idea of having 4 scenes on the bottom row and effects on the top row of buttons. Sound like a good idea? I hope I understand the presets, scenes, and bank idea correctly??

Would it be better to use a XLR cable from the AX8 to the monitor or the Humbuster? Would the Humbuster work well on the front end between the guitar and the tuner? I will be running mono at first.

I bought Chris's video on the AX8 for idiots and it was exactly what I needed! Thanks Chris! I should have a pretty good start about trying presets and setting up levels for both of my guitars per preset.

I'll need to dial in some presets for the usual genre's of music, rock, blues, funk, country. Any particular presets you think I should look closely at?

Any words of wisdom would be appreciated! Super stoked and ready to rock! Thanks to all the guys at Fractal!
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Congrats . . don't for get to come up for air once in a while after you get the AX8. Let us know how it goes . . . . and tell your friends whats going on so they don't report you to the police as missing or possibly kidnapped. :D
 
Hi my friend, Fractal family grows!

Akstrat said:
Would it be better to use a XLR cable from the AX8 to the monitor or the Humbuster? Would the Humbuster work well on the front end between the guitar and the tuner? I will be running mono at first.
Click to expand...

For outputs I always prefer XLR over 1/4" jacks, balanced out have clear benefits and since it locks is more secure!
Humbuster applies to the output unbalanced 1/4" jacks and helps against ground loops.
XLR outputs are balanced (line level), is important note this to the sound guy (some of them think that a XLR cable is only for microphone).
AX8 have a built-in tuner, but you may be used to an external tuner, in this case please consider this method:
You can run your guitar direct to the AX8 . One of the output2 (FX Send) unbalanced 1/4" jacks can go to the tuner. On the grid you can put a FXL block (effects loop) that sends the clean signal (before modeling) to this output. As this path will not be heard you can use an ordinary guitar cable, no need for humbuster.

The upside of this method is that you have cleaner signal between your guitar and the AX8, you remove the tuner and the second cable from the main audio chain.
 
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I too am a new fractal owner got my AX8 I spent a lot of time reading other people's posts (I too bought Chris's video helped me a lot) Learning from the experience pros on this forum is invaluable and watching as many YouTube videos as I could. enjoy also you're going to have a sore face from smiling so much because this product rocks!
 
Spent about two hours yesterday and plan on another two tomorrow! So far, all is great. Still working may way through the presets. Feeling comfortable enough to try and build a few of my own. :)
 
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