Please help:Not enjoying my Axe through a poweramp and into a cab

I use an Engl E840/50 with power amp(global and sag set to 0 in presets) and cab sims off into an Avatar vintage 4x12 loaded with Vin 30's, sounds killer! At low volumes the PA modelings sounds great, but tends to get muddy at high volumes.
 
Order a pair of QSC K8's and demo them for a month and if not satisfied send them back for a refund. With K8s you will be able to use and hear all that the Axe FX II has to offer. I've used mine through power amps and speakers and you just can't hear the vast variety of all that the Axe can do. As for the K8s possibly not being large enough or loud enough or having enough low end...just try em. I demoed pretty much everything choosing the K8s and I can't be happier. They have the same power rating as the K10's and K12" but the best dispersion of all of them. As for the low end, they can be quite painful to your ears if you crank em and can rattle the fillings out of your teeth if you want them to. This setup will blow your mind.
 
maschoff said:
Sell your amps, buy the Matrix GT1000FX, and don't look back. I use it for FRFR and traditional cabs and it works great for both.
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This.

I love my Matrix GT1000FX so much that even though I play thru my computer most of the time, I still refuse to part with the Matrix. I feel like down the road I'll pair it with a cab once again.
 
romanianreaper said:
This.

I love my Matrix GT1000FX so much that even though I play thru my computer most of the time, I still refuse to part with the Matrix. I feel like down the road I'll pair it with a cab once again.
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I'm also finding a lot of good tones using the GT1000FX in to a 2x12 open back avatar cab. I used to use the Engl 840/50 mentioned above. Great 6L6 power amp but had to be very loud to be convincing.
 
I've tested a Matrix but i don't like it at all. I use a peavey 50 50 valve amp and it is great.
Power amp SIM on - fx loop - out 2.
Out 1 is connected to pa
 
Why don't you just use the 2x12 ENGL you liked instead? It might just be that your cab, while it worked with previous equipment, doesn't work that well with the Axe. Sometimes things inexplicably "just don't like each other."
 
For me, the magic came when playing through my mesa 2:90 and 2 2x12 mesa caps with power amp sim OFF!! Sound is more flashing when the SAG i engaged, but as soon as I played in a band situation, my tone sounded cold and digital. Turned of SAG and violá!! Decided to sell my triaxis that very moment!!

(Changed my mind about selling the Traxis shortly there after for nostalgic reasons, but it hasn't been played since ;) )
 
Well... practice last night and I took the axe and my Carlsbro valve PA head. Basically the thing I'm noticing with all three power amp solutions - carlsbro, valvestate, and Diezel FX loop return - is this huge woofy low end, fizzy high end, and overly saturated sound. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but really not enjoying using it.

Direct to my DAW, the Axe is bloody killer. Sounds great and I can get some killer tones. But I am really failing at getting killer live tones. I disabled cabs, I disabled power amps, and I kept my gain levels low. I tried the bass cut, and increasing various other parameters like the bright knob and the master volume cap. It just doesn't seem as good as a real amp to me. :-/

We play ... well... really damn loud to be honest. Our drummer is a beast, and we all have to be able to hear ourselves over him. Is it to do with the loud volumes we're playing at??
 
I have been down the road, and am still on it for the most part. Just today I ran 2 amp blocks, one for my main tone into my DAW w/ a cab after it and sag on. Then my second amp is the same amp but with sag turned off and routed to out 2. This way I can play with my live amp block independently from my computer tone. I am finding that I really like this. What I do Is copy/paste the amp block to the grid below with all the same settings, and then turn off sag. Usually I have to dial back my treble knob and play with the presence knob. I find that I need to run the presence on the high side, this gives me more of a real tube amp high end pierce that i'm used to. But then I need to take down the treble and I use the GEQ in the amp and use the new 5 band passive and boost or take away which ever I feel is lacking. This is the most real I've made my live tone seem so far. fwiw
 
If I was in London and was having some difficulty dialing in killer live tones, I'd reach out to Clarky & NiceChris for some assistance. He'll, I'd reach out to those guys anyway if I was in anywhere in the UK.
Search for both of their names here on the forums.


Hope you get your tones dialed, Brother Andy
 
Heres a suggestion. If it doesnt feel right, walk away. You seem like you have a grasp on what you want, if you cant get that from the specific setup you have, maybe swap something out or just go for a different approach. You can get a million suggestions on what other people like, but only you will find what you want.
 
Thoughts on the Mesa 2:90? A mate of mine has one but I'm staring at a Matrix 1000... gonna pull the trigger tomorrow on one of them, how do they compare?
 
AndyTNBD said:
It just doesn't seem as good as a real amp to me. :-/
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And this is likely the case. The real tune amp is way better in most cases I'd imagine. and will push more air. But AFX is waaay more flexible than any other tube amp you can buy (e.g. Mesa Roadking). There are no tube amps out there that allow you to run two amps simul, never seen that.

It's a PITA to use AFX but then again it's a PITA to swap power tubes and cabs, right?

Anyways, you can get some very decent tones out of the unit, I'm not sure what power amp Tosin is using nowadays but the variety and clarity of tones on this clip are downright amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt-RoSzsEKA
 
Humidfume said:
Thoughts on the Mesa 2:90? A mate of mine has one but I'm staring at a Matrix 1000... gonna pull the trigger tomorrow on one of them, how do they compare?
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If you can handle the weight, I would ALWAYS choose a great sounding tube power amp over a solid state one. So my vote goes to the Mesa.
 
BreadTooth said:
If I was in London and was having some difficulty dialing in killer live tones, I'd reach out to Clarky & NiceChris for some assistance. He'll, I'd reach out to those guys anyway if I was in anywhere in the UK.
Search for both of their names here on the forums.


Hope you get your tones dialed, Brother Andy
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Sorry for the bump.

We actually did this a month or so ago!! Clarky invited me to a studio session, because he needed to trial some tones anyway. So Chris + Clarky + myself went into a studio and we had a Valvestate and a Matrix. We collectively thought (and Clarky can chime in if he has changed his mind!) that the Valvestate kicked the Matrix's ass. That's what made me go out and buy one!

We had killer tones, and whilst I wasn't 100% convinced that they would work for me in a band setup, I really enjoyed playing through them. But the setups were a bit different.

Clarky runs two 4x12 Marshall cabs. I've only got one cab and it is an Egnater. I believe his cabs had Celestion T75's in them, whereas my cab has V30's. Maybe it's the extra power handling of the T75's that means his setup doesn't go all flubby? Hmmm... hadn't quite thought of that till now. I have a Marshall 4x12 with T75's I can try.

It actually might be the Egnater cab.

I'm not giving up. I've just gotten back from Malta so haven't worked on this at all for the past week. I've got some time to screw around, so that's this week whilst I'm off work!
 
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