Presenting... The Axe-Fx III

I'm running in circles and walking into walls! I saw this on another forum and thought "oh, not another axeIII photshop - gotcha" - then the link to here. Never thought it would be so SOON. On the list! Need a blow off valve for my new GAS..the wait is gonna suck! Congrats FAS!
 
Why is that, if you don't mind me asking? What gear is there out there that sounds as good and has this fabled gapless switching that a few of you consider deal breakers? Am I missing something?

Conversation Ive never heard:

Q: Hey man, how was that _____(insert any number of amazing players here...Petrucci, Vai, Satriani, etc...) show last night?

A; it was fantastic, amazing playing... but in the end I was really disappointed because was able to detect a .35 ms gap when he switched sounds...I think the crowd may have noticed as well...could have been stellar if only they used the right gear.

As I've said, maybe it's me but it's never been something I've even heard. or anyone else even mention until yesterday.

I'm reminded of my father in law who would bitch for weeks if he won the Powerball because he would be upset that he had to pay taxes on it.

Some seek the negative at all cost's for what reason I cannot understand.

I suspect that those who find this so egregious will migrate off to wherever the people who had problems with fan noise in the 2 went.

If theres one thing I've learned in my seven years with the Axe, it's to trust Cliff. He designed it that way for a reason, and history has shown that he is willing to incorporate user request that may have not been considered at the design stage,(hardware permitting). Think of the growth we got with the 2, and then apply that to this platform....staggering to consider where he can go next with this.
What I don't understand is why you care if it doesn't affect you? This conversation has been had many times, and for some people it's a problem. I personally worked around it by using scenes... But it was really only a problem for a couple songs. However, on those songs it was absolutely a problem. Even X/Y switching within a preset wasn't sufficient.

The songs had NO break and required an immediate change between two distinct tones. It sounded like I missed the change EVERY time, no matter what I did.

Now I never change presets mid song, only scenes, and I never change amp X/Y. Works for me...
 
C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!

And, why you might use one of the many options in the drive block for completely seamless changes from clean to drive and back. I think about RUSH Limelight as a good example. No real need to change the amp, just drive to clean with effect, back to drive, to drive with effects for the solo, and so on. All doable with scenes. Even easier to achieve that for Metallica, going from the clean to dist and back. And then, getting creative with two amp blocks can achieve gapless switching and true spillover. So, it's there.

Still, it's clear that the switching the Axe FX III is at least as good as a channeling switching tube amp. It's awesome that X/Y was expanded in this way for the Axe FX III.

We've all probably read the specs and many articles about the Headrush having gapless switching and true spillover, but I'd like to try it for myself. I imagine the modeling pales in comparison. I guess the Digitech 2112/2120 had both, way back when, but that's ancient tech at this point and nowhere near the same quality.

I'd love for it to be possible to have both, but I guess what it comes down to is, what songs necessitate completely gapless switching that can't be achieved with drive block? And when recording, effects get added post-tracking.

Here is an example of amp channel switching. I switch back and forth several times between two channels, one less distorted and one more distorted.

www.fractalaudio.com/tmp/amp_chan_switch.mp3
 
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I'd bet that the waitlist is how Cliff is judging demand. If that's true then by now every factory in Shenzen is probably working on Axe mainboards.
If is not produced this week it aint going nowhere until March, Chinese New Year ahead. Workers who are not on fixed employment already left for home town.
I have my last containers out early next week then I am off too ;)
 
That would exclude the possibility to use it for guitar and bass simultaneously.

Granted, I could buy more units, and I probably would, if they were 1U. :)
No, you still use one amp block for bass and one for guitar, you only use a different instance for guitar on each scene by example
 
I'll be putting in my order for the III when we go live.
For now i'm going to keep an ear on the comparisons of the II to III modelling.
It wouldn't matter to me if the modelling in the III never sounded any better than the II does now, because the II sounds fine to me, and every tone under the sun is in the II for recording, but I've thought that before, and then the tone got better.. so.. I'm ready to hear what better modelling can do. If it sounds more 'real' I may go on the wait list sooner than expected.
 
Looks great, and will probably purchase one though with it going to 3U I do not actually have rackspace left in my 8U (or anything i can really dump). With that said the most important question for me is, will this device be class compliant and able to function fully in Linux? My entire workflow is built out in linux and I currently use the Axe-Fx 2XL I definitely would not be able to swallow upgrading and suffering a loss of functionality.
 
No, you still use one amp block for bass and one for guitar, you only use a different instance for guitar on each scene by example

Ah, clever! Routing may be confusing, but otherwise why not. The trick is that guitar and bass sounds don’t necessarily change simultaneously, so orchestrating the whole thing might be quite complex.
 
Looks great, and will probably purchase one though with it going to 3U I do not actually have rackspace left in my 8U (or anything i can really dump). With that said the most important question for me is, will this device be class compliant and able to function fully in Linux? My entire workflow is built out in linux and I currently use the Axe-Fx 2XL I definitely would not be able to swallow upgrading and suffering a loss of functionality.

It is class compliant since it doesn’t require a driver on Mac. So should work.
 
What I don't understand is why you care if it doesn't affect you? This conversation has been had many times, and for some people it's a problem. I personally worked around it by using scenes... But it was really only a problem for a couple songs. However, on those songs it was absolutely a problem. Even X/Y switching within a preset wasn't sufficient.

The songs had NO break and required an immediate change between two distinct tones. It sounded like I missed the change EVERY time, no matter what I did.

Now I never change presets mid song, only scenes, and I never change amp X/Y. Works for me...

Exactly, this has been discussed many times...

Thankfully, Cliffs clip seems to have provided clarity for some and we can return. to learning what we can
do with III, instead of rehashing what is already known about the two
 
One thing that would be cool would be the ability to use 3 or 4 amp blocks.
Useful in a band with one bass and 2 guitars by example or mixing amp blocks for reamping etc...

I would think that you can already do that with the Axe-III.

One amp block (4-channel amp) for each guitarist, bass direct/no amp but EQ and comp and if you have an external mic pre you can even have the singer go through the Axe-III and use comp, EQ, verb and so on for the vocal.

That's IMHO anyway WAY more than one could reasonably expect form a guitar modeler
 
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