sandmannn69
Experienced
Well, time for an official review since its been 6 months and the Axefx has definitely found a permanent home in my studio. I can really relate to Porkchop Express as his history is very similar to mine, especially in the lifelong search for tone, and the official end of my GAS, so his review actually inspired me to finally submit one (thanks Porkchop).
My tone search was fairly similar, going thru a number of Peavey/Crate amps in bands in college and the 80s, finally thought I found the grail tone with a Marshall tube combo. After a guitar-less period thru the 90s, did the boutique thing with a Deizel Einstein for awhile, couple of Marshall JVMs, built some low-power tube amps until Blackstar came out with their little HT-5watt gem. Finally gave up on trying to get cranked amp tone in my home studio at neighbor-friendly volume and submitted to Line 6 modeling. Then I heard the Axe-fx and found this forum. Took a chance on the 15-day trial and ordered one last summer. When I fired it up on my Alesis 620 monitors, and flipped thru some of the presets, I knew it was a keeper. Unfortunately, I spent too much time over the first few months trying to get it to sound like the Deizel and the Marshalls. Since I don't play out anymore, I spend way too much time noodling. Then about a month ago, I put together a couple of cover tracks for some doubting Thomases at work (some Skynrd-sounding thing and Rainbow inthe dark solo) and realized at that point what I was doing wrong-trying to make the Axe sound like an amp driving a cab, when it actually is a miked cab. By running the Axefx direct into my multi-track recorder (through a mixer), I got the perfect guitar spot in the mix with the perfect tone(if I tweak it right). No mics or cables, no 4x12 cabs, no 70lb heads, no bleeding ears, just cranked Plexi raunch! Yeah!
I'm a simple tone guy, a little 'verb, little delay, maybe a little chorus to widen it out. I probably only use about 15% of this machine, but it's all there if I need it. It's weird going to the store now, don't even look at the amps or effects anymore. Cliff has created the cure for GAS, he should be up for a Nobel Prize.
My tone search was fairly similar, going thru a number of Peavey/Crate amps in bands in college and the 80s, finally thought I found the grail tone with a Marshall tube combo. After a guitar-less period thru the 90s, did the boutique thing with a Deizel Einstein for awhile, couple of Marshall JVMs, built some low-power tube amps until Blackstar came out with their little HT-5watt gem. Finally gave up on trying to get cranked amp tone in my home studio at neighbor-friendly volume and submitted to Line 6 modeling. Then I heard the Axe-fx and found this forum. Took a chance on the 15-day trial and ordered one last summer. When I fired it up on my Alesis 620 monitors, and flipped thru some of the presets, I knew it was a keeper. Unfortunately, I spent too much time over the first few months trying to get it to sound like the Deizel and the Marshalls. Since I don't play out anymore, I spend way too much time noodling. Then about a month ago, I put together a couple of cover tracks for some doubting Thomases at work (some Skynrd-sounding thing and Rainbow inthe dark solo) and realized at that point what I was doing wrong-trying to make the Axe sound like an amp driving a cab, when it actually is a miked cab. By running the Axefx direct into my multi-track recorder (through a mixer), I got the perfect guitar spot in the mix with the perfect tone(if I tweak it right). No mics or cables, no 4x12 cabs, no 70lb heads, no bleeding ears, just cranked Plexi raunch! Yeah!
I'm a simple tone guy, a little 'verb, little delay, maybe a little chorus to widen it out. I probably only use about 15% of this machine, but it's all there if I need it. It's weird going to the store now, don't even look at the amps or effects anymore. Cliff has created the cure for GAS, he should be up for a Nobel Prize.
