Should I keep my AX8 for live bass rig?

henryrobinett

Fractal Fanatic
I've been considering this. Interested in opinions. I have the Axe Fx III (racked in studio), FM3 (live gigs and rehearsals) and an AX8 I haven't put up for sale yet. I have a studio that serves as a rehearsal room for my band. For now we're in separate spaces due to covid but when things clear we'll rehearse in the same room again. I need to replace the bass amp which sucks. It's kind of broken. I occurred to me instead of buying a new bass amp I could use the AX8 into a XiTone 12" cab and a few bass patches. I was going buy an extra FRFR XiTone or the like or back up and or travel gigs. If I get TWO cabs I can use the other one on the keyboard and really save some space. That would be instead of the bass rig of course

OR I should sell it while there's still a little value with it and buy a bass amp.

Thoughts?
 
I was hoping there'd be a lot more feedback from Bass players to this thread. I've been debating between picking up an inexpensive AX8, FM3 or Axe II for my bass player to use.
 
I really enjoy using my FM3 with bass. I'm not much of a bass player though so my needs are very, very simple. With bass, I don't even bother with an FC6 or expression pedal. It's just bass > FM3 > PA or whatever.
 
I use my FM3 whenever I get to play bass. You can do things with it that most (bass) amps can't do. Running a drive in parallel to give some hair to the tone, or some compression to even out the dynamics or even pump a little. All kinds of studio tricks that aren't always used live.
If I played bass more often, I'd spend some time making some cool presets for bass.
Any of the FAS products are well suited to this.
And being able to plug in an acoustic bass and shape the sound beyond BMT knobs on an amp is priceless.
 
I use my AX8 for acoustic guitar, electric guitar and bass. Bass is awesome with this unit! The compressor, enhancer and even a very slight bit of hall reverb are what I use most. Auto volume swell and delay is good too sometimes.
 
Personally, I view the AX8 as a better investment than a new bass amp, and so many more options. I used my AX8 in a funk/hard rock band for several years and had no issues.
 
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