Some revelations that aren't so revolutionary

shasha

Fractal Fanatic
As most of you know I've been using an 11R while waiting to make the jump to the AxeFXII. I've been pretty miserable after selling my Ultra, but I wanted to clarify a few things because I hate the idea of putting out bad information.

So let me say that my hatred of all things AVID has been taken down a few notches. I had some issues with my installation disc and registration and I got extremely fast, extremely friendly tech support and resolution to my issues. I can't say enough good things about that. Of course a bad disc and screwed up number is something that shouldn't have happened in the first place...but I digress. :mrgreen Good group of dudes in their customer support in my book though.

Next thing I wanted to get out there was that the 11R doesn't sound bad. As a matter of fact it sounds good. As far as performance it's been solid. Ease of use...it's braindead simple and everything works how it should. Now I could post my laundry list of issues that irritate the living crap out of me about this thing, but that's not my intent here. And to be fair it's basically a list of things that the AxeFX Ultra does and the the 11R doesn't...that isn't their fault. It's a different product after all.

Getting back on track there are some great sounds in this thing, the AC30 is fabulous, the Soldano is good and most of the standard Fender and Marshall stuff can sound really good too if in the right hands of an able bodied tweaker. It took me a while to get to where I felt pretty comfortable and got the hang of it.

Pro Tools is a pain in the butt and a hassle because I just don't like it, but if you look at what you get considering it's bundled with it you can't complain. It's the real deal and while I hate screwing with it if it was the first DAW or only one I had it could be great.

Price? Well hell, let's not kid ourselves it's a LOT cheaper.

I/O? It's surprisingly flexible and works great. I can't complain about anything that plugs into or out of it. I was up and running in minutes and I like my routing.

MIDI? Well that flat out sucks. I'm no genius when it comes to MIDI, but I know enough to get myself into some real trouble and there just isn't enough flexibility or just capability to do what I want via a foot controller. You would laugh if you saw what I had to do to get it work half way how I wanted with my FCB1010. Let's just say that there are some more holes on my foot controller now and leave it at that....well I'll just add that I'm still frustrated with it most of the time.

So I'm sitting here the last few weeks with this thing that works exactly how it's supposed to, sounds better than 90% of the crap that I've tried over the years and was relatively cheap. The problem is that I'm just not happy with it. So being the analytical knucklehead that I am I come up with most of the above list of things that I've observed. Then I came to a revelation when I was talking to someone else that just went through a very similar situation than me here (going from AxeFX to 11R).

It comes down to two things that I've known and have said for years:

1. If it sounds good then it is good.
2. If it does what you want then it works.

Anything after that is secondary and falls into opinion and preferences. So I'm sitting here trying to figure out why I just can't be happy with this thing. Well it gets a bit more complicated I suppose.

So my newest thought that popped into my head is that good sound really isn't as important as we seem to make it out to be. I mean what is 'good sound'? The 11R sounds good. Then it dawned on me, it sounded good, but it wasn't MY sound. That is where all of my suffering and frustration is coming from. It sounds good because it sounds like it's supposed to by definition, but where the AxeFX really steps out in front is exactly what we love about it. It's not the fact that it's so in depth and that I can tweak some weird parameter that I don't even know what it's supposed to do, it's because everything has been thought of in terms of routing, mixing, parameter, 3rd party IR's, etc.

None of that makes it complicated though...it makes it powerful.

Most of my patches were ridiculously simple. One or two amps depending on what I was looking for, a cab for each amp, a touch of reverb that was usually panned a bit, a delay pedal to switch on and off and then I'd tweak the master, drive and tone controls. Sure I had to find a cabinet that I wanted and that could take a while, but after figuring out what I liked most of the time it was a quick process. Even if it took me two or three days or a month it wouldn't matter for one simple reason; because after all was said and done I would get the tone I was looking for almost 99% of the time.

The 11R is like a couple nice amps and a nice pedalboard...you dial it in until you get something that sounds good. The AxeFX is like having an entire studio with everything you could want or think of and you can dial it in until you get what you hear in your head.

So my revelation....I want the frickin' studio. :lol
 
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Well that does clear some things up definitely and am glad your hate for avid is down. Other than pro tools being a resource hog, why did you hate pro tools?
 
It takes about a week to start up. Only likes RTAS plugins. Won't work with my soundcard because it's not AVID flavored. Configuration is a bit muddled and too Mac-esque for me; the learning curve is steeper than it should be, but AVID does that with all their apps. I mean MediaComposer is just a horrible application if you come from another NLE, but if you started on it then you usually like it.

But the biggest thing isn't PT itself, it's being forced into having to use it that puts me off. It's not bad, but it's the road to proprietary BS that just isn't needed. I do have the option of buying a DIGI003 Factory for like $1600 to replace about $600 worth of stuff I own already that works great in a lot of other applications or I can spend $250 and get the crossgrade to PT9 to be able to use my soundcard correctly (and that's assuming that it'll work fine). I even tried out a DIGI002 with the idea that I'd go with that since it's not that much used, but it sounded like mud compared to my Focusrite stuff. I think that has to do with the age of the gear; technology moves so fast that the 002 is just not that great compared to what's out there today.
 
All very true reasons why not to get pro tools. Too bad i did and have gotten too used to it to switch DAWs. I got a digi002 with the intention of modding it by black lion audio. So you would recommend focusrite for an additional 8 pres VIA adat due to the incompatible nature of pt8 le? Also, I got the 002 for 300 so I said screw it :razz
 
For $300 I'd suck it up. :)

Are they still doing the Black Lion Mods? I heard some demos and it's night and day. For the price you paid I'd say that it's definitely worth it and wouldn't worry about other stuff unless you really need it. I have no experience with ADAT...but you bring up an interesting idea for me....
 
So my newest thought that popped into my head is that good sound really isn't as important as we seem to make it out to be. I mean what is 'good sound'? The 11R sounds good. Then it dawned on me, it sounded good, but it wasn't MY sound. That is where all of my suffering and frustration is coming from.

This is what I boiled your post down to what I think is most important. It's not about the tool, since you can do what sounds good (even great), and what is needed with almost any amp. This 'my sound' is the value and the 'crackal' of what Fractal is. Nothing wrong with 11R...sounds pretty good to my ears, but when you want to create something unique, no finer instrument than the Axe.

IMO.

Ron
 
Oh yeah they even do fireface 800-400, octo pre, motu, and profire 2626 mods now! By they still stick to the tried and true 002 mod which I see in my future :) as soon as I get enough money and hope to not spend it on an axe 2...
 
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