The decision after the trail period (copy of email to G66)

michl_666

Experienced
Re: The decision after the trail period (email to G66)

Hi PEEWEE,
congrats! :p

I assume this was an E-mail you sent to G66? Wouldn't make much sense to post it here like this if it's adressed to them ... ;)

But yeah, it's a helpful journey. Sometimes you need to remember that it's about guitar playing and not just programming. :? On the other hand it gives you these great sounds. :twisted: And it helps me to understand things like mixing, frequencies and rooms etc. much better than before. There's still a lot to learn, though. :roll: :mrgreen:
Have fun!
Micha
 
Welcome to the fold! I had a somewhat similar experience in that for the first couple of days I was thinking "Wow, what did I just get myself into?" Things didn't start to get good until I started making my own patches. And even then, at first I only could get a good metal/heavy rock sound. Then slowly, other patches started coming-- the super clean sound, the clean with a bit of grit, blues, and finally the ever elusive slightly over-driven boutique rock sound. My one tip to you is to go back after a week or so and revisit the presets. Try to reverse engineer some of the 'better' patches. It will likely give you many fresh insights on how (and how not) to create patches.

Cheers,

-AL
 
PEEWEE said:
The weird thing about the whole experience is that this machine keeps you motivated for doing fine-tuning. For me this is the first time in history because normally I just want to play my guitar. This fine-tune influence is motivated through the delicate influence off the different knobs on the sound. To use a metaphor: Your sound stays on the road without the risk driving into the ditch and the drive experience is getting better and better.

You know, it's been the completely opposite way for me all the way through. I've been on Zoom gear, then Line 6 (AxSys 212, yeah I'm old), then a Boogie Mark 3 combo, and finally the Axe. With my previous rigs, I've always found myself tweaking a LOT more than playing. I would tweak for 2 hours, then play 15 minutes after i got a sound I thought was good, just to throw it away the next morning with rested ears.

When I got the AxeFX, the game was completely changed. I hooked it up to my computer 2.1 multimedia speakers (ok, shoot me if you want to, I like them and know them enough to mix on them), fired up a amp block with the mark IV, a PEQ with my usual Boogie curve, a 4x12 cab with the Neumann U87, and BANG! Instant tonal gratification. Not "good" tone, PERFECT tone.

All of a sudden my main deal with the guitar stopped being the tone seeking (ok I admit I'm still a tone head, but it's a lot better), to become the actual playing. I've even decided to take guitar lessons again, because I feel I have finally found my "voice", and can advance on the learning curve with the instrument.

On the other hand, I hear you when you say you're encouraged to always take it up a notch day by day tweaking. I used to listen to stuff on records and think "wow, this tone is cool. Wonder what they used", but now I always get this warm feeling "I can probably achieve this with the AxeFX".

Just wanted to point out how the Axe is a game changing device on one's relationship with the instrument.

Best,

Alex
 
Alex EShadow
FWIW - I have had exactly the opposite problem. I first picked up a guitar [I'm old too BTW] about 25 yrs ago. Played for about a year then quit for about 12. So about 12 yrs ago was convinced by some friends to start jammin' with them - based on "Well, you used to play didn't you ?" 5 years ago I joined a band as the 2nd guitar player, expecting it to be like my prior band where the lead handed me stuff he didn't want to, or couldn't play. 1 week into it the singer quit and the lead guitar player says.. "I will sing, but I'm not going to do that and play lead. So we need a lead guitar player". That turned out to be me.

Since then I've been mainly focused on learning how to play, and not overly focused on tone, tho' you may disagree when you see this list of gear I've been thru. Rivera, Mesa, Fender, Crate and Line6 amps, plus MFX's like Line6 XTL, X3L, Boss GT10 and Roland VG99 !! Currently using a Line6 FLex3 amp for gigging while I get $$ together for an AXE. I'm now comfortable enough on guitar to focus on tone, and more recent devices - including the VG99 - all have that "digital" feel. I loved the Rivera/Mesa amps, but 4x12 cabs and the range of cover music I play made them thoroughly ineffective. So they went.

I state all this 'cus your comments were VERY encouraging. I listened to a ton of mp3 demos and youtube vid's on the FX and lurked here for some time, and have had some [recent] doubts about this being the next step in my "evolution". It's not a cheap step.. but then neither was the VG99. I like it, but I don't feel comfortable gigging with it. Feels to darn DELICATE !!

However, I do NOT want to spend hours tweaking [done that already] and 15 mins playing (like you stated) - tho' I'm not against it in principle. I want to be able to dial in QUALITY tone, in a fairly direct manner and not spend hours trying to figure out why the mid range EQ tweak on the input side did nothing !! I have been a little apprehensive about the plethora of parameters controls that are available as I have dug more into its capabilities. Kinda scary, but I guess one doesn't need to adjust if not needed :)

Looking forward to buying one of these babys !
 
Back
Top Bottom