Andrew Male
Experienced
They've done a great job, I've listened to a lot of the Sphere shows and would never have guessed it was all emulation.
Oh, I thought he was using the 3 now?
No still the 2. Nobody knows why…
He likes the name "Hemisflange" for one of the types in the Axe-Fx III flanger block.
Take your lousy frickin upvote.
His touring amp has been a modified HW. And he used the fractal model on Jimmy Kimmel. So I don’t think it’s a matter of the fractal model being “inadequate”. It comes down to wanting to keep the same 5 amp, huge rack rig setup but not being able to use amps at the Sphere. He’d rather dedicate a single unit to just 1 task instead of having 1 multi fx do multiple things. And he for whatever reason, he chose 5 UA pedals to replace the amps instead of 5 additional fractals.
What tweaks do you make to the ac30?
It depends on what the person wants to hear. For me, always turn off the bright cap/set to 0. The stock HW circuit is mostly true to the originals but has a bit too much bass so that comes down. Mids i dont touch. Treble depends how i feel. These are just the basic mods. Theres a whole rabbit whole of things you can do to match an amp
You’re asking a community of fractal lovers if we’ve bothered connecting pedals that emulate amps we’ve had modeled for years. Have you actually tried the pedals and deemed it worth the time integrating them into the fractal? I’ve tried them and I didn’t think they were better than my Fractal. It would work but if you’re trying to copy the Edge exact, the proper way would be to not use the fx loop.
As someone who uses only 2 amp types (out of approx. 300) for live-shows (Vox AC-30 and Fender Tweed Deluxe) I am asking the simple question, if the UAFX Vox and Fender emulations are „better sounding“ than the Fractals. Maybe a dedicated pedal, that emulates only 1 amp, is able to do this in a better way than a unit that emulates 300. For me in the end what sounds best wins, but I guess I‘ll have to try the pedals and find out myself…
Would you say the current HW ac30 top boost in the Axe fx is close in tone to a vintage AC30 like edge uses? Are there major differences?
You really need to try different IR’s with the ac30. Makes the biggest difference - more than playing with settings. I’ve bought a number from different vendors and have my favorites, but I gotta tell you I’m liking the dynacab a lot - playing with different mic placements. And I don’t really like his sphere sound for the anthem songs which are typically guitar into a delay into his amp. It sounds too clean. The raspiness of his old ac30 just isn’t there.
Edges HW AC-30s from the last tours were modded (Mid Boost knob, Weight switch, see pic attached) but how exactly is a well kept secret…
Actually it’s not. Well, not a complete secret. A guy who worked on the mods posted on here a few years ago. From memory the biggest mod was changing out the transformer. I will try to find the post.
Now I remember. It wasn’t on here. This is from a vox forum…..
