Venting

RifferMcDuck

RifferMcDuck

Inspired
Got an Axe Fx 2 some months ago for something to keep me occupied when quarantine first started, and man, it has been disappointing. I have not once heard a tone coming out of it and thought "wow, that sounds like the real thing". It has never sounded anything but hollow and thin, and every youtube video I watched of someone else using it -- and I mean the simple Leon Todd type ones that build simple tones from the ground up -- would remind me that "holy shit, other people's units sounds incredible even on stock 12 o'clock settings, I need to figure out what's going on with mine". At first, I went from thinking my unit was broken, talking about the issues on this forum and eventually with the FAS team who considered it worthy of a look, spent the money to ship it out to them, and they were ultimately unable to find an issue. So then I figured it must be my guitar, so I bought new pickups and changed them, twice, but no change. So I pulled out a second guitar, and changed pickups in that one too. Still far, far from anyone else's Axe I've ever heard.

But the good news is that before I had even heard of the Axe Fx and the magic it's capable of, I hadn't been playing guitar for over 5 years, having lost interest during a particularly rough period of PTSD and depression. But since then, despite my disappointing experience with my unit itself, I've played my guitar almost every day, become a better player than I was before I quit, written a handful of songs, learned how to do my own setups and how much I enjoy doing them, learned all about what goes into a tone before the signal gets to the amp, and overall rediscovered my love for music and guitar. I mostly play on a small practice amp or my 6505+ 1x12 now, but I'm fueled by hopes that I'll eventually either figure out what little thing was wrong in the chain all this time, or how to make this thing sound as good as everyone else is able to. I even jumped on the waitlist for the Axe Fx 3, just in case my unit is just flat out cursed.

Anyways, TLDR is that the Axe has been incredibly disappointing and frustrating, but it's helped me rediscover my love for music, so I'm thankful I've gone on this journey, and I'm excited to eventually be able to enjoy what comes out of my Axe as much as I enjoy what comes out of everyone else's. Also this is such a cool community, I would love to be able to contribute.
 
sorry it's not sounding like you expect.

what speakers were you using with the Axe2?
 
The axe puts a smile on my face every time I turn it on. When I first bought it I wasn't blown away...it was the speakers I plugged it into. Do you have another powered speaker or decent set of headphones?
 
chris said:
sorry it's not sounding like you expect.

what speakers were you using with the Axe2?
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I have a pair of Yamaha HS5s, but the Axe actually sounds better through my headphones than monitors. Through monitors that slight audible delay between the guitar tone and the IR is much more audible, emphasizing the kind of flatness I've never been able to get rid of. If that makes sense.
 
RifferMcDuck said:
Through monitors that slight audible delay between the guitar tone and the IR is much more audible, emphasizing the kind of flatness I've never been able to get rid of. If that makes sense.
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hmm, not sure what you're talking about here. though i've never experienced any audible delay of anything. sounds like a real guitar amp would.

are you connected directly to the monitors from the Axe? or is something else plugged in between?
 
chris said:
hmm, not sure what you're talking about here. though i've never experienced any audible delay of anything. sounds like a real guitar amp would.

are you connected directly to the monitors from the Axe? or is something else plugged in between?
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Nope, just guitar to axe, with monitors from the back outputs.

And it's not a delay per se, but more like it sounds less like a recorded guitar and more like the recording of a recording of a guitar. Again, if that makes sense.
 
RifferMcDuck said:
Nope, just guitar to axe, with monitors from the back outputs.

And it's not a delay per se, but more like it sounds less like a recorded guitar and more like the recording of a recording of a guitar. Again, if that makes sense.
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interesting. i've never experienced that.

how loud are you speakers? is it covering the acoustic sound coming from your actual guitar strings? sometimes that throws people off, as they hear 2 copies of notes - one from the guitar and the other from the quiet speakers. having headphones on might mask this since the sound is "louder" to your ears with headphones on.

hard to say what the specific issue is without being there.
 
chris said:
interesting. i've never experienced that.

how loud are you speakers? is it covering the acoustic sound coming from your actual guitar strings? sometimes that throws people off, as they hear 2 copies of notes - one from the guitar and the other from the quiet speakers. having headphones on might mask this since the sound is "louder" to your ears with headphones on.

hard to say what the specific issue is without being there.
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I've tried it with them loud of course, I'm also aware of the string sound. Trust me man, it's not something obvious, whatever it is. You actually helped a ton in the past threads I made about it months ago, we just couldn't figure it out :(

The main issue when comparing mine with others is the difference in body and warmth in the tone. it's like... imagine if the power amp simulator wasn't a binary on/off, but instead a 1-5 scale. Mine feels like it's at a 2, and everyone else's is a 5. It isn't off, but the difference between on and off is extremely small, and it's missing all the body and warmth of everyone else's 5 setting. So it's still flat in comparison, regardless of what I do with EQ.
 
RifferMcDuck said:
I've tried it with them loud of course, I'm also aware of the string sound. Trust me man, it's not something obvious, whatever it is. You actually helped a ton in the past threads I made about it months ago, we just couldn't figure it out :(

The main issue when comparing mine with others is the difference in body and warmth in the tone. it's like... imagine if the power amp simulator wasn't a binary on/off, but instead a 1-5 scale. Mine feels like it's at a 2, and everyone else's is a 5. It isn't off, but the difference between on and off is extremely small, and it's missing all the body and warmth of everyone else's 5 setting. So it's still flat in comparison, regardless of what I do with EQ.
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Have you tried it with any other speakers ever? Sorry if I’m going over what we did before (I don’t remember), but there’s always a chance those particular speakers aren’t doing something right.
 
chris said:
Have you tried it with any other speakers ever? Sorry if I’m going over what we did before (I don’t remember), but there’s always a chance those particular speakers aren’t doing something right.
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I think we went through all the usual troubleshooting steps, the consensus in the end (I'm not sure if it was from you specifically) was that something was off with it, which the FAS team agreed with when I showed them the thread, but when they looked at the unit they said they couldn't find anything and sent it back.

And nah, I haven't tried different speakers. But if it sounds the same through headphones, speakers and playback of recordings, wouldn't it not just be the speakers?
 
I'd also be more than happy to do an A/B with any stock preset played by anyone. My stock presets sound laughable compared to basically any clip of one I've heard. Like, really bad.
 
Maybe there is someone here that's local to you so you could potentially have two units in the same room with the same playback system and compare.

That would help narrow down the source of your issue.

Although I do think the DI approach is a good one.
 
unix-guy said:
Maybe there is someone here that's local to you so you could potentially have two units in the same room with the same playback system and compare.

That would help narrow down the source of your issue.

Although I do think the DI approach is a good one.
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Oh that absolutely would. At the very least I'd just like to test out any axe that isn't my own.
 
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