Vintage guy thinking of doing the unthinkable........

My 2 cents (long time Axefx and now Axe2 user): For playing live and just general noodling around the house, the Axefx can't be beat. For serious recording, after a fair amount of critical listening, I feel a nice tube amp through nice mics into nice pre's and converters still edges out the Axe2 by a few percentage points. It's not the quality of the tones, because they're great. I hear a slightly improved detail in the fingers on the fretboard and the tones just sound a bit more "alive" when tracking the "real thing". Again, the difference isn't huge, but if you plan on doing serious recording in your man cave, you may consider this. If it's in the budget, keep your tube amps, get an Axe2 and enjoy the best of what both offer.

In regards to the wireless set up. I may be wrong, but I suspect that with that many wireless pieces in the chain, you might have enough latency to notice. One way to find out...
 
Hey London, I use both a Mac and a PC, so here's my Mac info. I hope it helps.

My Mac isn't a brand new one. It's a Macbook Pro laptop, 3.06 processor, 8 mb ram, newest version of Lion OS. I use it for recording also and it is plenty fast in that service as well. I have done several 24 track live recordings with my band (all 24 at once), while running the mixer remotely through the Macbook with a router to an iPad without a glitch. I am certain anything newer/faster would do as well or even better. Of the top of my head, I think mine is from 2009 or so.

Like the others said, PCs work fine with the Axe II as well and I use my Gateway Win7 laptop with the Axe II when the Mac is busy elsewhere with no performance difference.
 
1. Are there "vintage" tone amps modelled and is the tone any good?

After firm ware 6 you can copy your amps :O)
 
I run ableton live and logic pro on several macs... around the house my imac is a powerhouse. Don't buy a mac tower - apple has not put anything into those for a few years, and a high spec imac is now faster. But you don't even need a very high spec imac. It is simply amazing how much power a modern multicore imac has on tap. I can run big plugins, more channels that I can count without running out of steam. Don't buy your ram at the apple store... I bumped mine up from 4GB to 16 for $80 by ordering online.

By the way, I love Ableton Live for jamming at home. I bought Studio Drummer from Native Instruments and a Novation Launchpad. You can drag drum grooves into Ableton & then start laying down layers of guitar, looping, switching between different beats & backgrounds with the Launchpad on the fly - without ever touching the computer. If I got really crazy, I could even set up the launchpad to control the AxeFX. It's a lot of fun.

Launchpad Ableton Live Controller
 
I run ableton live and logic pro on several macs... around the house my imac is a powerhouse. Don't buy a mac tower - apple has not put anything into those for a few years, and a high spec imac is now faster. But you don't even need a very high spec imac. It is simply amazing how much power a modern multicore imac has on tap. I can run big plugins, more channels that I can count without running out of steam. Don't buy your ram at the apple store... I bumped mine up from 4GB to 16 for $80 by ordering online.

By the way, I love Ableton Live for jamming at home. I bought Studio Drummer from Native Instruments and a Novation Launchpad. You can drag drum grooves into Ableton & then start laying down layers of guitar, looping, switching between different beats & backgrounds with the Launchpad on the fly - without ever touching the computer. If I got really crazy, I could even set up the launchpad to control the AxeFX. It's a lot of fun.

Launchpad Ableton Live Controller
 
stratamania said:
That must be a typo. 8 GB perhaps ?
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Thanks Strata.. I got the really, really small modules! lol

You are absolutely right... 8 GB. I actually bought it that way, so I never had to add anything. The previous owner had already updated to Lion (sent me the disc, which was nice), added the ram, and had Applecare that is still good until next year... all for well under a grand. It's a 15, which I needed for the Kaces rack it was going in for PA use. A 17 would be nice, but this works really good. First Mac I have owned since the late 90s, so I am relearning the Mac ways but I really like the computer! I still use PCs at work and home otherwise.
 
Sounds like you got a good deal. I sold my Mac just over a year ago as I had too many laptops and stuff. Next time I need a new one I may see what Apple have available then but at the moment I have a Vaio with similar specs to your Mac, running Windows 7 64 bit.
 
London John said:
Guys, thank you sincerely for all for your resonses.

I'm keeping my tube amps, they took too long to find and letting them go would fry my brain...........but I'm sold on the FXII though, so have now joined the waiting list. Thanks especially to the poster who offered to demo a unit if we can arrange logistics, that's beyond the call of duty.

The 6 week waiting list isn't so bad, it'll give me time to read the manual and wrap my head around the difference between a midi cable and cat-5.......whatever the hell each of those actually are other than throw-away names I've never understood. So, let the voyage begin. To that end, one or two more questions:

1. my PC/laptop isn't up to much, so if I'm going Mac is there a min spec I should get if I want to go via Protools route? Nothing too technical, just a "no, settle down" or a "you'll need some horsepower fella".
2. I'm assuming I'll need a good sound card too........any thoughts there?

Again, sorry for the Grade 1 questions, but I wasn't lying when I said I couldn't distinguish between ass and eblow in the digital world.

Finally, something for the tube snobs........late '59 335 with some early Marshall's....mostly 18 watters.

Cheers,
John

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Wow. That's some serious investment there. I'd hold on to that until both my arms got twisted.
 
BTW, the computer you need is dependent on what you want to do with it. For plainly tweaking the Axe a ten year old PC will do nicely. Although it may take a while to load.
If you want to record your own noodling only, a five year old PC will do that too.

I'm using a four year old laptop. Early Core2Duo. It takes care of everything quite nicely. Granted it wasn't the cheapest one at the time, kinda mid-range. Not high end by a long shot.
 
cobbler said:
I love them. No noise at all. I have the HD650's as well and the the RS220 hype was that they are comparable to them. IMO they achieved that. The high and lows are not overly pronunced and they feel comfortable. I had purchased a pair of RS 180's and wasn't overwhelmed by them. I returned them when some poster here commented that the RS 220's were a month or two away from release. I certainly owe that poster because these are a huge upgrade. They are not cheap but if wireless is a priority for you then you will not find any better. At least not as of now.The base station is kind of cool. You can connect it to multiple sources and switch them with the click of a button.


If you have any experience with the HD 600/650 cans just consider these pretty much the same without the wires!
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Thanks Cobbler. I've ordered a set of Sennheiser RS 220 this morning (partly based on your comment, partly based on the (few actual) online reviews). I should have them on Friday and I'll let you know how I get on.....

Damien.

PS: What a great forum!
 
Thanks again guys, lots of information in this thread for me to reflect on. It's greatly appreciated.

I've decided to get a Macbook Pro, seems to have all the "grunt" I'll need given I also want to use it to run other relatively data heavy processes (photoshop). I'm looking for quite a lot of other kit given it's a new room. It's rare that I get to spec something all at once from scratch, so will be having some fun on that side.

I'm going to put some real effort into modelling my own amp collection. I've got maybe 40 old amps, so it would be a dream come true if I could transfer those to the FX an get something close to the original. I'll be more than happy to share if I get anything half decent (massive disclaimer there).

Once again, your thoughts are genuinely appreciated. I'm listening.

Cheers,
John
 
hey john, if you don't fancy shelling out for Photoshop (it's pretty expensive), take a look at Pixelmator - pretty much all the functionality of Photoshop at a fraction of the price. i use it daily and it rocks.
 
aleclee said:
I'm more with maxdown.
Click to expand...

yeah, me too

the axe totally killed my gas for everything else...but now i find myself thinking..."wow...a les paul would sound totally awesome though this jcm800"...or "a telecaster would be sweet through this fender"....etc etc
 
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