What is "it" that the axe fx is missing?

You know... I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet.

I happen to have an environment and a bit of access to some pretty good mics. So I shot my own IRs. I've never been happier with my direct sound. I think the thing about it is that I can find my sweet spot for my playing and my setup.

It's not that I didn't get great tones beforehand. It's that I finally found MY tone.
 
fatoni said:
I love this thing but I recently bought a mesa dc-5 (for $320 so I kinda had to). Now, I do use the axe fx through a pair of studio monitors and the last time I used a frfr 12" was ages ago but it still seemed different. Maybe its a looseness or maybe it is just volumes of air being pushed but I dont remember missing my mark iv as much as I'm enjoying this dc5. Either way I feel super lucky to have a mesa and an axe fx sitting in the same room...I am just curious.
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Try running the dc5 thru a reactive loadbox {Suhr makes a good one} into your DAW interface or mixer then thru stereo monitors. Exellent sound at any volume.
 
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In my humble, uneducated opinion the FRFR can vary hugely depending on the space in which you have your monitors, and where and how you place and angle your monitors.

The cab of your Mesa may not care as much, because, as has been said, in the case of an IR, unlike with a real amp/cab, the mic is part of the IR equation and you can't remove it.

And this ambiance and tonal coloration is not present when listening directly - whereupon the cab contains and resonates all the frequencies together in a certain way, right into the air.

But to me, my monitors, the way they are positioned (up high, aimed at ear level but at different angles to the walls (of an oblong room) opens up that IR into the room better.

(As a nonsequitor I wonder if HP Lovecraft could create, now in death, an "Oblong IR" based on his story, an Oblong Box. I love HP, but I never read him - I was afraid, as I am afraid to tour with an amp/cab)

Its like the directional component, where the tweeter needs to be aimed or made to reflect directly at your ears for the same effect, whereas the woofer needs to rest near a wall/foundation possibly, to carry and blend the bass back into the mix of mids and trebles.

Actually I made the above up entirely, and have no bassist for it (everybody needs a bassist, no one a guitarist). Obviously I don't know much, but the placebo was working until it was questioned.

I fearlessly love my FRFR setup in my room the way I have it.
 
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Hardest thing for me is the tone quality is richer and better when it's louder (up to a point), and I can't play loud at my house. Playing louder just adds this punchiness, tonal nuance, organic lively sound that puts a grin on my face. But take that same tone played quietly at 10pm at night while my wife is trying to work in a different room, and it just sounds dead. I just ordered a good set of headphones (Ultrasone PRO 550) to address that problem, to have something I can edit patches with and then when I have the chance to play louder through my CLRs I hope the patch adjustments I've made will be consistent. I hope it works!

So how much of a problem that people complain about is because of the circumstances in which they play?
 
ezvictor said:
I still wish there was a "compare original" when editing.
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Me too - a single button on the face of AxeFx to toggle. My Line6 AX212 had this and I used it a lot. Yes we can save as a different patch and use a floorboard to go back and forth to compare, but it's a much less efficient workflow.
 
6stringscott said:
Hardest thing for me is the tone quality is richer and better when it's louder (up to a point), and I can't play loud at my house. Playing louder just adds this punchiness, tonal nuance, organic lively sound that puts a grin on my face. But take that same tone played quietly at 10pm at night while my wife is trying to work in a different room, and it just sounds dead. I just ordered a good set of headphones (Ultrasone PRO 550) to address that problem, to have something I can edit patches with and then when I have the chance to play louder through my CLRs I hope the patch adjustments I've made will be consistent. I hope it works!

So how much of a problem that people complain about is because of the circumstances in which they play?
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Probably a huge component in many situations.. I have to play w/ headphones at night (little ones), which doesn't sound nearly as good to me as when I can turn up a bit or a lot. It's basic physics at work... I approach the two scenarios differently and keep my expectations in check. I can't imagine only playing through headphones for all of one's guitar playing, even if that's through something as capable as the Axe FX.
 
ezvictor said:
I still wish there was a "compare original" when editing.
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Though I wish we had a compare too...or an asterisk that appears to show we've edited something.....you sort of do have a compare. Whatever sound you have dialed in, or effect etc....copy X/Y to clipboard....paste to X or Y and just toggle between the two to see and hear the differences. I use this religiously on amp blocks especially after new FW updates so I can hear and see what has actually changed. It's not the perfect solution, but it does help immensely. Just make sure you use a patch where X and Y are not being used within the patch already. :)
 
The one thing "missing" in my opinion - and will likely never be implemented for all the right reasons - is an option to roll your own amps, not unlike Revalver. Sure, amp block possibilities are basically endless as-is but the ability to change the amp model itself in addition to all the values attached would be pretty cool. In theory at least :p
 
mouzer said:
The one thing "missing" in my opinion - and will likely never be implemented for all the right reasons - is an option to roll your own amps, not unlike Revalver. Sure, amp block possibilities are basically endless as-is but the ability to change the amp model itself in addition to all the values attached would be pretty cool. In theory at least :p
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Cliff talked about doing this at one point, and was working on it, then backed off for whatever reason. It would be killer to make your own amp, but i could imagine how difficult that would be to pull off.
 
Things that I think are missing:
1) Automatic amp block speaker block parameters, which is natural in real amps, but manual in axe fx, so the results are not completely authentic unless you do some serious measuring of cabs... Automation, in this case, is impossible.
2) When comparing axe fx with a real amp, people are comparing a mic'ed up low volume amp sound with a roaring Amp+cab in a room. So, what the axe is missing is volume, and a cab... Solution: Get a power amp... A Realease of a powered axe FX version would be awesome...
3) No audio gap when switching amp block X/Y. I'll mention this any time I can hehe :D
The solution, only a programmer would know... My ignorant speculation: Generating a continued sound from the last Amp block output and masking the audio gap with it.
 
I used to work for acme bar gig and we did just that with our Headcase builder. You literally could create an amp and the guts from scratch and then save and it would create a JPEG to where you could share it and just drag and drop it into our head builder.

I personally found this tedious. Though a serious tweaker may enjoy this, I'd rather get a great sound as quickly and easily as possible. Some of the options were cool though as you could pick all the stuff you wanted.

Headcase builder may still be around for any of you interested in it in VST format. I believe it was free as it wasn't something we ever pursued. Headcase suite had a fee for it, but when abg went down, they may have lifted that as well. Search for it if you feel like playing around with something like that. :)
 
FreeMind said:
Things that I think are missing:

3) No audio gap when switching amp block X/Y. I'll mention this any time I can hehe :D
The solution, only a programmer would know... My ignorant speculation: Generating a continued sound from the last Amp block output and masking the audio gap with it.
Click to expand...

Other than a legit compare button, your above wish is the most important to me. My only serious issue with my axe is I wish I didn't have to use scenes for gapless program changing. Whatever the heck the Digitech stuff did with that dual s disc stuff was a good idea. I know the axe has way more power and flexibility and is way more intense, but I just can't help but wonder if Cliff is working on a way to fix this.

There has to be a way to remedy this. What I'm noticing now is the more intense the patch is, the more it will lag. X/Y chorus block changes can wreak some havoc in certain patches too on my end. I guess I got spoiled with my past processor.

That said, though it may have handled patch changes a bit faster with some awesome morphing, my sound today obliterates my old one. I'll take dealing with scenes and killer tone over completely gapless program changes. :) But I hope someday Cliff figures out a way to beat it.
 
Danny Danzi said:
Other than a legit compare button, your above wish is the most important to me. My only serious issue with my axe is I wish I didn't have to use scenes for gapless program changing. Whatever the heck the Digitech stuff did with that dual s disc stuff was a good idea. I know the axe has way more power and flexibility and is way more intense, but I just can't help but wonder if Cliff is working on a way to fix this.

There has to be a way to remedy this. What I'm noticing now is the more intense the patch is, the more it will lag. X/Y chorus block changes can wreak some havoc in certain patches too on my end. I guess I got spoiled with my past processor.

That said, though it may have handled patch changes a bit faster with some awesome morphing, my sound today obliterates my old one. I'll take dealing with scenes and killer tone over completely gapless program changes. :) But I hope someday Cliff figures out a way to beat it.
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This is my main issue with the axe FX too.
I am ok with using scenes, not presets... just that the audio gap in amp block x/y switching renders that x/y feature completely useless to me, and I am forced to use two amp blocks for a High gain/Clean channel switch. It would be so cool if I could use the other amp block for something else... Like a simultaneous bass amp, for example... Then my bassist in the band could get a cool benefit from my gear ;)
 
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(First of all, english is not my mother tongue, so i´ll try not to make mistakes):)

If you´re playing just for you maybe FRFR is not the solution. But if you´re playing in a band sometimes you have to sacrifice your "sound feeling" if you want to sound better to the audience.

When we play live we all use our line outputs directly through a mixer console (we often use ours, and then from a stereo output to the PA). That includes drum mics, bass (through a preamp), keyboard, 2 electric guitars (we both use Axes adapted to sound through FRFR), 1 acoustic guitar (sometimes) and 3 vocal mics.

We all use FRFR monitors or in-ear headphones to listen. At first we had a hard time adjusting it all, it took some rehearsals to mix properly all sounds, but we knew that in return it would be so much easier to sound like we wanted in most places. Personally i thought i would not hear my guitar as i like anymore, becouse i didn´t sound like when i´m playing alone using my cabs. Now I 've gotten used to it, and feels almost like with my gear before.:p

And every time we go to a gig we just have to plug-in to the mixer, check that all channels sound, adjust EQ a little bit and ready to go. Last gig we couldn´t do the soundcheck and we all sounded really good (also people told us) :D

I know that this is not for everyone, becouse it means lots of work just to sound like using real cabinets, but in my case it´s worth it.
 
FreeMind said:
Things that I think are missing:
3) No audio gap when switching amp block X/Y. I'll mention this any time I can hehe :D
The solution, only a programmer would know... My ignorant speculation: Generating a continued sound from the last Amp block output and masking the audio gap with it.
Click to expand...

That's actually a great idea. The better VOIP codecs (audio encoding of telephone calls over Internet Protocol networks) use replay of last audio frames on the receiving side to cover buffer underruns to mask the audio drop-out.
 
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