Which of your guitars sound best thru the Axe?

smilefan

smilefan

Experienced
My guitars are as amp picky thru the Axe as they would be in real life.
The guitar in my stable that sounds the best overall is my
solid body (I have a chambered too) Heatley Tradition with
Tom Short Undercover Minis (70's Gibson minibuckers in a full HB frame),
basically a Les Paul with mini humbuckers. Thick and meaty with lots
of bite and definition. Killer with all gain, not too bad on the clean patches.

My Tom Anderson HDTC Strat sounds great with FX patches, clean patches, and smooth hi gain,
but not low to hi gain patches, especially Marshalls. My P-90 Tradition is picky as hell.
Anything with lots of mids sounds perfect. Modern sounding patches,
its sonic ass.

Any observations or generalizations with your guitars?
 
All my guitars sound great through the Axe-FX. Not always on the same preset but I've been able to find/create at least one preset, typically more than one preset, for each of my guitars that I really like. It really is an amazing flexible unit so if you have a guitar that you like there is something "in the box" that will sound great.
 
RGx2_low.JPG


The one on the right sounds best through the Axe FX.
 
Pick your poison:

2004 Melancon Custom Artist "S", Koa over chambered Swamp Ash, Maple neck, Rosewood fingerboard (Koa dot inlays), WCR Goodwood/SR/SR (H/S/S), Stellartone Electronics, Melancon trem bridge, Tremol-No.

2004 Melancon Custom Artist "T", Koa over chambered Swamp Ash, Maple neck, Rosewood fingerboard (Koa dot inlays), WCR Goodwood/SR/SR (H/S/S), Stellartone Electronics, Melancon string-through bridge.

102007MelanconSisters2.jpg


102007MelanconSisters.jpg


102007MelanconTHeadstock.jpg
 
MC Elvis sez "All of 'em" :cool: ;)


elvis-guitars01.jpg




Even Froggy the Missing Telecaster that will one day find it's way back home from the repair shop :cry: sounds great with it... :lol:


If it won't sound good thru the Ultra, then it probably wont...

It's on me to properly turn the right virtual knobs...
 
I only have two guitars, both sounds good. The American Strat has more personality for clean/crunchs, the Ibanez rules for metal
 
^^^^^

Yours are all backwards... :lol:


Love that Roland.

If I still had mine I'd need a second Ultra for the GR300 part... :ugeek: :cool:
 
My tele was a huge shock to me. I had heard some people say that single coil guitars didn't do as well with the Axe. They were clearly wrong.

Actually the only guitar that I haven't been able to (i.e., haven't taken the time to dial in) get a good tone with is my Brian May. I'm sure that it's just a matter of sitting down and figuring out what I want, but it's a very different voiced guitar.
 
claudel said:
^^^^^

Yours are all backwards... :lol:


Love that Roland.

If I still had mine I'd need a second Ultra for the GR300 part... :ugeek: :cool:
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Roland is great - btw the Ultra also sounds great with the GR-300
 
I hate to disagree with MC Elvis, but my Hello Kitty Strat sounds a good deal worse than my other guitars. Maybe it's because I got the black one.
 
Of course all guitars sound good through the Axe-Fx, especially because you can tweak the Axe-Fx to cater to each guitar's nuances.

That is worth taking note of.

For example, quite often a user may try another user's patch and state it doesn't sound as good. This can be based on the fact that the other user's patch was designed for a specific guitar and the user may be using a guitar that has different tonal characteristics of the other user.

In my own experience, when I have designed a patch for one guitar, it does not sound the same for another, which is the beauty of the Axe-Fx. The Axe-Fx allows the unique characteristics of each guitar to shine through. To the point of which, I can tell the difference between two guitars, where everything is exactly the same, except for one has a neck-through mahogany neck and the other has a bolt-on maple neck. I then can tweak the Axe-Fx to adjust for the different necks to achieve my desired tone.
 
They all sound great except one, that never sounded great anyway with amps (tubes or solid state), a Dan Armstrong (reissue).

But I always found it a lot easier to get fantastic clean tones with the strats and huge lead tones with the Les Pauls and SG (and also with the Clapton strat with the midboost to 11 !)

That's with basic patches : amp+cab (+reverb).
When I open the world of effects, it gets highly complicated... and rewarding !
:twisted:
 
Gearhead said:
claudel said:
^^^^^

Yours are all backwards... :lol:


Love that Roland.

If I still had mine I'd need a second Ultra for the GR300 part... :ugeek: :cool:
Click to expand...

Yeah, the Roland is great - btw the Ultra also sounds great with the GR-300
Click to expand...


Yeah, but you need two Ultras.

One for the guitar and one for the synth....

I'd do it if I was still running a GR...

It'd be amazing.
 
HailHalford said:
I hate to disagree with MC Elvis, but my Hello Kitty Strat sounds a good deal worse than my other guitars. Maybe it's because I got the black one.
Click to expand...


New pickup, electronics & hardware worked wonders, although the pickup cost me more than the guitar did used...

Love the neck on the Kitty...


It's still about turning the dials, and that one is the closest I have to a shredder. :roll:
 
Extremely high output pickups don't work that great... f.ex. DiMarzio Crunch Lab fails IMO. Other DiMarzios are just fine but you knew this was coming so I'll just say it. PRS!
 
Clark Kent said:
Extremely high output pickups don't work that great... f.ex. DiMarzio Crunch Lab fails IMO. Other DiMarzios are just fine but you knew this was coming so I'll just say it. PRS!
Click to expand...
:lol:
 
I can't say that any of them sound better with the Axe-Fx except for saying that some of them just sound better of their own accord in the first place. I can say that I'm able to use them all now which I really couldn't before. When my amp and pedal rig was setup for my McCarty and Gretsch, that's pretty much all I could use with it. Now I can use everything! I don't like to create patches for specific guitars if I can help it. I typically just adjust the input gain on the Axe-Fx to bring the guitar up to the standard input level (red blinking occasionally with really hard playing). I also have to roll the tone knobs off on the brighter guitars as well, but those two tweaks are easy and now I can use whatever guitar I'm in the mood for or whichever one fits the bill better for a given set list.

In no particular order, my favorites with the Axe-fX are:

MIJ '72 RI strat - it's beat out every strat I've ever owned or played. No idea why, but there's something very special about this guitar. I've got some very low output, vintage spec pups in it.

PRS McCarty - Currenty it has P90s in it, I've used them with it for a little over a year now. I'm about to put the stock pickups back in it.

Custom Gretsch 6114 - It took some work to get it in shape, but this guitar is incredible now. I traded into it with an MIM hollowbody tele that I couldn't bond with. Best gear swap I've made to date. At the time, I had no idea that it was a one-off custom model. I came out really good on this one!

Agile 3100 with wide neck - Is it as good as a Gibson? It's better than the ones I've found in stores, and that's all I can say really. It isn't perfect, and I would bet that if I looked hard enough at a bunch of different high end Gibbys I would find exactly what I wanted, but for the money, I'm really happy with this guitar. It does the LP thing really well and I love it when I want that extra grunt and low end push.

I could play just about any gig with any one of those guitars and my four main patches, but I like the variety. I'm particularly fond of the strat right now. I've gigged with nothing but that guitar for two straight weeks now, and we're really bonding. I'm making up for lost time, because I've neglected it for far too long.

D
 
claudel said:
HailHalford said:
I hate to disagree with MC Elvis, but my Hello Kitty Strat sounds a good deal worse than my other guitars. Maybe it's because I got the black one.
Click to expand...


New pickup, electronics & hardware worked wonders, although the pickup cost me more than the guitar did used...

Love the neck on the Kitty...


It's still about turning the dials, and that one is the closest I have to a shredder. :roll:
Click to expand...

I've thought about a pickup replacement to beat the "cheap" sound, but haven't gotten around to it. It is the only Strat-style I have with 9s on it, so it's my shred guitar too. I play it when I want to feel fast. :lol:

More on topic, ALL of my guitars sound "the best" with the AxeFX. As mentioned, it allows the sound of the guitar to shine more than any of my previous modelers, where everything sounded "samey". Since I got the AxeFX, I've bought more guitars in those 2 years than in the previous 10 because of the rewarding differences in sound. Amp GAS: cured; guitar GAS: much worse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom