Why all the Metal??????

axecellent

axecellent

Inspired
I've noticed that there is a lot of metal guitarists on here...and I come on here every night to see whats happening and all these Metal style recordings are showing up...don't get me wrong I like some metal....but the axe can go far beyond that as we all know...I'm just surprised that other guitar such as country, blues, jazz, etc...haven't discovered Fractal Audio...I think its all the "metal" associated with the unit on youtube and alike. I think Fractal has to do more advertising for the "broader market" and reach the community as a whole. Being a blues/rock guitarist, I get so many questions about the axe fx 2 on my youtube channel from blues guitarists and country guitarists as well.... I'm just surprised they don'y know about it. The fractal website doesn't really explain how you can use the axe fx 2 very well for a new customer....as far as I'm concerned, youtube has been Axe Fx 2's main source of advertising and its endorsers.... I just think they can reach a lot more than predominately "metal guitarists". I've been doing my best to demo the product in the blues context and I've been reaching a lot of that market with my demos. Its a great product, too bad that everyone I mention it to doesn't even know what I'm talking about... :)

another thing, I think some in depth videos explaining different setups and how to tweak sounds would be very beneficial for the Fractal Audio website for beginners or advanced users. Fractal should consider paying some experienced users to do this and place them on their website. If the Axe Fx 2 was made simpler by making these videos I think the average guitarists would consider Buying one.... setting up a basic tone is easy but what about all the other stuff the fractal can do... VIDEOS? YES.

cheers!
 
"Let's be honest here..." ;)

IMO, it's an attractive way for a lot of youngsters to be able to be called a "guitar player" and "being cool" without necessarily having much talent besides making a lot of noise with a chugga-chugga and some power chords. I can understand that and no offense to the few percent that take it much further.

People are also put on a musical diet, under peer pressure, etc.
E.g. when I had a school where we recommended artists to listen to, a guy once told us "Wow, I had no clue such great music even existed!"

For me, most often it sounds the same and ugly, though it can be fun to make noise with it for some minutes.

I'm also convinced the whole vibe and sound of it is often unhealthy in more ways than one.
 
axecellent said:
I've noticed that there is a lot of metal guitarists on here...and I come on here every night to see whats happening and all these Metal style recordings are showing up...don't get me wrong I like some metal....but the axe can go far beyond that as we all know...
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Too me, it sounds all too true. But I have to admit I don't like metal much, I prefer Hard Rock and many other styles of music ... and I am from an older generation, so stuck in my way, maybe.

axecellent said:
I'm just surprised that other guitar such as country, blues, jazz, etc...haven't discovered Fractal Audio...I think its all the "metal" associated with the unit on youtube and alike.
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It could also be that this "country, blues, jazz, etc" are more stuck in their ways. Or more likely, that it is (IMHO) only till recently (maybe around firmware 6/7) that the AXE-FX can fully reproduce/model the tone the TUBE AMPs sacralized by country, blues, jazz players ... and it take time for the news to go round.

axecellent said:
I think Fractal has to do more advertising for the "broader market" and reach the community as a whole. Being a blues/rock guitarist, I get so many questions about the axe fx 2 on my youtube channel from blues guitarists and country guitarists as well.... I'm just surprised they don'y know about it. The fractal website doesn't really explain how you can use the axe fx 2 very well for a new customer....as far as I'm concerned, youtube has been Axe Fx 2's main source of advertising and its endorsers.... I just think they can reach a lot more than predominately "metal guitarists". I've been doing my best to demo the product in the blues context and I've been reaching a lot of that market with my demos. Its a great product, too bad that everyone I mention it to doesn't even know what I'm talking about... :)
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I agree with you, in term of "IMAGE" it seems the AXE-FX is strongly associated with METAL and IMHO that does not to justice to the enormous potential of the unit.

A few "official" beginner/essential feature tutorial video could help to make the product more accessible. Though quite a few members of the forum have already done excellent videos on how to set-up patches and on specific features of the AXE-FX (Tone Match, Scenes, ...)


P.S. These opinions are only mine and share them with myself ... which is already a challenge.
 
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I think it's mainly because all the "popular" guiar oriented music of today is Metal driven. The music seen is really weird and though I'm not super deep in it, it seems to be driven by the youth just like was when I was in my teens. It started out with hard rock and went to glam and then blew up then grunge took over. After that it seem to go every which way with so many different vains of guitar driven music I went back to what I like and never really got into anything else. All the cookie monster vocals and drop tunings just didn't have the same appeal to me.

Maybe we just need guys to post up more classic rock guitar tones :? .
 
I'm predominately a metal player myself. I like the axe fx 2 because it eliminates the collection of pedals and tap dancing I used to need to do.

Not only that but I love the amazing flexibility of the unit. No longer do I need to compromise when it comes to an amp I can afford that has both decent cleans and gain channels. Oh and it doesn't weight a ton.
 
My first guess would be that younger guitarists are more likely to play music that includes heavy distortion (of which there are numerous genres), and older guitarists are less likely to believe in/be interested in modellers. It is also probably true that the population of guitarists who play music that never utilizes heavy distortion is probably hanging up their axes faster than they are being replaced.
 
If I had to make a sincere guess, I'd say that it's because modelers have historically been much more popular with the metal crowd because they tend to work well for really high-gain and really low-gain tones (even if not well for much in between). Guitarists in general are coming around to modelers more as time goes on and products get better, but for now, the metal crowd is still the path of least resistance.

vAmp said:
"Let's be honest here..." ;)

IMO, it's an attractive way for a lot of youngsters to be able to be called a "guitar player" and "being cool" without necessarily having much talent besides making a lot of noise with a chugga-chugga and some power chords. I can understand that and no offense to the few percent that take it much further.

People are also put on a musical diet, under peer pressure, etc.
E.g. when I had a school where we recommended artists to listen to, a guy once told us "Wow, I had no clue such great music even existed!"

For me, most often it sounds the same and ugly, though it can be fun to make noise with it for some minutes.

I'm also convinced the whole vibe and sound of it is often unhealthy in more ways than one.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that's how you feel about metal on the whole? There are certainly a lot of depthless chugga chugga bree bands, but without going on an actual schpeel about it, that's not representative of all metal, and there's plenty of depth and musicality to be found in its myriad of subgenres. It's also not unhealthy (though the breecore stuff does often give me a headache). It's an aesthetic, just like any other style.

Also, if your point is that metal guitarists are mostly kids with no taste or talent, I'm not sure how that explains the large percentage of owners of a $2200+ piece of gear who are into it.
 
Metal is mostly a young man's sport, and the young'uns are quicker to pick up on funky new tech that takes a new approach. Guitarists are a conservative bunch, and the older we get, the more stodgy we become.

Give it time. Five years from now, it'll be a different story. The Axe becomes more mainstream every day. The answer isn't less metal; it's more of the other genres.
 
There are metal clips but there are also a lot that are not. There are also a lot of us that are not young guys and are into the Axe FX and modellers, guitar synths etc.

I think you could equally say Mark Day,why all the eighties stuff ?
Ketil, why the whole history of music on the Axe FX etc
Tyler Grund, why the Hendrix and SRV?
And so on...
 
It could be viewed that the Axe-Fx being so versatile, can cope with whatever you throw at it as far as musical styles go. So it becomes more about the player and their imagination, rather than the limitations of the gear itself, which is a great thing. I've also noticed a lot of 'metal' chugga / djent type players latching onto the Axe, no doubt for how easy it is to dial in those sounds, but there are a wealth of other styles represented too based on the pro endorsees of the unit.

I mainly play classic rock and pop stuff, and that's fine, I don't worry about what anyone else uses the unit for. Go for it and have fun! So ultimately it's good for us all, no?
 
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I'm a metal player and I often ask myself the same question. IMO most metal is tasteless music for douchebags. Like all those "core" genres you know. Does my head in seeing people "waste" their musical skills since metal music has never been main stream nor will it ever be. What Periphery are doing is very rare!!!!!!!!!!! And IMO the reason is that their music is not that douchebag genre but something fresh.

Haha.. I bet many people are surprised to hear me say that. :D

I think metal players have GAS. That's why they know what Axe-Fx is etc. Blues players are still using what ever Clapton or Jimi was using 50 years ago. ;)
 
I'm a metal player and I often ask myself the same question. IMO most metal is tasteless music for douchebags. Like all those "core" genres you know. Does my head in seeing people "waste" their musical skills since metal music has never been main stream nor will it ever be. What Periphery are doing is very rare!!!!!!!!!!! And IMO the reason is that their music is not that douchebag genre but something fresh.

Haha.. I bet many people are surprised to hear me say that. :D

I think metal players have GAS. That's why they know what Axe-Fx is etc. Blues players are still using what ever Clapton or Jimi was using 50 years ago. ;)
 
I think it's just that metal guitarists are more vocal on this board.

I was a bit worried before buying the Axe that it was going to be more 'high gain' orientated but it's not at all. I think Cliff continues to maintain a good balance with the types of amps he adds to the unit.

I tend to go for more 'rootsy' type tones myself and have spent the last two weeks on nothing but the Dr. Z and 59 Bassguy. But, I am not a very good player and have come to the conclusion I need to spend more time practising and less time twiddling knobs!

cheers
 
muleskinner said:
I think it's just that metal guitarists are more vocal on this board.

I was a bit worried before buying the Axe that it was going to be more 'high gain' orientated but it's not at all. I think Cliff continues to maintain a good balance with the types of amps he adds to the unit.

I tend to go for more 'rootsy' type tones myself and have spent the last two weeks on nothing but the Dr. Z and 59 Bassguy. But, I am not a very good player and have come to the conclusion I need to spend more time practising and less time twiddling knobs!

cheers
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I'm in pretty much the same boat. I play mostly clean or with mild overdrive these days, although in the past I've done all the high gain loads of FX thing and I must say it was fun and now and again I like to revisit those sounds for a few minutes, although it does tend to disguise sloppy technique for sure.

I say let the kids have their fun, the AFX has plenty of different amp models for all tastes.
 
muleskinner said:
I think it's just that metal guitarists are more vocal on this board.
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I pretty much agree.

My friend does sound on the weekend in Connecticut and does get the country band every now and then and is starting to see the Axe Fx more and more this past year.

On a side note have read post in the past about sound guys who don't care for the AF. My friend is old school so I asked what he though of the mighty black box since he is seeing more and more of them. He love's them, no mic bleed, rumble, mic knocked off position during a show. He has no idea why others would not like it. Makes getting a mix easier and is a better experience for the audience. Doesn't have to fight with the guitar player who has a amp cranked to get his sound.

John


As for the metal guys KEEP POSTING your clips guys don't let this thread get you down it's just a observation.


I think the younger guys are eager for feedback of some kind and more daring to throw it out there complete or not.
Where others want it polished first.
Although my taste my not be as heavy as some of the stuff posted there are some smoking players out there and I enjoy listening to it all.
 
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