WHY would I need the ULTRA? PRACTICAL COMPARISON (=examples)

S

Silverburst

Member
I'm on the verge of ordering an AxeFx... I can no longer resist...

But when I look at the comparative table between the standard and the Ultra, I mostly see crazy fx like a Vocoder, synth stuff, and some extra extravagant Delays and pitch stuff.

Would you give me examples of lets say existing songs/tones that cannot be achieved with a standard ?

Is this Steve Vai Ballerina song such an example ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0d74Q3Ff1k

or this crazy lush sounding Canon in D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T_5c2oZsCI

I'm 95% of the time a:
Wah – Comp – Drive – Trem/phase – clean/lead amp channel – Graph EQ - Delay – reverb
kinda guy. For some nutty situations like a Satriani or Vai thing I might like a pitch shifter and the standard already has 6 of them.

Thanks ! :D
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

Hi Silverburst,

I was in the same boat a few weeks ago and elected to go the Ultra route due to a little beefier processing power and memory (according to what I read and heard). I also didn't really need most of the Ultra-specific effects although I have been finding myself spending a lot of time with the Quad-Chorus lately. My main encouragement, though, regardless of which one you get, is that you won't regret it. I sold a H&K Trilogy Amp & Cab (which I absolutely loved), a TC Electronic G-Major, a Palmer PDI03 Speaker Simulator, and some other goodies to get my Ultra and an Atomic Reactor FR amp. I was a little nervous after the purchases and even had a bit of buyer's remorse while I awaited for them to arrive. But, once they did I have loved every minute of it. Strangely, I find that I'm actually playing guitar a lot more and enjoying it more since they arrived and that's a good thing. Anyway, take the leap, bro. You won't regret it.

Regards,
Randy
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

Thanks for the links Iridium. Hmmm... these fx I will never use. Curious to see if anything else shows up.

The canon in D is a standard, the guitarist already informed me and is quite known here I guess ;)
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

You don't need an Ultra but you might want an Ultra once you
fall in love with the AXE-FX and realize how much joy it gives you.
At least that's how it was for me, after a year with the Standard I upgraded.

;)
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

I bought a standard as I only need the basics in effects which it covers nicely. It's been about a month now and so far no regrets. If I had money to burn the ultra would be nice but so far I don't feel left out.
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

Look at my signature for a break down of both units and peoples responses to why they got either...

I bought an Ultra because I'm a pack rat!! :D
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

Wow, that violin concerto is insane.

The reasons I wish I had gone with an Ultra:
Using 2 amps and 2 cabs pretty much maxes out the standard. No room left for effects.
I miss some of the advanced delay parameters, particularly diffuse delay.

But you'd probably be fine going with a standard. If you ever want to trade up once you get into it, resale prices seem pretty solid.
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

Standard here.Until I use up everything in the standard(which I don't see happening) No reason to upgrade.My standard chain is wah,comp,mod effect,drive,amp,stereo cabs,delay, reverb,enhancer and eq.I also use a axon guitar synth with a muse receptor synth module.For myself I don't ever see needing more than that but your mileage may vary.
Terry
 
Re: WHY would I need the ULTRA?

Thanks for the input! Like you say mortega76, this is a question asked so many times. Nice compact comparison you have there. But what I mostly miss in these threads is recorded examples like the ones above. I hoped to launch a but of a different thread in that perspective.

The examples I posted are somewhat the extremest things I'd actually like to use once in while. The examples of the ultra-only I've heard up until now are only gimmicks to me, fun-stuff.

I just changed the topic a little ;)
 
The Multiband Compressor is one reason why I'd go with the Ultra over the Standard. That, and spare processing room with dual amp/cab presets.
 
strumbringer said:
The Multiband Compressor is one reason why I'd go with the Ultra over the Standard. That, and spare processing room with dual amp/cab presets.
Click to expand...

The Multiband compressor was actually one that made me wonder, it sounds like a powerfull soundshaper, although I'd have to hear some examples.
 
Not sure what you will get out of clips as they both sound the same (aside from the extra effects), in my mind it is down to the number of effects you want to run at the same time and whether or not you will use the extra effects that come with the Ultra. As far as I see it you have 2 options.

1. Buy the Standard, if you find you might get something out of the extra effects and CPU sell it (or send it back after 14 days) and buy an Ultra.
2. Buy the Ultra, if you find that you don't use, need or want the extra features then sell it (send it back after 14 days) and buy the Standard.

You can pretty much shift the AxeFX for what you paid so you will not stand to lose much there.

I went with the ultra and I'm glad I did as some of my more crowded patches are up the top end of the CPUs capacity.

Spence
 
What I'm mainly trying to grasp here is what these more extreme fx can sound like. I really wouldn't know how a 10-tap delay sounds, thus if I would ever need it.

Sure I can just order one and use the 14day return policy in case, but even for such a unit with so much possibilities, even 14 days is limited. I prefer to be informed as much as I can, that's whay we have forums ;) The video's posted in this thread represent perfectly what I need to know, so I'm looking for more of them. A lot of youtube or other video's don't mention if it's ultra or standard. As far as the base sound goes, I sure they are both equal.
 
Silverburst said:
What I'm mainly trying to grasp here is what these more extreme fx can sound like. I really wouldn't know how a 10-tap delay sounds, thus if I would ever need it.

Sure I can just order one and use the 14day return policy in case, but even for such a unit with so much possibilities, even 14 days is limited. I prefer to be informed as much as I can, that's whay we have forums ;) The video's posted in this thread represent perfectly what I need to know, so I'm looking for more of them. A lot of youtube or other video's don't mention if it's ultra or standard. As far as the base sound goes, I sure they are both equal.
Click to expand...

Ah, If you are looking specifically for clips of what these effects do then I'll see if I can rig something up when I get home. I am not a big user of these effects but I do appriciate the extra CPU of the Ultra for my standard patches as well as the faster pitch shifting times.

Spence
 
One example of what you can do with the MBC is enhancing attack/punch. Here's an experiment I tried some time ago to get the punch and tone of a strat neck pickup from a PRS Custom 24:

http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1p ... 3?download
The first part is the Cu24, coil split in neck position, unprocessed - nice, but not quite Strat. The second is with MBC - that's the only difference between the two patches.

Edit: Fixed link.
 
Not going to get chance to record tonight and I am out every night until the weekend, I'll sort something as soon as I get chance.

Spence
 
Sheesh... just pulled the plug on an used ultra I couldn't let go for the little extra bucks compared to a standard... jaaaaaj, I'm existed, hope to have it by the end of next week. :cool:
 
The core differences are

20% faster processing which means slightly less latency for the same patch

and 6x more memory - that's a lot more! I don't know enough about the DSP to know whether it's code memory (for the signal oprocessing algorithms, or if you like, the effects blocks) or variable memory (for temporary storage of waveforms, program variables, patch settings, etc), or whether it's shared between the two. Whichever way it works, this is what allows Cliff to add more functionality into the Ultra, but it doesn't seem Ultra owners can run 6x as many effects (and we probably wouldn't want the extra latency of 6x extra processing anyway).

Anyone know more about the DSP to give a clear example of what this means to the OP? The WIKI comparison is helpful, but doesn't really give me a clear picture of how much extra processing power is available.
 
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