Eric Borud
Member
I have a couple of real amps and a handful of pedals. These have always done an ok job, but I always found myself tinkering with them to get as close as possible to the real tone when learning to play songs. Sometimes I would get there other times not, and then I was looking for a new piece of equipment to get me closer. And when I would dial them in for one song or artist, they were all out of whack for a different song.
I was looking to buy a new amp and cab, and had my list narrowed down to a few options. Then I did more research on the AXE FX III, and so glad I did. I purchased the FX III based on the reviews I saw on-line and the videos posted by several guys that own them. Tough judgement call from computer speakers, but knew this was the right call.
I see a lot of people with negative comments around this unit being too expensive. Well some of the amp/cabs I was considering were putting me near the $2000 mark. That would have gotten me a good distorted tone, an OK clean tone, and if I'm lucky a good platform for the pedals I have. If you do the math on the FX III with all of the amps, cabs, and effects it has, very conservatively it would cost you ~$1.5M to buy all of that stuff, and that is on the low side of prices. So the $2250 I paid on a Black November sale doesn't look so bad.
Now when I plugged this most important piece of gear I own into my guitar and my JBL 308 studio monitors = MIND BLOWN. The tonal quality is absolutely stunning. Great high gain, very clean tones that in my opinion sound better than my vintage Fender Twin Reverb, and tons of effects, many of which I don't have on my pedal board today. There are so many great stock presets too, I've always loved Limelight by Rush, but never learned to play it. There is a stock preset on here that sounds identical to the album, added a another song to my arsenal. There are a lot of weird presets on this unit as well that are so cool to play with.
I spent about 2-3 hours dialing in some custom tones: Tool, Black Sabbath, Rage Against The Machine, Gary Clark Jr. Smashing Pumpkins, etc. and all of them sound better than what I was able to do with my analog set ups. I'm not done with these, but they are very close to what I hear on records. The ability to create scenes is awesome as well you can have a whole album or a very dynamic song all in one preset.
You can tinker with settings until the end of time if you desire, there are so many options. However I find myself actually playing guitar more than ever, and that is what is most important. Get one!
I was looking to buy a new amp and cab, and had my list narrowed down to a few options. Then I did more research on the AXE FX III, and so glad I did. I purchased the FX III based on the reviews I saw on-line and the videos posted by several guys that own them. Tough judgement call from computer speakers, but knew this was the right call.
I see a lot of people with negative comments around this unit being too expensive. Well some of the amp/cabs I was considering were putting me near the $2000 mark. That would have gotten me a good distorted tone, an OK clean tone, and if I'm lucky a good platform for the pedals I have. If you do the math on the FX III with all of the amps, cabs, and effects it has, very conservatively it would cost you ~$1.5M to buy all of that stuff, and that is on the low side of prices. So the $2250 I paid on a Black November sale doesn't look so bad.
Now when I plugged this most important piece of gear I own into my guitar and my JBL 308 studio monitors = MIND BLOWN. The tonal quality is absolutely stunning. Great high gain, very clean tones that in my opinion sound better than my vintage Fender Twin Reverb, and tons of effects, many of which I don't have on my pedal board today. There are so many great stock presets too, I've always loved Limelight by Rush, but never learned to play it. There is a stock preset on here that sounds identical to the album, added a another song to my arsenal. There are a lot of weird presets on this unit as well that are so cool to play with.
I spent about 2-3 hours dialing in some custom tones: Tool, Black Sabbath, Rage Against The Machine, Gary Clark Jr. Smashing Pumpkins, etc. and all of them sound better than what I was able to do with my analog set ups. I'm not done with these, but they are very close to what I hear on records. The ability to create scenes is awesome as well you can have a whole album or a very dynamic song all in one preset.
You can tinker with settings until the end of time if you desire, there are so many options. However I find myself actually playing guitar more than ever, and that is what is most important. Get one!
