Zen Drive is a whole different beast from the Axe FX II days

[giantslayer]

With FW 13, I've been messing around with Drive pedals. With the Axe FX II, I had meticulously gone through all of them and the Zen Drive was just another pedal. I'm not sure when it all changed, but it is a completely different beast nowadays with the voice control. Gain behaves very differently now as well. Much better than I remembered and now I understand why people like the real thing so much.

 

[LiamH]

Funnily enough, the Zen Drive was a "go to" for me in the Axe FX II, mainly because I was playing around with a clone on my final GigRig pedalboard iteration (long gone, still have the pedal though). With FW 13 I have been going back over some drive blocks. I am pretty sure they all work better, but often not with the tweaks I had carried over to the Axe FX III and continued to adjust. Managed to give myself pretty severe "listening fatigue" going through my main gig presets last night, but it appears resetting the channel and starting again is quicker and better sounding than trying to unravel deep tweaks made over the last 4 years, often with updated amp models and IRs.

Fractal has been quite the voyage of discovery, keeps getting better, and definitely worth the occasional frustration.

Liam

 

[giantslayer]

Funnily enough, the Zen Drive was a "go to" for me in the Axe FX II, mainly because I was playing around with a clone on my final GigRig pedalboard iteration (long gone, still have the pedal though). With FW 13 I have been going back over some drive blocks. I am pretty sure they all work better, but often not with the tweaks I had carried over to the Axe FX III and continued to adjust. Managed to give myself pretty severe "listening fatigue" going through my main gig presets last night, but it appears resetting the channel and starting again is quicker and better sounding than trying to unravel deep tweaks made over the last 4 years, often with updated amp models and IRs.

Fractal has been quite the voyage of discovery, keeps getting better, and definitely worth the occasional frustration.

Liam

If you're just coming from the II, the modeling has changed so much I would recommend just taking the amps/cabs you liked and starting over with dialing them in. The end result is worth it though!

 

[LiamH]

If you're just coming from the II, the modeling has changed so much I would recommend just taking the amps/cabs you liked and starting over with dialing them in. The end result is worth it though!

I've actually had the Axe FX III since it was first available in Europe, but the FC-12 wasn't, so had still been using the Axe FX II / MFC 101 for live work. Recently got the foot controller, so I suddenly have all the possibilities I was dreaming of and more. But of course no gigs just now, so have some time to rethink and dial in.

Liam