AxeFX - All Hype???

stilllifer

stilllifer

Member
Dec 11, 2008
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Hey all. Just curious about something. Seems lots of folks cannot stop talking about how great the AxeFX and AxeFX II are and yet I see a lot of peeps selling them not super long after they have bought them. The price tag is high on these and by all accounts it looks like a great product but I wonder what all the hype is about when people seem to be dumping them not long after they have brought it home and played with it???

I have no experience at all with AxeFX - it's just a curiosity thing based on observation more than anything else.

Thoughts?

Geoff
 
IMHO a great unit but it has so many options, i guess "too many" for most people.
you can set up a killer tone and completely ruin it by adjusting just one simple parameter slightly...:lol:
 
I'd personally just use it for clean stuff. If you have a couple grand to drop on that, why not get a real amp for the heavy stuff anyway.
 
Devin Townsend and Periphery it exclusively. Other artists like Steve Vai, Chris Broderick, John Petrucci, and even Bela Fleck use it quite a lot in their rigs. I mean overrated and overpriced are two different things, it's like 3K to get it with the footswitch. For that type of cash you can buy a killer amp and a hell of a pedal set up. I'll probably end up buying it, I mean if you can save up for it there's basically no reason not too.
 
I have an Axe II and have owned several Ultras before. The Axe II is a pretty big improvement. The Ultra needed a ton of tweaking to get it to sound good, and even then, it still would have the signature Axe FX hollow mid thing going on. The Axe II is much more simple to navigate and edit patches and most of the models sound great just by loading them up and adjusting the low/mid/high like you would with a real amp. The key to a great sound is good impulses though. I feel like so many people dismiss the units because they haven't given it enough time to play around with the different impulses, or 3rd party ones. Effects wise, they are some of the highest quality I've ever heard, to replicate them in pedal form would be extremely expensive.

I won't say its the end-all-be-all, I still have my 5150 for when I want to play with a real amp, and will be getting a new amp Friday if all goes well... but I sold my Diezel Herbert after trying one, in order to fund the purchase of my Axe II, if that's any indication of how great I think they can be.
 
Yeah I think you're right. Use the Axe II for most things, but still keep a 5150 handy if you want to play with a real amp.
 
Interesting. Sure it's not a one-trick pony or as Soultrash says a too-many-trick pony for some :D but as with everything else, it has it's place. I was just curious as I have seen quite a few of them being sold lately and wondered what was up.
That being said, if I had the coin, I'd likely pick one up to add to the arsenal. Some great tones to be had from what I have heard.

Cheers!
 
I had a Axe standard for a week or so (traded my 6505 for it and then sold the Axe on)

Cool unit with some very useable sounds, it does take a while to tweak though and that's why I didn't hang onto it. I MUCH prefer simple gear as if things have too many options I end up messing with the sound every 2 minutes instead of actually playing the thing!
 
Trevoire520 said:
I MUCH prefer simple gear as if things have too many options I end up messing with the sound every 2 minutes instead of actually playing the thing!
Click to expand...

Hence the reason you and I love Jet City so much - plug the fuckin cable in and go!!! ;)
 
Trevoire520 said:
I had a Axe standard for a week or so (traded my 6505 for it and then sold the Axe on)

Cool unit with some very useable sounds, it does take a while to tweak though and that's why I didn't hang onto it. I MUCH prefer simple gear as if things have too many options I end up messing with the sound every 2 minutes instead of actually playing the thing!
Click to expand...

Meh. I see both sides, I like being able to dick around and customize everything. Not only with my guitar gear but with all my toys. That being said I also love the appeal of just being able to plug in and play. I think there's room for and a need for both options in music.
 
It's not just hype. They really are the most powerful modelers out there.

People just don't realize that it's not an "amp". You need a power amp and cab to make it work like an analog tube stack. Personally I'm happy going straight line in and confident that I can sound better than any live amp that's being mic'ed on a tiny stage with all the stage bleed etc. My tone is always the same. But seriously... it doesn't smell like tubes. It's digital... it doesn't "feel" the same. I'm not talking about tube dynamics here. I'm simply saying that analog vs digital will never be a contest for me in guitar gear.

Do all the amp sims sound just like the original amps? Hell no. Some are so far that it seems like they never even heard the real amp they were modeling. (F.ex. Orange Rockerverb) BUT if you have a tone in your head you sure as hell can get it out of this box. If you're not a good tweaker you might never get there though and I think that's why people are selling them. They don't know how to tweak or they simply don't want to tweak. They want to plug in and play.
 
Axe 2 expensive ? Not to me , the cost of multiple amps pedals cabs would be far greater . Tweaking the unit is as easy or as hard as you want to make it but you CAN get good tones now without having a phd in tweakage , God knows I am no Axe fx expert and it's working for me . The continual free firmware updates new amps and fx etc helps keep the product evolving . Does it replace your favourite bit of gear ? Probably not but why should it , we are living in exciting times for guitar equipment and for all those that bought one and sold it many more were and are very happy with the unit . If you can afford it buy it and make your own mind up .
 
If I were a pedal junkie, the effects themselves in the Axe-FX would be well worth the price.

The reason you see people selling them all over as well, is because there's a waiting list for them - People get on the list and sell them for more than they paid, just to make a few bucks, because they know people will pay it.
 
If it wasn't 3 grand for the axe II 2 + mfc-101 pedal controller, I would have kept it to use exclusively for cleans & effects.... but it's just too much money when I still need another amp for recording high gain stuff. I don't think it's even close to as good as my favorite high gain amps even when ran through a poweramp and cab. I tested it through my 5150 III's poweramp and mesa 4x12 and it sounded better than direct, but it wasn't as good as simply using the 5150 III by itself. The feel, EQ response, and saturation I like just weren't there. It can be made to give pretty decent results, but it simply costs too much to have to settle with aspects you aren't 100% happy with, IMO.

Even if I were using it, I'd still keep certain things like my tubescreamer (sounds better than the OD sims in the Axe-FX), my noise gate (the Axe-FX's noise gate is good, but you have to run 4-cable method to get the most out of it, and, honestly, trying to use the 4-cable method doesn't work very well even on the Axe II).... Also, I think its clean sounds are best going direct or through an open back cab, whereas my high gain amps sound best through the closed back mesa 4x12.... it would be a hassle to have everything routed the way I want. Yeah, it does a lot, but a lot of what it does is kinda mediocre... It definitely does not replace everything, nor does it provide the ultimate convenience that everyone says it does, UNLESS you are willing to settle for less than steller with a bunch of things...

I love it for cleans and effects, but I can get by with using other things for cleans (my 5150 III, the fender bassman pro 300 bass head I just bought, a roland jc-120, amp sims like pod farm, even just DI into DAW) and effects (Eventide stompboxes, Soundtoys & Eventide plugins) with great results still.

I think a lot of people buy it just as a status symbol. They see a bunch of famous guitarists using it, so they feel they need it to be taken seriously. Personally, I care much more about what my favorite producers/mixers use than my favorite musicians, since a good majority of my favorite musicians don't exactly have the best ear for good mixes/good guitar tones.
 
Simply imagine a whole rig in one box. No cable hell, battery exchange, cable checking, analog problems like tube failures etc, CARRYING A RIG etc. Axe-Fx is the best solution to achieve that. How close can it get? Well you know how I get things sounding like real amps... that's how. So does the stock Axe-Fx sound like f.ex. a real Recto? Nope, but give me literally one minute to match my real amp and I'm 95% there. After that there's no question what I'll use live until I get proper roadies. :D You have to understand that the Axe-Fx is not modeling the "amp in the room" sound. It's modeling a mic'ed sound. IMO Axe-Fx preamps vs real preamps are way different... simply not enough low end. I know Fractal forum members would shred me to pieces if they saw me writing that but those guys really go over the top with all the hype.

Here's how close I got to my Rockerverb with the Rockerverb sim which is FAR FAR FAR from the real Orange amp. There's a volume difference. The Axe-Fx is louder so that's creating an illusion of them sounding more different than they really are.



And about Axe-II. Every week there's at least one Axe-II guy asking for my presets but I can't share them with them because I'm using an Ultra. As long as this keeps happening I'll be happy with not having an Axe-II.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
POD HD500

Not as much flexibility but it's a really cheap alternative if you want something that won't break the bank but will sound great live!
 
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