My AX8 vs Helix LT Journey

peteri

Sounds great - does anyone get on with the 'real' Plexi models? On every modeller I've ever used they never sound like I want them to (i.e. instant Angus).

I suspect this is because a Plexi doesn't sound like that???

firepaulmusic

DavusPG said:

firepaulmusic said:

Got to the pub, band half set up. I bring the PA so got that set up. Didn't bother bringing my amp in as feeling quite confident with hastily put together AX8 patches. Plugged it into the XR18 digital desk and fired it up expecting the same rich Suhr Badger patch I had going on at home through my PA tops. Instead greeted by an overly edgy sound with way too much gain. No FRFR meant it also sounded a bit empty in front of the band. Need to bring the laptop to the next rehearsal and tweak some sounds with the band...

I have had the same experience - also going into an XR18 funnily enough - although I don't think that's the problem. With me it was at a rehearsal with IEMS. I had brilliant sounds at home, but similar to you they were brittle and pretty weedy in comparison to our other guitarists H&K Tubemeister going direct to the mixer. In the end I dialled it out with the EQ on the XR18.

If you look on the Fractal AX8 forum everyone will tell you that the only way to dial it in for live use is at gig volume - and now that we are rehearsing loud at studio, I'm finding that to be true.

First time we played at volume (through the same PA top as I was at home, but much quieter) my tone was too thin, had too much gain and sounded harsh, but after reducing the gain, effect mix and the high & low cut in the cab block it sounds superb.

I'm still experimenting to find the best setup for me. Been using a PA speaker with cab IRs, but going to try using a 2x12 guitar cab and power amp this week. The beauty of the grid is that I can rig both up with the effect loop block and A/B them.

My thinking is if I can get to a place where I'm happy with both then I'm covered for all eventualities at gigs - great sounds going to the PA & great sounding backline.

Yes, the H&K Grandmeister is still on my radar as a direct solution. My needs are quite simple for channels and fx. If the AX8 proves too difficult to get where I want to be then it won't hang around. I've wasted too many hours in the past on these things. I'll have another go this evening at rehearsal. I was hoping for instant gratification but I don't think that's gonna happen...

Jonathanthomas83

Instant gratification isn’t possible with this stuff, don’t care what anyone says. It takes time and effort. But I’ve just been playing for almost three hours straight with the Axe FX and a Les Paul and not touched a single thing on the Axe, just switching scenes and blocks with the MFC and turnin knobs on the guitar... took me a while to set that patch up but it delivers everything I needed to keep me satisfied for three hours straight...THAT is gratifying! Good luck with it but stick with it. You can see from a couple of posts ago that it delivers in a live setting but it obviously took a bit of setting up to get sounding that good. :-)

firepaulmusic

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Instant gratification isn’t possible with this stuff, don’t care what anyone says. It takes time and effort. But I’ve just been playing for almost three hours straight with the Axe FX and a Les Paul and not touched a single thing on the Axe, just switching scenes and blocks with the MFC and turnin knobs on the guitar... took me a while to set that patch up but it delivers everything I needed to keep me satisfied for three hours straight...THAT is gratifying! Good luck with it but stick with it. You can see from a couple of posts ago that it delivers in a live setting but it obviously took a bit of setting up to get sounding that good. :-)

Thanks for the encouragement and I think you are right. I may have to go on the Fractal share site to download a few patches from the expert users to see what their settings are...

firepaulmusic

firepaulmusic said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Instant gratification isn’t possible with this stuff, don’t care what anyone says. It takes time and effort. But I’ve just been playing for almost three hours straight with the Axe FX and a Les Paul and not touched a single thing on the Axe, just switching scenes and blocks with the MFC and turnin knobs on the guitar... took me a while to set that patch up but it delivers everything I needed to keep me satisfied for three hours straight...THAT is gratifying! Good luck with it but stick with it. You can see from a couple of posts ago that it delivers in a live setting but it obviously took a bit of setting up to get sounding that good. :-)

Thanks for the encouragement and I think you are right. I may have to go on the Fractal share site to download a few patches from the expert users to see what their settings are...

I found a patch called 'Mark Days lead' which sounds like it may work well live...

Jonathanthomas83

Cool, hope it does, mate!

Just watched this and it sounded superb...

https://youtu.be/VH7ugfM0WEM

Sorry, embed isn’t working on my phone 

peteri

Another vote for stick with it.

It's both simple and complex to use, IR choices makes an enormous difference - I can certainly recommend the OwnHammer Core Tone library.

I've never had a valve amp I can just plug-in and gig either, sounds amazing at home and then shite when you crank it (or the other way around!)

Jonathanthomas83

Just watching Devin Townsend’s Gearwhore Fractal episode...he literally just said (not word for word, but close) “I spend a year dicking around with settings and stuff, you can get lost, then I said, I don’t like what I’ve done...but once I knew what amp, cab and mic and stuff I wanted, things got a lot more streamlined (easier)” just takes time :-)

cbellanga

Same with me, my neighbour almost killed me after 4 days in a row hitting 110db while tweaking my setup. Once I got it done it’s much easier.. played live with me AX8 + CLR a dozen times by now. Super consistent sound independently of the venue

firepaulmusic

Had another go this morning cranked through a single RCF 10" cab. Scrolling through the presets found a JCM 800 patch that sounded really 'live' so worked on that one assigning pedals etc. Going to try it on Friday through the full PA, got a gig with Bowie Fashion tribute in the evening but a bit too soon to chance it with them...

peteri

One of the many brilliant bits of advice from Clarky in this thread was to not be afraid of filters.

I've found this really useful in the reverb, setting quite a high low cut and quite a lot high cut - lets you tune how much the reverb 'sounds' and hence how live it feels

DavusPG

In my experience the high and low cut are key....i should also add that I'm about 10 months in with my AX8, admittedly not using it as regularly as I'd have liked, but experimenting and tweaking each time I do. I also often end up finding a great tone and just playing, when I should be focusing on other things.

The biggest impacts on tone for me have been using the GEQ in the amp block (I'm using 5 band passive) and the high and low cut in the cab block. I was afraid of being too aggressive with the these parameters until I read a post from Cliff (He who designed the AxeFX) and saw that his go to settings were low cut 80Hz and high cut 7500Hz....I tried it and it was an instant improvement. 

The thread which explains his reasoning based on how IRs work is here: 

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/low-cut-high-cut.119906/#post-1425898

Also it's worth scouring the AxeFxII forum as it contains tonnes of info applicable to the AX8 that isn't in the AX8 forum

Approaching it as a real rig has worked for me, but also being prepared to accept that what works in the real world isn't necessarily so in the digital one.

Use your ears and if it sounds good, then it is good pretty much sums it up.

Beexter

As per the above post, I found hi and lo cuts in the cab block gave me the most immediate tonal improvements, taking the sound from harsh and thin to much more real.
Whilst my approach has been to treat the AX8 in the same way I would a traditional rig, I think a lot of the power of the unit comes from thinking beyond the norm. There are things you can do in Fractal world that would be very hard to replicate with more conventional setups. 

DavusPG

Agreed, my statement about approaching it as a real rig was a bit misleading.

What I mean is rather than using different amps, cabs, effects etc every song I mainly use the same amp & cab and then add & remove effects, of which I have my go to favourites - much like when I had a traditional amp & pedalboard

The real boon though is the ability to call on a different amp or effect model if the need or urge arises.

Roland

cbellanga said:

... my neighbour almost killed me after 4 days in a row hitting 110db while tweaking my setup. Once I got it done it’s much easier.. 

It took me a while to get the setting right. I’m fortunate that at home I can play as loud as my ears will stand. Even then I need to adjust settings in a band context.

DavusPG said:

In my experience the high and low cut are key.... biggest impacts on tone for me have been using the GEQ in the amp block (I'm using 5 band passive) and the high and low cut in the cab block. 

In the CAB block I cut above 5750hz, except on acoustic simulation IRs. There is sound above this, but it doesn’t add to a band mix. For low cut I use 63hz in the amp block, and also in Output EQ. 

firepaulmusic said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Instant gratification isn’t possible with this stuff, don’t care what anyone says. It takes time and effort. 

Thanks for the encouragement and I think you are right. I may have to go on the Fractal share site to download a few patches from the expert users to see what their settings are...

Yes, you learn a lot by putting the effort in. It’s a lot cheaper than buying and selling amps and cabs. 

Personally I haven’t found other people’s patches that useful. They can give you ideas, but you’ve still got to put the effort in to adjust for guitar choice, music genre, playing style, and the sound you’re aiming for.

firepaulmusic

DavusPG said:

In my experience the high and low cut are key....i should also add that I'm about 10 months in with my AX8, admittedly not using it as regularly as I'd have liked, but experimenting and tweaking each time I do. I also often end up finding a great tone and just playing, when I should be focusing on other things.

The biggest impacts on tone for me have been using the GEQ in the amp block (I'm using 5 band passive) and the high and low cut in the cab block. I was afraid of being too aggressive with the these parameters until I read a post from Cliff (He who designed the AxeFX) and saw that his go to settings were low cut 80Hz and high cut 7500Hz....I tried it and it was an instant improvement. 

The thread which explains his reasoning based on how IRs work is here: 

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/low-cut-high-cut.119906/#post-1425898

Also it's worth scouring the AxeFxII forum as it contains tonnes of info applicable to the AX8 that isn't in the AX8 forum

Approaching it as a real rig has worked for me, but also being prepared to accept that what works in the real world isn't necessarily so in the digital one.

Use your ears and if it sounds good, then it is good pretty much sums it up.

I found the GEQ in the amp block today and couldn't believe how powerful it is...

peteri

Fixed my Plexi “problem”

i had a stereo cab block with different IRs loaded, there must have been phasing issues which knocked all the middle out of the sound. 

Switched Ed to a mono block and awesomeness was restored !

gibsongretschfan

peteri said:

Fixed my Plexi “problem”

i had a stereo cab block with different IRs loaded, there must have been phasing issues which knocked all the middle out of the sound. 

Switched Ed to a mono block and awesomeness was restored !

Wes Montgomery never needed to put up with this shit 

I honestly don't know how any of us actually even make it to a gig anymore the amount of things that can go wrong

guitarfishbay

Personally I prefer playing with a mono sound. Stereo FX can be nice but for the core dry sound mono works for me.  

Anyway regarding phase, if you want to use two IRs then either the IRs have to already be aligned (I think all raw OwnHammer IRs are aligned to each other, but not with other brands) or they have to be MPT - minimum phase transformed. In theory MPT changes the tone slightly as the phase information is changed to give a universal start point to IRs. This means you can blend any MPT files regardless of who shot them but it may sound different to a non MPT file.

peteri

That's exactly it - I was mixing a factory with an Ownhammer one.

I like stereo reverb - but to be honest play in Mono anyway due to space/practicality