The Fractal Thread

Jonathanthomas83

peteri said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Wazmeister said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

I may have just bought an Axe FX III.

TOP MAN !!!!

Are they available now ?

Thank you, mate! G66 just took delivery and have another delivery this week and next. I'm excited! :-)

BintyTwanger77 said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

I may have just bought an Axe FX III.

Bloody hell! I hope this didn't involve any vending on the used internal organ market...

I've seen how the III's processing power compares to the II.... enormous difference.

Kinda did! haha.

Yep, it's a monster. 4 channels per block - so a 4 channel amp and you can have two amps (rumours of 3 in the pipeline) per preset. And there are 8 scenes per preset...so that's a lot of different tones in one preset! Hugely powerful.

That's exactly how I'm using mine - it's great for that. 8 scenes each with a new amp/cab combination having so much fun putting together 'dream rig' presets

Going to be pretty cool whacking that all together, I'll admit. Never having to merge IRs with BlendIR will be nice.

Part of me is looking forward to building tones again. Having the drive I need, on tap will be nice.

peteri

Initially I had this plan to move presets across, at the time I got mine there were some issues with Fractool (now fixed) so the conversions didn't work too well and I started again.

Have to say - glad I did, didn't take much time, and the amps respond really differently now so worth starting afresh. Another vote for the Austin Buddy Naked Amps - which helped for some stuff, and is worth the money.

I find I spend so much more time in the IR block now, the amps just sound great and respond very much like the real amps, so for me I'm tending to set and forget on the amps and then tweak via IRs. And the blending is a lot of fun!

Worth shouting out just how many third party IRs you get in the stock unit, big step up from before

Roland

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Going to be pretty cool whacking that all together ... Part of me is looking forward to building tones again. Having the drive I need, on tap will be nice.

Do you fancy doing a “build” thread, and taking us through your thinking process as you do it?

guitarfishbay

Nice @Jonathanthomas83 ;

Are you keeping the Kemper as well or looking to see which you prefer of the two?

Freebird

Jonathanthomas83 said:

I may have just bought an Axe FX III.

  

sweepy

Those Headrush FRFR monitors look like a good match for Modellers, be interesting to try one out

Jonathanthomas83

peteri said:

Initially I had this plan to move presets across, at the time I got mine there were some issues with Fractool (now fixed) so the conversions didn't work too well and I started again.

Have to say - glad I did, didn't take much time, and the amps respond really differently now so worth starting afresh. Another vote for the Austin Buddy Naked Amps - which helped for some stuff, and is worth the money.

I find I spend so much more time in the IR block now, the amps just sound great and respond very much like the real amps, so for me I'm tending to set and forget on the amps and then tweak via IRs. And the blending is a lot of fun!

Worth shouting out just how many third party IRs you get in the stock unit, big step up from before

Yeah that's my plan. I always tend to start fresh with major FW updates too. I can't wait.

Good point about the 3rd party IRs as stock, that's really good, so many good cabs there.

Roland said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Going to be pretty cool whacking that all together ... Part of me is looking forward to building tones again. Having the drive I need, on tap will be nice.

Do you fancy doing a “build” thread, and taking us through your thinking process as you do it?

Absolutely that sounds like a great idea! Be happy to do that, @Roland.

guitarfishbay said:

Nice @Jonathanthomas83 ;

Are you keeping the Kemper as well or looking to see which you prefer of the two?

Thanks mate! There may be a crossover where the Kemper is still here when the Axe III arrives. However, sadly, I'll be moving the Kemper on as I can't afford to keep both.

Kemper is great, but there's a few bits and pieces that in the cold light of day I've come to realise that I'd like to have at my disposal that the Fractal has and I used to use before.

Jonathanthomas83

@peteri tell me more about this Austin Buddy pack, there are no Axe III videos on YouTube.

ToneControl

Jonathanthomas83 said:

@peteri tell me more about this Austin Buddy pack, there are no Axe III videos on YouTube.

I asked for a demo, there is none
I'm not too sure about $100 for something I can't try

peteri

@Jonathanthomas83 - happy to answer all I can, and also if you would like to see the documentation which comes with it, there can't be any harm in you seeing that so please pm me.

There's no way you could have a demo version - since it's a set of presets, but to give an overview.

For each amp in the unit, there's a preset - where the sound is dialled in to match an amp, so basically if it's a Plexi say you'll have 8 scenes for typical Plexi sounds, these are matched to amps he's got or rented.

Also, the cab blocks contain almost without exception IR mixes, so he's basically taken 2 or 3 IRs and combined them to give what he feels is the representative sound of the amp in the room.

On top of all the amps, there's a small number of bonus sounds - for example Jimi live in London, and for those he includes his own IRs.

I've got both versions of his packs (had one for the AX8 too) - they're just great tools, I can do better than him on the effects - actually that's unfair, just better for me - but in terms of getting the amp dialled in to absolutely sound like the real thing, he's put in 100s of hours of work to get the tone controls, preamps etc all lined up.

The best way of looking at these are as a massive set of building blocks and shortcuts for the sounds you want, so if you want a Plexi - load up the Plexi preset (remembering there's one preset per amp basically) and flick through the named scenes - sometimes you'll find exactly the sound you want, most likely you'll find something really close that you can quickly tailor to what you want.

It takes out a lot of the leg work and gives you a solid starting point.

Sometimes I've found I basically use the sound, more often I'll use it - and 'upgrade' the IR to one of the Ownhammer ones I have, which I really love - and tweak a little to taste, funnily enough most recently that's involved setting the power supply to be 50Hrtz - his are obviously for the American mains!

I know it's $100, but I price my time too and the unit is hardly cheap - this way I can very quickly put together a set of sounds which I fancy at that time, they are mine - not his, but he get's me quickly to the ballpark, and to where the tweaking is fun.

If there are any specific questions - ask away!

peteri

To add - of course for some amps, you'll feel you can get closer yourself - I used to gig a Marshall Jubilee, so absolutely have in my head what it should sound like, and I don't agree with him!

But for a lot of amps I don't know (most of the older Fenders) or will never know (Dumble!) - it's really useful

Roland

peteri said:

... I know it's $100, but I price my time too and the unit is hardly cheap ...

Even at national minimum wage rates the time we spend learning to use a modeller costs more than the purchase price. That’s not because modellers are complicated, but because:
1. There’s so much to learn.
2. It’s the gift which keeps giving over many years. If we bought individual amps and FX over the same period the learning costs would not be far different. 

Once upon a time I used a GT-8. Not a particularly complicated device. Towards the end of its life I calculated that the learning and configuration time had cost me about ten times the purchase cost of the GT-8 and outboard gear. Now I learned a lot about FX and stage setups, and that knowledge has been carried forward.

Whats really expensive is if you go down a particular route, and then decide to reconfigure because it’s not getting you where you want to be. So a little shared experience is invaluable.

Jonathanthomas83

Wow, that definitely makes sense, thanks @peteri. I'll have to save up for it. Sounds very useful though!

FarleyUK

Jonathanthomas83 said:

However, sadly, I'll be moving the Kemper on as I can't afford to keep both.

Kemper is great, but there's a few bits and pieces that in the cold light of day I've come to realise that I'd like to have at my disposal that the Fractal has and I used to use before.

Stop getting rid of your gear as soon as I buy the same thing!

Wazmeister

@FarleyUK ;

Stop getting rid of your gear as soon as I buy the same thing!

Don’t worry mate, there’s still plenty of Kemper support on here

Jonathanthomas83

FarleyUK said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

However, sadly, I'll be moving the Kemper on as I can't afford to keep both.

Kemper is great, but there's a few bits and pieces that in the cold light of day I've come to realise that I'd like to have at my disposal that the Fractal has and I used to use before.

Stop getting rid of your gear as soon as I buy the same thing!

Ah mate! Sorry! :-( You'll do very well with a Kemper, trust us!

Clarky

getting an Axe-FX III has crossed my mind more than once..
the only things stopping me are:
- size: it's 3U rather than 2U.. I need to shrink my rack space rather than grow it
- Axe-FX II: this unit has been so good and met my needs so well that I can't justify the Axe-III yet. The difference in cost for selling the II and getting the III v the differences in functionality just aren't big enough [just yet].

that said... it's not a case of 'if' I move to the III, more a case of 'when'
as time and incremental developments pass, there will come a point when 'would like' will become 'need'.

I think the biggest problem with the Axe-III as a product is that the Axe-II is so good
sure the Axe-III is a functional step up.. but not a big enough step up [like the Axe-II was over the Ultra / Standard]..

that said, for someone that is new to Fractal and thinking about getting an Axe-III..
they will be getting an absolute beast of a preamp / multi-fx unit

peteri

Interesting in the latest release they’ve added IR players. (Two)

Effectively these are cut down cab blocks. But means I could now have 16 cabs in one preset with 8 mixes of four IRs and 8 single IRs

Freebird

Wazmeister said:

@FarleyUK ;;;

Stop getting rid of your gear as soon as I buy the same thing!

Don’t worry mate, there’s still plenty of Kemper support on here

Kemper profiles are snapshots of real amps, so surely they are the next best thing? Just add an FX8 and enjoy the best of both worlds

Saying that, I wouldn't mind having an Axe-FX III to play around with

The way I view music, it has always been about knowing the technical limitations and getting the most out of the equipment that you have. It has always been this way, and it didn't hold back Sun Records, Motown, Abbey Road or Brian Wilson, etc..

Whatever gear you choose you will already have more than enough!

Jonathanthomas83

peteri said:

Interesting in the latest release they’ve added IR players. (Two)

Effectively these are cut down cab blocks. But means I could now have 16 cabs in one preset with 8 mixes of four IRs and 8 single IRs

Obviously this was met with negativity and I had a bit of backlash for mentioning it...but I felt they missed a trick by not allowing longer IRs so that this new IR block could handle convolution reverb IRs. That would be different to every other product on the market. Still, it's good that they added these blocks.