Axe FX III - the Blog

Roland

Yeah, I knew the first two: high & low cut, and boosting around 1kHz. (I actually boost at 950Hz). The pick attack cut at 2.8kHz is new to me, and useful because it can be used to increase sustain without increasing compression.

FarleyUK

FW 19.06 beta is out, which includes the much-requested Song and Setlist functionality.

Roland

FarleyUK said:

FW 19.06 beta is out, which includes the much-requested Song and Setlist functionality.

19.6 is going to be interesting. For years I’ve been limiting my amp and effects choices to minimise the amount of switching I have to think about at a gig. My first line of switches on the FC12, and on the MFC before it, and on the Behringer 1010 before that, and even on the GT6, has gone: Clean, Crunch, Drive, Lead, Acoustic. Set list functionality will let me rethink that approach.

Usually I wait a few days to let any bugs appear. On this occasion I also want to finish playing with the Vibroverb, by which I mean get the preset to a stable state, before starting a new venture.

Jonathanthomas83

FarleyUK said:

FW 19.06 beta is out, which includes the much-requested Song and Setlist functionality.

Can you elaborate on what this means please mate? Sounds useful!

mrkb

Jonathanthomas83 said:

FarleyUK said:

FW 19.06 beta is out, which includes the much-requested Song and Setlist functionality.

Can you elaborate on what this means please mate? Sounds useful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtWYWkQrlyw 

Jonathanthomas83

mrkb said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

FarleyUK said:

FW 19.06 beta is out, which includes the much-requested Song and Setlist functionality.

Can you elaborate on what this means please mate? Sounds useful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtWYWkQrlyw 

Bloody 'ell, that's very cool! Thank you for the link!

DavusPG

Didn't think I'd need the setlist function but it's very handy as it turns out, not only for gigs, but also for rapid recall/comparison of scenes from different presets.

I've been laid up with Covid for the last 10 days and have spent quite a bit of time tweaking various tones, but I won't know how good they really sound until I get into our rehearsal space and play them through the PA at volume with the rest of the band. Have loaded them into different "sections" of a couple of "songs" along with my current favourite tones so I can instantly compare/tweak them side by side.

Going to be useful for levelling different presets/scenes too I think

FarleyUK

Used the set list function at a short gig last night - worked really well!

mrkb

Just received a email from G66 saying new FC12 with bigger lcd strips is available! Fixes my only issue with the FC12.

TeleMaster

I’ve sold my Axe and FC12. Good luck with yours guys. Great unit but I’ve gone back to an amp!

Gadget

I had an Ultra, XL MkII and am now considering a Axe FX III.

As you can proobably tell, I've had a love/hate relationship with these, boiling-down to basically two opposing views of such units:

1) It's a collection of the best amps, cabs, mics and effects in the world, all in one internally configurable package at a comparitively very reasonable price.

OR:

2) It doesn't actually contain any of those things, and is simply a dedicated guitar PC, with hardware accelerated software emulations, and therefore pretty expensive for a beefed-up NI Guitar Rig type thing.

However, over the years I've realised there's no such thing as the 'best, do-it-all' piece of gear and therefore running a modeller doesn't mean I have to ditch all my amps, pedals and other rack gear.

With that in mind, my main thoughts at the moment turn to how I can integrate the latter with the AF3.

Jonathanthomas83

Gadget said:

I had an Ultra, XL MkII and am now considering a Axe FX III.

As you can proobably tell, I've had a love/hate relationship with these, boiling-down to basically two opposing views of such units:

1) It's a collection of the best amps, cabs, mics and effects in the world, all in one internally configurable package at a comparitively very reasonable price.

OR:

2) It doesn't actually contain any of those things, and is simply a dedicated guitar PC, with hardware accelerated software emulations, and therefore pretty expensive for a beefed-up NI Guitar Rig type thing.

However, over the years I've realised there's no such thing as the 'best, do-it-all' piece of gear and therefore running a modeller doesn't mean I have to ditch all my amps, pedals and other rack gear.

With that in mind, my main thoughts at the moment turn to how I can integrate the latter with the AF3.

That's absolutely the best way to look at it, yes. I too, took that view for a long time but as soon as I  figured out what you have there, I made peace with the fact that things like the Kemper and Fractal are great tools to have around to compliment the main gear.

Roland

It’s the whole toolbox which attracts me. Today I’m comparing the EQs of my IEMs, the Matrix Q12 which I use as a stage monitor, and the SRM450s which we use in the PA. My acoustic guitar simulation is excellent in my IEMs, a little bright through the Q12, but boxy through the PA. The looper gives a constant reference sound whilst I play with PEQ and GEQ blocks, and use tone matching to generate compensating IRs.

Yesterday I was playing with subtle chorus to double the acoustic, switching between £1,000 worth of different chorus pedals, and ABing different settings of the same pedal.

Last week I was trying out Tyler Grund’s suggestions for the Vibroverb and Super Reverb. Without the AxeFX I would need two expensive amps, a soldering iron, and a list of components. With it I can AB between transformers and negative feedback settings.

Roland

19.06 is released. It includes changes to the transformer settings which I was playing with last week. So I know what I’ll be doing over Easter.

Roland

I’m really pleased. I’ve made a massive improvement to my acoustic simulation. With my covers band I use an acoustic simulation in five out of 25 songs. It saves having to take a fragile acoustic to a pub gig, avoids guitar changes between or during songs, and means there’s no feedback problems at high volume. 

The acoustic simulation uses three blocks: an MBC to adjust the sustain of the bass notes, an IR which matches my neck pickup to an acoustic guitar, and a PEQ to fine tune the sound.

Having recently made a new guitar I wanted to remake an IR for it. At short notice I didn’t have access to a decent recording mic. So I turned to YouTube to find a suitable recording. Many were poor, or with artefacts introduced in post-processing. This one turned out well, yielding matches for a Taylor 716 and a Martin D42. 

https://youtu.be/QIrV9t7XAZY

In other news the 19.06 upgrade was a non event

FarleyUK

Roland said:

In other news the 19.06 upgrade was a non event

In what way? There's been changes / corrections to the amp algorithms which have made quite a difference to my ears - plus the songs and setlists feature.

Roland

FarleyUK said:

In what way? There's been changes / corrections to the amp algorithms which have made quite a difference to my ears - plus the songs and setlists feature.

Some users have reported problems with their pedal settings, and with midi settings getting lost. I didn’t notice any of that. 

The amp change is mainly about the transformer winding calculation. I was expecting a significant impact because transformer matching on the Vibroverb is something I’ve been playing with. My conclusion is that, at the settings I’m using, with a lot of negative feedback, the impact is not that noticeable. I haven’t experimented with other amp types.

For our current set list I use one preset for all but one of the songs. I’ve got used to working with five scenes: Clean, Edge, Crunch, Lead, Acoustic, and turning on effects as required. I like that simplicity. The set list feature doesn’t add anything that I need. At some point I’ll look at whether it can improve the stage lighting options, or set tempos.

welshboyo

@Roland regarding your Acoustic Sim, not that it in any way it exactly replicates a Martin or whatever but I have a great patch and IR from the Austin Buddy pack that translates really well to FOH for Acoustic Stuff - give me a shout if you want to demo it 

Roland

Thanks @welshboyo. I have wondered whether there would be enough interest in having a general show and tell day for modellers. The interesting thing for me is not how close model get to actual amps, but how things are configured to work easily in a live situation.

When I started acoustic modelling I did look at Austin Buddy’s patch. It might have changed since, but at the time it wasn’t quite the sound I was after. So I ended up making my own, and now incorporate it as a scene in each live patch.

The core acoustic sound comes from tone matching the electric guitar pickup I want to use to the acoustic guitar sound I want to hear. So the starting point is to make my own IR. Once I’ve got the IR adding compression and EQ aren’t that difficult. 

Roland

What to do with set lists? Jekyll and Hyde are pulling me both ways. 

On the one hand I’ve spent several years honing things down to operational simplicity. I avoided multiple presets because of the sheer effort involved in propagating a configuration change. With multiple patches I had to write the patch number against each song in the set list. Of late I’ve reduced things to one patch, with five scenes. This, plus pickup switching and a few added FX, have seen me through a whole covers gig.

Now that we’ve got a competent keyboard player and drummer in the band I no longer need to keep things simple in order to hold it together. Two other factors have recently come into play. The Vibroverb is providing the amp sounds I need, and I can propagate them easily across patches. The setlist function introduced in 19.06 means that I don’t have to remember which patch to engage for each song. It opens up an opportunity to get sophisticated. Add a touch of chorus on the bridge of one song. Use a two beat delay on the solo in Maneater, but keep a 500ms delay on other lead sounds. No longer be restricted to fixed drive levels in Edgy and Crunchy scenes.

It’s tempting to go as far as one patch per song, and give each song its own lighting pattern.

Is anybody using one patch per song? How do you find the workload of keeping patches in step?