AX8

cbellanga

I think my cat approves it:

t0ni

Very cool. I´ve been thinking about getting one of these. Is there a noticeable difference between this one and the rack versions?

John_P

What a coincidence....  

http://i1332.photobucket.com/albums/w617/johnpinchin2/29C9DFAB-DFCC-4170-91BB-60788C427BC9_zpslwqdyk1v.jpg

Cats must have good taste in effects.

Cabicular

well boys how about it

put the pussy to one side and tell me how it sounds!

Wazmeister

I just wish my FX8 lit up like that !!!!

ENJOY

guitarfishbay

Looks great.  What are you guys plugging these in to?  

cbellanga

guitarfishbay said:

Looks great.  What are you guys plugging these in to?  

Mine's plugged on a Mackie DML8. Very small and ridiculously loud, no hassles at all, just plugged in and all patches sounds incredible .. I had a FX8 and wasn't convinced but this thing has just blown my mind completely!

Wazmeister

@cbellanga - I must say mate, with me as the new FX8 fanboy (!), i was surpeised at your FX8 findings. Your description of the AX8 straight out of the box mirrors mine.

So glad youre enjoying it

John_P

I've had mine running into the power amp on a bogner mojado 112 combo while making some presets this afternoon, but it will mostly gig into a fender twin.   Initial thoughts are that it sounds great and is easier to operate than than fx8 - more knobs for slightly quicker tweaking.  I suspect there will be less risk of running out of cpu headroom with the amp section reducing the need to drive and eq blocks. 

A thought about the quality - I started thinking I could sell my evh stack and use this for rock gigs.  

thisisguitar

So, I'm guessing you guys are loving these things then? 

Wazmeister

thisisguitar said:

So, I'm guessing you guys are loving these things then? 

Lynden, Im still in utter shock at my FX8. Ive sold virtually every pedal i own, and my Gigrig G2, as a result...

John_P

thisisguitar said:

So, I'm guessing you guys are loving these things then? 

So far I'm impressed - I'll report back after this weekends gigs.    

Setup some presets using double verb, HBE and evh red models that will get me going, hopefully the amp knobs will let me adjust things on the fly even quicker so the next test is how it feels at volume against a drummer. 

Sassafras

Why do cats always have to look so reproachful?

Like you should've spent the money on salmon fillets or chicken breasts.

cbellanga

Wazmeister said:

@cbellanga - I must say mate, with me as the new FX8 fanboy (!), i was surpeised at your FX8 findings. Your description of the AX8 straight out of the box mirrors mine.

So glad youre enjoying it

I didn't like the drives on the fx8 .. coming from a Paul Cochrane Tim as a reference, never managed to get a natural "edge of breakup" sound out of it. Everything else was really good indeed but the AX8 is another level with the amps .. amazing control using the volume on the guitar as expected. I agree with you about selling my pedals now (apart from the Tim)

guitarfishbay

Be interested to hear how you get on running this in front of a twin (IIRC there's no loop so you can't bypass the preamp). Are you using the speaker resonance modelling?

John_P said:

I've had mine running into the power amp on a bogner mojado 112 combo while making some presets this afternoon, but it will mostly gig into a fender twin.   Initial thoughts are that it sounds great and is easier to operate than than fx8 - more knobs for slightly quicker tweaking.  I suspect there will be less risk of running out of cpu headroom with the amp section reducing the need to drive and eq blocks. 

A thought about the quality - I started thinking I could sell my evh stack and use this for rock gigs.  

John_P

guitarfishbay said:

Be interested to hear how you get on running this in front of a twin (IIRC there's no loop so you can't bypass the preamp). Are you using the speaker resonance modelling?

John_P said:

I've had mine running into the power amp on a bogner mojado 112 combo while making some presets this afternoon, but it will mostly gig into a fender twin.   Initial thoughts are that it sounds great and is easier to operate than than fx8 - more knobs for slightly quicker tweaking.  I suspect there will be less risk of running out of cpu headroom with the amp section reducing the need to drive and eq blocks. 

A thought about the quality - I started thinking I could sell my evh stack and use this for rock gigs.  

In the past I've found the twin is so clean and has enough headroom that it works reasonably well with pedals and modellers - I'll try to get to gigs early enough to experiment at volume - I think I've playing around with it now to be ready to quickly adjust the power amp sag and turn off the cab block quickly in each preset.  

guitarfishbay

There might be a menu setting to globally bypass all cab blocks. There is on the Axe FX 2.

thisisguitar

@Wazmeister @John_P

Thanks guys. It's a very tempting way of scaling down my pedalboard. Would have to work out if it'll work with my slightly elaborate amp setup... Namely, I want to run it in the fx loop of 1 amp, and into the front end of another. 

DavusPG

As an FX8 owner and fanboy this is not the news I wanted to hear!

@John_P Do you still have your FX8 too? Off the top of my head I can't remember if the AX8 has everything the FX8 has plus the amp modelling? 

monquixote

What's the UK price £1300?

John_P

The ax8 doesn't have relay outputs for amp channel switching and using it 4cm isn't quite as intuitive with the way the fx8 had pre and post blocks but otherwise it appears to have all the same effects and features. There may be a slight difference in noise levels as apparently the fx8 is optimised for 4cm but the ax8 does seem very quiet.