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Comments
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
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
Are you keeping the Kemper as well or looking to see which you prefer of the two?
Good point about the 3rd party IRs as stock, that's really good, so many good cabs there.
Absolutely that sounds like a great idea! Be happy to do that, @Roland.
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.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I'm not too sure about $100 for something I can't try
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!
But for a lot of amps I don't know (most of the older Fenders) or will never know (Dumble!) - it's really useful
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.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
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
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
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!
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922