Axe fx II is out

[MDV]

It was one of his benefits of the lavish and unneeded PC rig.

[Transcend]

For effects i would rather get a rocktron replifex or intellifex.

But maybe that's because i'm a cheapskate somewhat

[JacksonRR]

It was one of his benefits of the lavish and unneeded PC rig.

Hrmm. I must have come to the wrong conclusion on what an AxeFx really was. Does anyone know why they decided to dump the software version they were planning on releasing for PC/Mac and just stick with the proprietary hardware?

[MDV]

Cos you cant crack a 2U rackmount computer running your VSTs and put it in a torrent.

[JacksonRR]

I'll take this in plugin, please: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywDUAw7ck8g

[nfe]

I like modelers for what they are. They do make life easy for folk and the vast majority for people who will listen to your music or watch you live will never, ever be able to hear the difference.

But by goodness I wouldn't pay Axe-FX money for one.

[MDV]

I'll take this in plugin, please: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywDUAw7ck8g

That is actually very impressive.

Only as good as what you feed it with though. For me it would be an amp that just contains....my amps. I supopse there are another half a dozen (max) owned by mates that would be of interest I could borrow. It would certainly give me less compunction about selling them. The key thing is that after cature you can manipulate the sound; there are some ways it will be fixed, I'g guessing (mic type and location, speaker, cab, room) and some ways it will be variable, the most valuable of which is gain (you can EQ itb all day long; not quite the same, but close enough, but youre stuck with whatever level of gain/distortion you started with).

[MDV]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QBwUerxeM

I'm liking this more and more.

[Kiichi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QBwUerxeM

I'm liking this more and more.

Those videos sure look impressive. I am an analog fan (my first effect was a Digitech Rp255 which was ok to start, but now...wow thatīs mostly cr@p), but Iīd like to try that out! But the price would stop me anyways^^

[JacksonRR]

Hehe. I knew you would, MDV. Sounds killer, right? The thing is, you probably won't need your mates amps at all, but it would be nice to profile their amp and then say, "See ya. Gonna go play your amp now except I have extra doodles to twiddle and more sounds than you. Gonna go profile a Dumble in two days. Neener neener." I'm sure there will be a little community set up for swapping of the "profiles" just like how in the high-gain vid he was using the Mesa file sent over e-mail. So you could get profiles from a 5150 of every year of production since the start and see if the myths are true or not.
The price was said, in one of the vids, to be around $1600. Not sure if that's retail or street, either way it's less expensive than AxeFx by a whole lot. I wish it didn't look like a damned Star Trek control board though. Much, much later in the year(when current troubles are behind me), I will bite and order one for testing, if it doesn't look like another "almost" product by then.
YouTube clips = the Satan of audio. So we'll see.

[MDV]

Yeah the community would probably be very interesting. The accuracy of the reproduction, bearing in mind its youtube, was very impressive indeed. I didnt get any hint of 'this has been digitalised' off the profile sound. Very impressive.

Gotta bear in mind though when, say, I trade my VHT pitbull CL red channel for your VH4 channel 3, for argument sake, youre not really; youre trading my VHT pitbull CL, ubercab, V30 and MD421, where I chose to put it, in the room I profiled the amp in, for your VH4, Mesa oversized, V30 and SM57, inc location of mic, location of cab in room, the room itself, the mic pre, the cables and all the rest. I then cant mic that with my AT4050 a little off axis just off the edge of the cone on the jensen in my orange 2x12, or whatever. its clearly not actually owning the amps, it has limitations. Quite significant limitations.

But

If I can have a star trek looking box that has a *representation* of 50 high class amps in them, with a decent signal chain, not where they've been captured with a PC mic by a moron in an untreated room, and if they sound as close as they did in that vid, as realistic, and I can change the gain, sag, pre level, EQ, whatever, etc etc, add various stomps to them....thats $%&#ing awesome quite frankly. Its not owning the amps and being able to interchange parts of the chain in the way I know and love, but I'd pay Ģ1000 for the versatility of it, and accuracy of capture, quite cheerfully. If, thats IF the capture is actually as accurate as it seems to be in the vids.

[MDV]

In the mean time, btw, the closest youre going to get in plug form is voxengo curve EQ. If you dont know it already, go do a little digging about its capture ability ;)

[JacksonRR]

Oh, I have it. Lol. I do like Voxengo products a bunch. The Lampthruster is nice and their tape distortion sounds really good on a kick drum when used sparingly. Oh, sir. You remind me of the days when I afforded that cr@p. Since we're here, have you tried Brainworx products? The ShredSpread is phenomenal for the type of stuff we do and the BX Digital is also mainstay for me, on every damn mix. I wish I could get the new ones, but right now.... no. I think new PC guts and anti-viral software are gonna be on that list first anyways. I've just lost every damn thing I've done recently for the free boobies. Again. Installing all the plugins I've acquired is a two night job. Gotta give up teh pronz.

Also, I don't see why you HAVE to use a mic to do this. In keeping with my views on impulses, I'd rather take the speaker right out of the chain with these high-gain heads. The difference in power amps isn't nearly as great as the difference in preamp topology and I think it would be better to "profile" from the preamp out and use a head and cab that's around as a slave. If it's possible to do it that way, you're back in control of mic placement and can use whatever power tubes/speakers you damn well please. There's a lot that can happen between the pre and power amp and I'd hate to miss that section. On the other hand, that part where he changed the god damned pick attack level? $%&# the effects loop.

[MDV]

Voxengo kick arse. A lot of their stuff is downright $%&#ing weird, and kind of overpowered, but if you understand the tools and use them carefully, they can be awesome. I'll check out brainworx, thanks.

You could, in priciple, I guess, do it with a load-having power amp out DI, I suppose. It depends how the profiler hooks up to the system. If its off a line out from an interface then I suppose its possible.

I disagree entirely, massively and vehemently that taking the speaker out is the right thing to do for metal. Its a complicating factor, and a potential weak point, but the dynamic response of the speaker and the freedom in micing it/them are massive, vital parts of good metal sounds. Good any sounds. Impulses are a pale shadow; linear convolution doesnt capture dynamic response, and it doesnt capture how a speaker or the system in general respond to mutiple frequency inputs. The result is flatter and overly 'clean'. One of the things that struck me about the profiling process there was the steadily increasing pulse as well as the pink (sounded like) noise; that would be, I guess, to replicate the dynamic response of the system to broad spectrum and accurately reproduce its distortion characteristics. Normal convolution, and impulses, dont do that.

[JacksonRR]

shite. It's a mess in this head of mine. "Clarity, dude. Make your point more understandable."

 Meant out of the chain of "profiling" and not the eventual chain into the PC/whatever. I suppose the rest of my post would make a BIT more sense now.  :lol: I think micing up classic combo amps is the thing to do as that's a distinct part of the amp itself and that would be it for me on that particular method. I was pondering the whole Weber or whatever brand attenuator devices or cabs(Randall) that can take from the power amp, but then there's another bit of circuitry that seems far from discrete between the amp and the Kemper. The attenuators I've tried, I didn't like. I've never tried one with a line out, but I'm thinking there is going to be an untrue nature to what comes out. I think the preamp out, if possible, would make it so someone with close to no mind for this stuff can provide me a file that is usable and I'm still up and running the way I always have, nitpicking over mic choice/placement, cab direction relative to the room, etc. I don't like being stuck with preset choices and the effort it would take for me to actually get an amp situated in a room for a setting that will work in a song I haven't even started on yet would make me go insane. Even if it does have emulated mic placement, it's just that. I'd like to have the benefits of different flavors without screwing with the original formula too much. Pancakes with blueberries, awesome. Pancakes made from organic brown rice flour, blueberries and that dried ice cream with the astronaut on it that they sell at museums, no thanks.