So, why don't you have an AXEFX yet?

[Lew]

huh? Could be a good topic?

I've never actually played one but I've been on the fence about it for years now. I've probably spent enough money on amps in the last 5years to have bought it atleast a couple of times over. It would be a god send for my home recording but probably ott as I just record for myself.

One of the things for me is I'd be worried about spending well over £2k to get one (plus the cost of a £poweramp) and having to replace it in a few years when the next version comes out and forever having to play catch-up on one bit of gear, it's not like vintage axefx are going to be desirable in thirty years? I'm becoming increasingly frugal and grumpy with my cash.

For modern metal tones I've heard it sound as good as any well set-up amp (not better) but I'm not into that. My fav recorded tones are from Mike Scheidt (black/matamp and 70s Ross distortion and more recently a Metroamp plexi clone) and ofcourse the biblical Matt Pike (Matamp/SLO and more recently SLO/Marshall KK800/Blackstar Series1). I've not heard the Axe get those tones. That's not to say they can't but I've not heard it - maybe because the people buying them are happily djenting away on 8strings? ;-p I'm not at all into pristine tones and like alot of nasty muscular midrange.

I actually like having a physical amp/pedal set-up that you can adjust on the fly and I know that I'd spend more time tweaking tones, setting up hundreds of patches, reading forums and downloading patches and making my guitar sound like some ethereal soundscape than actual riffing.

I've been to a couple of DevinTownsend gigs where he's used them and has got a great modern metal tone, sounded killer and on the other hand I've seen Dweezil Zappa live whos tone sounded like total shiteee with it - where as the other guitarist in the ZPZ band used a relic strat and a 2x12 combo that sounded $%&#in' ace. Although, that was a weird gig I was both amazed and dissapointed in equal measure.

[Philly Q]

I remember Hunter on this forum had an Axe-Fx a while back.... then he got more real amps like a Marshall and a Friedman.  I don't know if he still has the Axe-Fx as well.  It would be interesting to hear his opinion.


(In answer to the thread title, why don't I have one yet?  Because I would have more chance making sense of the Dead Sea Scrolls in their original language, frankly....)

[dave_mc]

money would be the main reason :lol: also the fact that you could buy an awful lot of nice gear for the price of it, if it turns out (like most modellers) to be not quite as good as the "real thing"...

[Toe-Knee]

I greatly considered getting one a year or two back (or whenever time goes too fast!) and i played on them a few times that were owned by friends who play really modern tech metal which it works perfectly for them. For myself however it left me feeling uninspired and with the knowledge that it sounds like an over processed pod.

I tried the kemper a few months back which was amazingly accurate when we profiled my amp for the sound but it feel really awkward and stiff and well had the same issue that the axe fx had. It sounded like an amp does recorded and not in the room which I have absolutely no use for at all.

If i want that recorded sound i'll whip out the mic!

One thing that did impress me on the axefx was the digital effects. They sounded truly fantastic which led me into buying a G major which also sounds fantastic but i majorly under use it (see my seconds out thread)

[JJretroTONEGOD]

not as good as the real thing.

I wouldn't get one even if I could afford it.

[tekbow]

because i like old stuff, old stuff is better, Vinyl, Reel to Reel Projectors, Maps, women covering their ankles, record players like the HMV dog is listening to, crank handles on the front of cars, police whistles.

Damn kids and your glowing screen rubbish..

[richard]

Too much stuff for me that I don't need and I'm very happy with the sound I get now but I only gig, I don't record. One argument I don't understand is the concern that a couple of years down the line there's going to be a better version of it. If you really like how the current version sounds then surely that's good enough ? This should only be a concern if you think the current version isn't quite there yet. Or you would apply the same consideration to buying an all valve Marshall, Blackstar or whatever.

And I'm fine with women covering their ankles as long as they don't cover the other bits.

[King Zog of Albania]

Two reasons ...

1) The sound. While digital preamps can sound good for the extreme distortion sounds, I've never found one that does any kind of natural sounding mild overdrive or even a good clean tone.

2) Servicing. If my Marshall blows a HT fuse or melts a screen resistor an hour before a gig then I can reach for a soldering iron and have it working again very quickly. Ever seen and heard a piece of malfunctioning digital equipment? It's not pretty and there's no way on earth you can rescue it. Sure, they break down less often but when they do it's pretty much time to throw it in a skip.

[Nadz1lla]

As someone who wanted an AxeFX VERY badly when I first saw and heard one, I'd like to weigh in with this:

I actually don't want one any more. Since this weekend just gone, actually.

The reason?

First of all, a little history: I'm just a poor boy from a poor family (magnifico etc etc etc) so trying to set up anything resembling a decent home studio has been nightmarish at best. I have a Pod XT for recording with due to living situations thus far prohibiting even the idea of micing up an amp (plus, buying a decent valve amp has never been on the cards due to cost).

NEVER happy with my Pod, even when I first got it, but I recognised it was the best I could do, and I've run with it all this time (approx 8 years-ish).

When I saw the AxeFX for the first time, it was the solution to all my woes: a low-volume, direct-in, easy-to-use recording solution that sounds like a real amp. I was massively impressed with the realistic sounds and tones. So I thought to myself "If I save hard, I can get one some day and get a bit of decency into my home studio).

I had been living with this hope up until this weekend... which was the first jam session with my new band... which meant getting my Jet City JCA20H into a room where I could crank it.

Oh. My. God.

After all the years of trying to get all these dynamics, subtlety and (most importantly of all, heh) feedback out of my digital home rig, that fruitless practice made it so naturally easy when I was stood next to my amp, and it sounded so F$%KING BEAUTIFUL that I decided there and then never to go back to "realistic alternatives".

No amount of digital trickery can ever replace the feeling I got when I was playing around with that tubey, aggressive feedback. Or rolling off the volume and REALLY putting a leash on my overdrive channel, getting some amazing dynamics. REALLY feeling the difference when you go from soft to hard picking. I'm in love.

So I have vowed, whatever it takes, I am going to keep soundproofing my kitchen, learn how to mic up a cab really well, and only ever use real amps from now on. The only other thing I might consider (and it's a very very tentative "might") is the Kemper.

I have started saving up for a JVM205H.  :lol:

[Lew]

because i like old stuff, old stuff is better, Vinyl, Reel to Reel Projectors, Maps, women covering their ankles, record players like the HMV dog is listening to, crank handles on the front of cars, police whistles.

Damn kids and your glowing screen rubbish..

 :lol:

One argument I don't understand is the concern that a couple of years down the line there's going to be a better version of it. If you really like how the current version sounds then surely that's good enough ? This should only be a concern if you think the current version isn't quite there yet. Or you would apply the same consideration to buying an all valve Marshall, Blackstar or whatever.

Yep and that's a big part of what has held me back. The Axefx isn't a preamp in the same way a Bogner Fish is. It's an amp emulator, in essence it's just a very well done and posh POD. An analogue amp will be timeless whereas an Axefx2 is only going to be the bees knees untill an Axefx3 comes out (from what I understand there was a big jump in tone and dynamics from the 1 to the 2? I don't know why Fractal haven't released it as a plug-in with dongle yet, they'd make a killing.

[Philly Q]

because i like old stuff, old stuff is better, Vinyl, Reel to Reel Projectors, Maps, women covering their ankles, record players like the HMV dog is listening to, crank handles on the front of cars, police whistles.

Damn kids and your glowing screen rubbish..

I don't know if you're taking the piss or not.... but I agree wholeheartedly. 


Look, I don't know much about this stuff but it seems to me that cutting-edge digital technology goes against the whole concept of what guitarists want from their equipment.  Our benchmarks for "great tone" are guitars and amps which were built 40, 50, even 60 years ago, using technology even older than that, and - wonderfully - they are not obsolete.  So the idea of buying some digital box of tricks which will be antiquated in six months' time (along with our phones, TVs, computers etc) just seems totally counter-intuitive.

[James C]

My reason: I have no money. On a serious note, i have a Pod X3 Pro for all my processing/recording needs and i will eventually get both a poweramp (thinking of the Matrix ones) and a real amp, so i have the best of both worlds.

Axe FXII = £2500+ including the foot controller
Pod X3 Pro = Xmas present 2 years ago and i already had the Line6 floorboard to control it

[Lew]

because i like old stuff, old stuff is better, Vinyl, Reel to Reel Projectors, Maps, women covering their ankles, record players like the HMV dog is listening to, crank handles on the front of cars, police whistles.

Damn kids and your glowing screen rubbish..

I don't know if you're taking the piss or not.... but I agree wholeheartedly. 


Look, I don't know much about this stuff but it seems to me that cutting-edge digital technology goes against the whole concept of what guitarists want from their equipment.  Our benchmarks for "great tone" are guitars and amps which were built 40, 50, even 60 years ago, using technology even older than that, and - wonderfully - they are not obsolete.  So the idea of buying some digital box of tricks which will be antiquated in six months' time (along with our phones, TVs, computers etc) just seems totally counter-intuitive.

And that brings us nicely into a deeper thinking: let's hypothesize that in ten years modeling is so good that it truly feels and sounds like an actual amp to the point that it makes actual amps obsolete and we are using SSpower amps and an Axefx (unlikely but for the sake of argument). Then what is going to be our point of reference in one hundred years? I can't imagine the tag line The AxeFx 3000 can capture the vintage tones of the Axefx 50. By it's nature it needs the analogue stuff to be able to exist - a benchmark. Not that it matters 'cause we'll all be a part of the matrix by then  8)

[Philly Q]

But even then, surely some people would still insist on using actual old amps unless the modeling amps of the future felt and sounded BETTER than an actual amp?  :P

I don't think old guitar gear will ever be obsolete - unless we run out of the raw materials to repair and/or reproduce them.

[richard]

An AXEFX will make a million different sounds and you could spend the rest of your life creating new ones. My Cornford combo is set up for one sound I really like and the rest of my sounds come from pickup selection, coil splitting, the guitar's volume and tone controls, picking dynamics and kicking in the amp's gain boost. And that's all I want or need. I don't WANT loads of sound from an amp. If someone could produce a digital version of my amp that was just as good I'd buy it. But nobody ever will because that's not how these things work.

For many people the holy grail amp is a Plexi or a Dumble or a Trainwreck but if someone produced a digital amp that replicated only one of these amps it wouldn't sell.