Axe FX III

I only bought the Matchless 2x12...not totally sure it’s anything eye opening compared to what’s already there...but they’re cheap, and people rave about them...I don’t know if I have quite as discerning an ear, honestly.

None offhand, but I could look tonight when I get home.  I've been starting to play around with setting up a "stereo" output the other day but haven't tried it with the reverb block in place yet.

Yeah. Tried that too. Didn’t think about changing the pre delay though. Guess I’m ok with mono.

If you like Fenders, look in Axe Exchange and grab the Burg’s Fenders II. My goodness.

Oh that’s interesting. Don’t know if I’ve tried the spring before the amp block

Got it John. Had time to hook up the output and plug in for an hour or so. Went through as many presets as I could in the time limitiation.

First impression, the first fifty or so presets were great sounding examples of amp tones that everyone wants and everyone uses, and they felt and sounded great. I was playing one of my Steinbergers and I don't think it ever had as much personality through any amp or sim as the AxeFX. 

It's probably worth the price of admission for that reason alone. It didn't so much sound like accurate versions of real amps, it sounded like better versions of real amps. Like the best Fender, or the best Marshall you'd ever heard. 

Also the low number presets were usable straightforward amp settings and sounds and not the usual preset over-the-top effected thing you typically find on similar devices. Which is good, because the user interface so far to me is awful. The main screen is the whole rig building blocks, which is pretty useless for tweaking any part of a sound. I was unable in the first session with it to even adjust gain on an amp. Still don't know how. 

The high number presets were tricky and deep effect settings reminiscent of an Eventide H3000 or suchlike.  I look forward to learning how to navigate the AxeFX and feel confident it will contribute to my guitar recording tool palette and using some of the awesome effects. 

It looks and acts like a honking computer. If it ran DAW software, it'd be all you need.

AxeEdit makes it sooo much easier.

Have you guys seen NeuralDSP Quad Cortex releasing later this year? neuraldsp.com/quad-cortex
It's user interface looks fantastic. I hope its amp sims are the same quality as their plugins.

Anyone do a tone match yet?

I'm following the instructions but when it says I can hear the match immediately, I'm not getting any audio through the unit from the instrument at all, but the match window sees the instrument audio. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Also, when it says I can save the match as preset/ir, I save it, it gives me a "save successful" but it's not in my presets or my cabs.


Otherwise, I found the proximity setting in the cabs to be amazingly transformative. It gives some ooomph to the cabs that you can't get from the amp settings.

Yeah, as Donr says, everything is like the best of the best.  The proximity setting gives a bit of that cabinet resonance that makes the perfect cab sound a bit more tonally "real".  The depth setting in some amps seems to add low end, but it's a muddy addition IMHO.  I have been turning it down and turning the proximity up in it's place and that sounds a ton better to me.  It's cool because usually to get the cabs to resonate in the real world you have to push the poweramp sections so hard that you get a mushy tone.  This doesn't sacrifice the purity to get the oomph. 

I messed with that too, but was unsure of what it was actually doing.  It seemed to make things brighter, but above a certain point started to bring out more "grain" in the tone, which is the opposite of what I want.

Also, the new 24dB filters for the speakers are amazing.  You can really cut some of the top end fizz without affecting the meat of the tone much at all.

Yeah I'm liking mine pretty good. The Kemper was no slouch but I found I only used a few models in the end, mostly a few MB models and the effects were lacking somewhat (ended up using amps without effects and adding later in the mix. But this thing sounds good no matter which preset is used. Never sounds fake. Sounds like amps and unlimited pedal choices. It's impressive.

Are you guys committing to the sound at the time of recording?

I commit 90% of the time. Sometimes I like to record the wet and dry tracks at the same time using the AXE FX usb interface so I can easily re-amp by flipping though different settings until I find something that really fits. It's nice to have the option easily at your finger tips.