TL;DR I drove down to Chatham (~2 hrs from me) on the weekend and picked up an AX8 in mint condition with hundreds of extra IRs and a bunch of great purchased presets. Very surprised at how much I like the sounds and how different it is from what I expected. And it feels great! No, I will not abuse that generic high gain sound.
I remember seeing Leprous and Haken on Halloween in 2017, one using Kemper and the other Axe FX, and even the opening band didn't appear to have any physical amps or cabs on stage. Thinking about all the shows in the last four years and truthfully, it's been the same story! The music I'm listening to seems to really use the crap out of the distortion patches and while it can sound good, I've felt like I want to steer away from that sound for myself. There's a certain flavour of nasally, crunchy, snarly, singing gain that I always pictured was the main Axe FX sound. And then there are some players using it ONLY for its effects (can't help but wonder if that's actually true) so, it must be good.
My Mark IV is a great sound and has a special place in my heart, but gigging only a few times a year lately and working on my band's newest crop of songs I haven't had the luxury of miking up a cab and practising with a real-deal guitar speaker. For the last 3-4 years I've been running the Mark right into a Palmer PGA-04 which has really been a great solution complete with loadbox - but the tone from both gain channels consistently has this certain fizziness and congestion in the mids, almost like the amp has a cold, that I can't seem to get rid of, particularly with my Mayones Duvell and Schecter KM7. Yes, the Mark is very mid-forward but it doesn't have that same quality coming out of any cab I've used.
I rented a Line6 Helix LT from Long and McQuade in December and had kept it until this past weekend, screwing around with all the models and really trying to determine if all the I/O and the options within might be a better fit; maybe I should bite the bullet and go digital because it's that much easier to get a decent miked amp sound. It sounds good, but still there is something plasticky and just plain artificial about the feel and the sound. Many reports claim the Fractal gear eats the Helix for breakfast. Has anyone else felt like this was just because there are a ton of high-gain players using it? I was testing the Helix for its full capabilities from clean to mean, using my Mark in the 4CM with impulses, trying a bunch of models... meh.
A few guitarists I know keep raving about the Axe FX and the AX8 and I got restless - we're in quarantine, I know what my amp sounds like, and I don't have the patience to try and tweak the direct sound outside of the mixes I'm working on, or I'll just NEVER STOP. I stayed up late, hopped on Kijiji and lo and behold, a great deal pops up a few hundred bucks below the norm, so I made a deal and snagged it.
The first thing I noticed when I fired it up through my monitors, was it booted up to a stereotypical high gain Friedman patch. I laughed. Then I banged out a 7-string Bsus9 on my Mayones, and just *felt* it for a moment, at which point I started riffing, then soloing, and it was good. The patch wasn't quite up my alley but it sounded and felt good. I've since tweaked a couple of the paid presets and found some wonderful clean and low gain sounds in addition to an emulation of a Mark IV (USA Lead) that I have to say, sounds and feels better than the real thing through the Palmer. It actually responds very much like the live amp in the room during a gig or practice. The best thing is, that congested "cold-like" sound is gone.
So it's only been 3 whole days since I got it but I am just in awe of how flexible this thing is. I've barely scratched the surface and I'm wondering why I didn't give in sooner! I'll be able to use this for much more than metal sounds, whether it's through a real cab or direct, and the effects are really good across the board. I'm a believer now and I understand why Fractal gets a lot of praise.
Are there other users here? Anyone else who made the leap to digital long ago and never looked back? What limitations do you have now, or NOT have now? I won't be giving up my amp but man, I'm impressed.
I remember seeing Leprous and Haken on Halloween in 2017, one using Kemper and the other Axe FX, and even the opening band didn't appear to have any physical amps or cabs on stage. Thinking about all the shows in the last four years and truthfully, it's been the same story! The music I'm listening to seems to really use the crap out of the distortion patches and while it can sound good, I've felt like I want to steer away from that sound for myself. There's a certain flavour of nasally, crunchy, snarly, singing gain that I always pictured was the main Axe FX sound. And then there are some players using it ONLY for its effects (can't help but wonder if that's actually true) so, it must be good.
My Mark IV is a great sound and has a special place in my heart, but gigging only a few times a year lately and working on my band's newest crop of songs I haven't had the luxury of miking up a cab and practising with a real-deal guitar speaker. For the last 3-4 years I've been running the Mark right into a Palmer PGA-04 which has really been a great solution complete with loadbox - but the tone from both gain channels consistently has this certain fizziness and congestion in the mids, almost like the amp has a cold, that I can't seem to get rid of, particularly with my Mayones Duvell and Schecter KM7. Yes, the Mark is very mid-forward but it doesn't have that same quality coming out of any cab I've used.
I rented a Line6 Helix LT from Long and McQuade in December and had kept it until this past weekend, screwing around with all the models and really trying to determine if all the I/O and the options within might be a better fit; maybe I should bite the bullet and go digital because it's that much easier to get a decent miked amp sound. It sounds good, but still there is something plasticky and just plain artificial about the feel and the sound. Many reports claim the Fractal gear eats the Helix for breakfast. Has anyone else felt like this was just because there are a ton of high-gain players using it? I was testing the Helix for its full capabilities from clean to mean, using my Mark in the 4CM with impulses, trying a bunch of models... meh.
A few guitarists I know keep raving about the Axe FX and the AX8 and I got restless - we're in quarantine, I know what my amp sounds like, and I don't have the patience to try and tweak the direct sound outside of the mixes I'm working on, or I'll just NEVER STOP. I stayed up late, hopped on Kijiji and lo and behold, a great deal pops up a few hundred bucks below the norm, so I made a deal and snagged it.
The first thing I noticed when I fired it up through my monitors, was it booted up to a stereotypical high gain Friedman patch. I laughed. Then I banged out a 7-string Bsus9 on my Mayones, and just *felt* it for a moment, at which point I started riffing, then soloing, and it was good. The patch wasn't quite up my alley but it sounded and felt good. I've since tweaked a couple of the paid presets and found some wonderful clean and low gain sounds in addition to an emulation of a Mark IV (USA Lead) that I have to say, sounds and feels better than the real thing through the Palmer. It actually responds very much like the live amp in the room during a gig or practice. The best thing is, that congested "cold-like" sound is gone.
So it's only been 3 whole days since I got it but I am just in awe of how flexible this thing is. I've barely scratched the surface and I'm wondering why I didn't give in sooner! I'll be able to use this for much more than metal sounds, whether it's through a real cab or direct, and the effects are really good across the board. I'm a believer now and I understand why Fractal gets a lot of praise.
Are there other users here? Anyone else who made the leap to digital long ago and never looked back? What limitations do you have now, or NOT have now? I won't be giving up my amp but man, I'm impressed.
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