Re: Going digital Axe Fx/Kemper
I have been waiting to post. I bought the AX8 almost a year ago and have rarely messed with it and have been less than impressed with the sound running into my guitar amp's effects return. In its defense, that's not an ideal way to get the best sound out of it. In any case, I've been putting a PA together for some reason and finally wired it up for the first time Wednesday night. Now that I've had the opportunity to run it through rig more in line with the design intent I am more comfortable sharing my experience and opinions.
First of all, let me say that there is a great deal of experimentation left to do ... just in the area of reaching a certain volume through the chain of gains (please forgive my lack of live sound specific jargon). The amp models have Master, Gain, and Volume controls, the mixer has Gain and Volume controls, and naturally the power amp has its gain reduction controls. So I'm not really sure how to set it up for optimum results. That said, instructions for the QSC X5 recommend never running below -10db so I set it there. I set the sliders on the mixer at 0db because I understand that to be the starting point. Then an amp model on the AX8, when selected, already has Master, Volume, and Gain already dialed in. Naturally, those are adjustable, but I left them at the default settings and achieved my desired volume by adjusting the mixer's gain. Right or wrong, that's how I set it up.
Without question it sounded much better through PA speakers where higher frequencies are crossed over and sent to a tweater/horn vs the guitar cabinet where a 12" guitar speaker has to reproduce everything. Even so, the clean sounds I anticipated... specifically the various Fender models, are less than stellar. A wife wouldn't hear it, a crowd wouldn't discern it, it probably would be undetectable in a band mix, but a guitar player with a decent ear in a room alone will hear the difference. The modeler is absolutely pretending to do what a tube amp does better. There is a certain richness or harmonic content that is simply not there. Again in the AX8's defense, I have not learned to tweak anything, and it certainly permits rather deep editing. Whether it is a "Brown" amp model or "Tweed" or whatever, the sound is just a bit too in-your-face and stiff. Anyway, all those things can be tweaked, but I am slow to learn those things.
On a very positive note, the Trainwreck model, the JTM45, and some other Marshalls ( I can't remember which ones right now) were beyond exceptional. Now, I don't know how those amps actually sound, but the models were great. Even their clean tones were perfect for me, and the lead tones I got were out of the world. I like a searing blues(ish) lead tone with plenty of sustain but without a lot of grit and this thing really delivers.
The bottom line is that I could have purchased a very good amp for what I spent on this unit, but a good amp can't do what it can do. That is, it lacks the convenience and versatility of the modeler. Last year I played at a festival here in town and ran my pedals through an amp sim pedal and into the board and it sounded like crap to me. I am playing again this year and I'm glad to have this pedal. Once I learn to set up the switches and set up patches it will be a handy tool for the times when taking an amp is either impossible or impractical. It is already good enough, and I know it will be great once I get it dialed in to suit my needs. It is so good that if I wasn't addicted to amps and pedals I'd be tempted to unload.
