I think I hate the AXE FX III.

gibson5413 said:
I've had an Axe-FX III for over a year now. There are some things about the Kemper I liked better and some things I like about the III over the KPA. For the most part, I can always find the tone I need no matter what. I will always like a tube amp best but I love the KPA and Axe-FX III. I have found some SinMix presets for my Axe that is amazing for recorded tones. I have not liked the Neural plugins for the most part. There is a plastic sound I hear in all of them. I'm glad it works for some. that's all that matters. The Axe-FX III works for me for home recording and playing. I use my 3rd Power Kitchen Sink and Henning Bottle Rocket for live gigs. They have great master volumes! I would love to try a Quad Cortex but I haven't heard anything that is heads and shoulders above what is out already to make me change.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the perspective. Do you have any Axe III clips?
 
peterc52 said:
Metallicas tone is the proof. They do not sound good after they went to axe-fx. Listen to the difference from SM to SM2. Shitty tone. For live sound Kemper sounds the best to me hence why I use it with in ear with band.
Click to expand...

I know this is from the 1st page but I hear this a lot and I have to point out what's actually going on.
Metallica's tone went from good to suck when James started using Diezels in his rig.
The Axe-Fx merely (accurately) translated his new sucky Diezel tone into a digital format.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
I know this is from the 1st page but I hear this a lot and I have to point out what's actually going on.
Metallica's tone went from good to suck when James started using Diezels in his rig.
The Axe-Fx merely (accurately) translated his new sucky Diezel tone into a digital format.
Click to expand...
I don’t agree. For me it really changed when the fractal came in
 
peterc52 said:
I don’t agree. For me it really changed when the fractal came in
Click to expand...

Really? I haven’t liked their tone since St Anger. Obviously that tone was terrible but I thought Death Magnetic and Hardwired both had terrible, thin sounding guitars as well. Definitely nothing close to the huge sounds they got prior to that.

St. Anger came out in 2003 and personally I haven’t heard good guitar tone from them after that. That’s almost two solid decades of bad tone. To just blame it all on the Axe-Fx, which they only started using a few years ago, is really a stretch.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
Really? I haven’t liked their tone since St Anger. Obviously that tone was terrible but I thought Death Magnetic and Hardwired both had terrible, thin sounding guitars as well. Definitely nothing close to the huge sounds they got prior to that.

St. Anger came out in 2003 and personally I haven’t heard good guitar tone from them after that. That’s almost two solid decades of bad tone. To just blame it all on the Axe-Fx, which they only started using a few years ago, is really a stretch.
Click to expand...
I've not read the whole thread, but a LOT of touring bands (SO many) that did massive "world tours" that involved global/continental travel, opted for the Fractal gear (usually using 3, 2 mains, 1 backup) in their stage kit as it was a all about gear and shipping and "cartage". Travel had become so ridiculously expensive, and backline is always backline, so it was a matter of blowing massive dollars on hardware from stage to stage, country to country - or - doing the best they could with the Fractal units, and putting their stage together for the visuals.

I know a number of bands (Deftones, for example) where Steph uses a Fractal unit both in the studio and out, but he still relies on all manner of tube heads for finding his tone "in house". Shipping is costly, tedious, and a MASSIVE production (I remember getting a glimpse into the Stones "Steel Wheel" tour as well as "MLOR" Floyd, insane - they had 2 identical stages and ALL the gear - leap-frogging from one event to the next - so that when they were playing in A, their new gig was already getting set up in B. And that was way back in the 90s when shit wasn't nearly as expensive to haul.

I see the merits of DI to FOH, IEMs, same sound every night - no worries about failures - and saving tremendously on not needing trailer upon trailer of gear on top of whatever stage-set is designed. Cartage - it matters.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
Really? I haven’t liked their tone since St Anger. Obviously that tone was terrible but I thought Death Magnetic and Hardwired both had terrible, thin sounding guitars as well. Definitely nothing close to the huge sounds they got prior to that.

St. Anger came out in 2003 and personally I haven’t heard good guitar tone from them after that. That’s almost two solid decades of bad tone. To just blame it all on the Axe-Fx, which they only started using a few years ago, is really a stretch.
Click to expand...
I’m only talking live sounds :)
 
My problem with the Kemper (all models) is that I like to find one really cool tone, and stick with that. Even when I was doing cover songs, I used the same tone (my tone) for every song. How else can I place my "stamp" on the tune? I played with a guy who used a Axe-Fx, and to be honest, it was annoying as hell. He kept swapping guitar tones between songs, which really f***ed with my ears.
 
Ventura said:
I've not read the whole thread, but a LOT of touring bands (SO many) that did massive "world tours" that involved global/continental travel, opted for the Fractal gear (usually using 3, 2 mains, 1 backup) in their stage kit as it was a all about gear and shipping and "cartage". Travel had become so ridiculously expensive, and backline is always backline, so it was a matter of blowing massive dollars on hardware from stage to stage, country to country - or - doing the best they could with the Fractal units, and putting their stage together for the visuals.

I know a number of bands (Deftones, for example) where Steph uses a Fractal unit both in the studio and out, but he still relies on all manner of tube heads for finding his tone "in house". Shipping is costly, tedious, and a MASSIVE production (I remember getting a glimpse into the Stones "Steel Wheel" tour as well as "MLOR" Floyd, insane - they had 2 identical stages and ALL the gear - leap-frogging from one event to the next - so that when they were playing in A, their new gig was already getting set up in B. And that was way back in the 90s when shit wasn't nearly as expensive to haul.

I see the merits of DI to FOH, IEMs, same sound every night - no worries about failures - and saving tremendously on not needing trailer upon trailer of gear on top of whatever stage-set is designed. Cartage - it matters.
Click to expand...

Cards on the table, I think the Axe-Fx III is a great product. I have one, along with a solid state amp and cabs, and also a couple good sets of FRFR speakers, and a handful of tube amps I love that I sometimes run into cabs, and sometimes into a reactive load and IRs.

At this point, after having spent good amounts of time with all of it and really A/B'ing every given way to route everything, I'm of the opinion that if a user can't make the Axe-Fx sound every bit as good as any tube amp that has been modeled in the Axe (note I'm not necessarily saying "identical" because of the natural variance of real components used in amps, but "as good as") then that's kind of on the user.

So I absolutely think a touring band that needs to pay to haul their gear would benefit from Axe-Fx rigs. They would easily pay for themselves over time, and they can sound just as good if you spend the time to learn them and dial them in like you give a damn. :)


peterc52 said:
I’m only talking live sounds :)
Click to expand...

I don't see how that changes the conversation. I much prefer Metallica's live tube amp tone before they started using Diezels. Now, that's not to say there weren't some growing pains and burn-in time required for the band to get used to their Axe-Fx rigs, sure.

But overall, I still think their live sound has suffered because of their "artistic" choices as opposed to them being "limited" by inadequate gear.
 
Last edited:
The AxeFx can become a time suck. Thankfully I stuck with a Friedman patch and a Recto patch and used them blended for a great recorded tone. It is unfair to compare modelers with tune amps because one is real and one is not. They fo a pretty good job, especially with big bands using them now, bit there are so many parts of the chain that affect the dynamic.
 
I love my Fractal gear. Tried everything else along the way. Fractal for me. Did away with my amps going on 5 years now and never looked back. Mainly because I had back surgery back in 2014 and my days of lugging amps and 4x12 cabs were over. If I wanted to keep gigging I had to find another solution.
Huge learning curve though. Where to cut lows, where to cut high’s, finding the right IR’s to fit what you hear in your head. But I honestly couldn’t be happier with my rig and my tone. I get more compliments now than I did when I used amps. And I really like having more control of my sound.
Little clip with my FM3.
 
victim5150 said:
I love my Fractal gear. Tried everything else along the way. Fractal for me. Did away with my amps going on 5 years now and never looked back. Mainly because I had back surgery back in 2014 and my days of lugging amps and 4x12 cabs were over. If I wanted to keep gigging I had to find another solution.
Huge learning curve though. Where to cut lows, where to cut high’s, finding the right IR’s to fit what you hear in your head. But I honestly couldn’t be happier with my rig and my tone. I get more compliments now than I did when I used amps. And I really like having more control of my sound.
Little clip with my FM3.
Click to expand...


The good thing about the Axe-Fx's learning curves is, aside from the truly proprietary stuff like figuring out how to place and link blocks on the grid, which is pretty straightforward anyway, every technique anybody learns on the Axe-Fx for dialing in tone is a transferable skill for just knowing how to dial in a good tone in any rig. That stuff about knowing where to cut lows and highs, etc. all that applies to analog rigs too.

Even IR selection can apply to live tube rigs if you don't want to mic a cab, but instead want to send your signal to the PA by tapping your speaker jack with a reactive load or something and applying an IR after that. And to be honest, every single time I hear a real mic compared to a carefully selected IR these days, I always prefer the sound of the IR... so I'd even say learning how to choose and work with IR's is a transferable skill too.
 
Last edited:
TheGreatGreen said:
The good thing about the Axe-Fx's learning curves are, aside from the truly proprietary stuff like figuring out how to place and link blocks on the grid, which is pretty straightforward anyway, every technique anybody learns on the Axe-Fx for dialing in tone is a transferable skill for just knowing how to dial in a good tone in any rig. That stuff about knowing where to cut lows and highs, etc. all that applies to analog rigs too.

Even IR selection can apply to live tube rigs if you don't want to mic a cab, but instead want to send your signal to the PA by tapping your speaker jack with a reactive load or something and applying an IR after that. And to be honest, every single time I hear a real mic compared to a carefully selected IR these days, I always prefer the sound of the IR... so I'd even say learning how to choose and work with IR's is a transferable skill too.
Click to expand...
100% agree. Makes you approach your sound like an audio engineer which I think is a good thing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top