Are there any guitar plugins that can rival Axe FX?

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Dingleberries

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I’m scraping by with Bias on iPad for now, until I get my pc built, but it sounds pretty horrid. It sounds and reacts like someone went in with a parametric eq and thinned out all the frequencies. I’m considering holding out for the Axe FX III, but in the mean time, is there any decent guitar plugins for PC that can give the Axe FX line a run for there money? Thank you in advance.
 
Yes, but it's pretty specific and makes sense if you're the type that buys a modeler with 500 amp sims but use only a couple.

 
danyeo":3itnoqhc said:
Yes, but it's pretty specific and makes sense if you're the type that buys a modeler with 500 amp sims but use only a couple.

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Thank you very much! In fact, that is exactly what I tend to do, only use a few amp sims out of a bunch.
 
Yeah, it's called "BIAS". Or, at least, "BIAS Desktop" on the PC.





 
lll":bjmitk5c said:
Yeah, it's called "BIAS". Or, at least, "BIAS Desktop" on the PC.





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Thank you, I may give it a try, but in the demos I’ve heard, the Fractal stuff pretty much destroyed it imo.
 
BIAS is not on par with Axe FX. Helix Native is reasonable for the price, but you can't expect a few hundred bucks on a plugin to rival a $2k piece of gear.
 
Spaceboy":27pypa61 said:
BIAS is not on par with Axe FX. Helix Native is reasonable for the price, but you can't expect a few hundred bucks on a plugin to rival a $2k piece of gear.
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Good point, that’s mainly why I’m planning on the Axe FX III. It’s a shame I wont take full advantage of what all it offers, but I cant argue with the sound quality.
 
You need to consider your uses. Do you need a $2500 modeler to play at home? If you plan to gig with it, you have to consider the cost of the floor controller, racks and peripheral equipment, power amp and cabinet or FRFR speakers, etc. I have BIAS Pro and had BIAS 2 but returned it. I have Helix Native and S-Gear at the moment. I really only use Helix Native, it's a great all-in-one solution for my needs, which are only at home practice and songwriting. I use a Suhr RL with select impulses for real recording at home. It's much cheaper and as satisfying as the Axe FX for me, and I've owned three versions of the Axe FX and the original Kemper. Great units, leagues better than plugins I've used, and would have kept them if cost was not a consideration, but they are not worth it for my uses. I found them to be a pain in the ass for band use. I'm like you in that I float towards a couple main amp models, and the effects I use are rather simple, so all the extra DSP power and options were a waste for me.
 
Dingleberries":ebla7zow said:
I’m scraping by with Bias on iPad for now, until I get my pc built, but it sounds pretty horrid. It sounds and reacts like someone went in with a parametric eq and thinned out all the frequencies. I’m considering holding out for the Axe FX III, but in the mean time, is there any decent guitar plugins for PC that can give the Axe FX line a run for there money? Thank you in advance.
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No.

There are some very good plug ins but none of them can touch Fractal.
 
Helix native and S gear both have a free trial. I have an AX8 and S gear. Fractal is far superior but for a hundred bucks S gear is pretty dam good and very handy for recording. Much better than Bias or and of the others I've tried. I downloaded Helix native but have not tried it yet.
 
S-Gear sounds good if you are comfortable with it's tonal limitations. For me, it's rarely touched because a good 60% of the sounds I want are el84/Vox-based.
 
BrokenFusion":tkfqehkd said:
Helix native and S gear both have a free trial. I have an AX8 and S gear. Fractal is far superior but for a hundred bucks S gear is pretty dam good and very handy for recording. Much better than Bias or and of the others I've tried. I downloaded Helix native but have not tried it yet.
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Thank you brother, much appreciated
 
Dingleberries":2937t9rz said:
Thank you, I may give it a try, but in the demos I’ve heard, the Fractal stuff pretty much destroyed it imo.
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The thing with BIAS is it takes time to figure out and you've gotta tweak it. A lot of people have the attention span of a gnat or are just lazy, and all they want to do is plug in, pick a patch and go.

I get fantastic results that are as good or sometimes better than Fractal (or any modeler) with BIAS (PC) and a little "studio magic".

I also help the process by running into a UA 2-610 with NOS Mullards. ;)
 
lll":ym6kf1k1 said:
Dingleberries":ym6kf1k1 said:
Thank you, I may give it a try, but in the demos I’ve heard, the Fractal stuff pretty much destroyed it imo.
Click to expand...

The thing with BIAS is it takes time to figure out and you've gotta tweak it. A lot of people have the attention span of a gnat or are just lazy, and all they want to do is plug in, pick a patch and go.

I get fantastic results that are as good or sometimes better than Fractal (or any modeler) with BIAS (PC) and a little "studio magic".

I also help the process by running into a UA 2-610 with NOS Mullards. ;)
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I like your Bias clips a lot, but your use of the $2200 tube mic preamp in front of it is going to be very misleading for most normal users. Hey, check out how fast my Honda Civic is. Oh, btw... it has a Ferrari engine in it. :)
 
Why not buy an Axe Standard or Ultra or a II for now ? Prices on the Standard or Ultra aren’t horrendous...
 
Reaxis is the best plugin I've used. Helix Native is a close second, but I'll freely admit that beyond the Mark IV lead channel sim, I have grown dissatisfied with Helix. Check out the various Thermionik offerings as well. Good trial options and the tones are up with the better plugins I've tried.

My experience is that the Fractal offerings sound better than all of these.

Reaxis is truly very good though and combined with a separate IR loader like Torpedo Wall Of Sound, quite flexible.
 
EvilBatman":1rf67dn8 said:
Reaxis is the best plugin I've used. Helix Native is a close second, but I'll freely admit that beyond the Mark IV lead channel sim, I have grown dissatisfied with Helix. Check out the various Thermionik offerings as well. Good trial options and the tones are up with the better plugins I've tried.

My experience is that the Fractal offerings sound better than all of these.

Reaxis is truly very good though and combined with a separate IR loader like Torpedo Wall Of Sound, quite flexible.
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W
Thank you very much, I'm gonna have to check that out.
 
paulyc":38d8zosn said:
Why not buy an Axe Standard or Ultra or a II for now ? Prices on the Standard or Ultra aren’t horrendous...
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That's a fair point, but that stuff is quite a few years old, so I'm gonna wait and see what the FX III has to offer.
 
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