Fractal Audio AxeFx vs. Digidesign Eleven Rack

[chopshop777]

Which one do you think ? I got the Axe Fx on order coming, and I think it kicks the hell out of the Eleven Rack, however the Eleven Rack does have some impressive features, but there's no way it can be a competition for Axe Fx, Am I wrong ?
Cheers
Ed

 

[glpg80]

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=54866&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=eleven+rack

that should help you out bro

 

[jabps]

Well some guy did a cool recording with the 11 on Hugeracks and IMO it sounds amazing. I've personally cut tracks with the plug in and it's not bad as well.

 

[manyaxes]

Which one do you think ? I got the Axe Fx on order coming, and I think it kicks the hell out of the Eleven Rack, however the Eleven Rack does have some impressive features, but there's no way it can be a competition for Axe Fx, Am I wrong ?
Cheers
Ed

Don't worry, come back in a few months and nobody will remember the eleven rack. The axefx has been under rigtalk's spotlight far longer than any tube amp ever. Powerball, Cobra, JVM, all came and went in a few months.

 

[RedRider]

Yeah but DigiDesign is just the tip of the iceberg. THe minute Fractal takes a big enough bite out of line6 and roland, they will produce something that is MUCH more on par with Fractal. RIght now it doesn't make business sense for them to compete because he just doesn't really sell enough units to truly hurt them enough to justify the manpower they would use to create a new product...but the times are coming!! You watch, I would bet the 11Rack does a GOOD bit of business and will definitely take a chunk of Fractals business...its less than half the price of the ultra AND comes with the recording software..granted its the LE software but still...for a guy like me sitting in his cave dreaming about recording, its a VERY attractive deal, 720 bucks for the entire thing if you find hte 20% coupon from MF. And while the 11 is really nice, I am SURE that there will be even more competition in the coming months...Fractal better get its game face on because its coming...no doubt about it, its just a question of when

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah but DigiDesign is just the tip of the iceberg. THe minute Fractal takes a big enough bite out of line6 and roland, they will produce something that is MUCH more on par with Fractal. RIght now it doesn't make business sense for them to compete because he just doesn't really sell enough units to truly hurt them enough to justify the manpower they would use to create a new product...but the times are coming!! You watch, I would bet the 11Rack does a GOOD bit of business and will definitely take a chunk of Fractals business...its less than half the price of the ultra AND comes with the recording software..granted its the LE software but still...for a guy like me sitting in his cave dreaming about recording, its a VERY attractive deal, 720 bucks for the entire thing if you find hte 20% coupon from MF. And while the 11 is really nice, I am SURE that there will be even more competition in the coming months...Fractal better get its game face on because its coming...no doubt about it, its just a question of when

+1...that's the thing about technology...it all tends to catch up with each other in time.

 

[muudrock]

Which one do you think ? I got the Axe Fx on order coming, and I think it kicks the hell out of the Eleven Rack, however the Eleven Rack does have some impressive features, but there's no way it can be a competition for Axe Fx, Am I wrong ?
Cheers
Ed

Don't worry, come back in a few months and nobody will remember the eleven rack. The axefx has been under rigtalk's spotlight far longer than any tube amp ever. Powerball, Cobra, JVM, all came and went in a few months.

I don't agree. The Eleven rack will be around for a good while. Remember, not everyone has $1900 to spare on a modeler.
Having owned and used both, they each have their niche. The 11R is not trying to be an Axe FX even though we try to compare the 2. It has limited effects options and far less amp, cab and mic sims. Where it does excel is in how easy you can get a great guitar sound quickly. What it does, it does very well. The Axe has waaay more power and options and better effects, but I wouldn't say it sounded better. Actually with so many options and tweakability, the Axe is probably easier to make sound bad.

Seeing that the 11R is also a PT interface, and it's other benefits--like the re-amping abilities, I'll bet it's going to be a valuable piece of gear for a lot of people.

 

[manyaxes]

The axefx has been out for more than 2 years, and new generations have come from line6, boss, digitech among others. Yet all the big names have abandoned line6 like Lincoln Brewster and many big names such as Petrucci, Friedman, Sfogli, Zappa among other famous tube amp players have said great things or have been playing it. And Fractal Audio does NOT have endorsement programs, they're too small and they spend their money on continuously improving the axefx and fixing their roof .

Even our own Ed Degenaro aka "I don't sell gear, period", has sold nearly all his amps (something like 20!) and now enjoys life carrying only his axefx on most gigs AFAIK. Gainfreak and Sam Hill have also joined the party. Just have a look at Sam's mindblowing videos.

If line6 and digitech can catch up, why haven't they done it yet? Line 6 has rapidly lost its reputation but has rereleased its xt and valve lines yet another time! With Bogner's help! It takes SKILL to make a better product.

I would gladly buy an equivalent unit for 800 bucks, I need a backup rig badly, but I know I prefer to spend 2000$ more (which I cannot afford) than waste 800$ on something not much better than a 200$ old pod, and if I'm wrong, I will buy the 800$ unit, but I don't think I am.

 

[manyaxes]

Which one do you think ? I got the Axe Fx on order coming, and I think it kicks the hell out of the Eleven Rack, however the Eleven Rack does have some impressive features, but there's no way it can be a competition for Axe Fx, Am I wrong ?
Cheers
Ed

Don't worry, come back in a few months and nobody will remember the eleven rack. The axefx has been under rigtalk's spotlight far longer than any tube amp ever. Powerball, Cobra, JVM, all came and went in a few months.

I don't agree. The Eleven rack will be around for a good while. Remember, not everyone has $1900 to spare on a modeler.
Having owned and used both, they each have their niche. The 11R is not trying to be an Axe FX even though we try to compare the 2. It has limited effects options and far less amp, cab and mic sims. Where it does excel is in how easy you can get a great guitar sound quickly. What it does, it does very well. The Axe has waaay more power and options and better effects, but I wouldn't say it sounded better. Actually with so many options and tweakability, the Axe is probably easier to make sound bad.

Seeing that the 11R is also a PT interface, and it's other benefits--like the re-amping abilities, I'll bet it's going to be a valuable piece of gear for a lot of people.

A pod x3 live is also an interface AND a floor controller with an expression pedal and you can get the plugin for reamping. Way more bang for the buck IMO. Do you think the eleven sounds and feels better than the x3?

 

[muudrock]

Which one do you think ? I got the Axe Fx on order coming, and I think it kicks the hell out of the Eleven Rack, however the Eleven Rack does have some impressive features, but there's no way it can be a competition for Axe Fx, Am I wrong ?
Cheers
Ed

Don't worry, come back in a few months and nobody will remember the eleven rack. The axefx has been under rigtalk's spotlight far longer than any tube amp ever. Powerball, Cobra, JVM, all came and went in a few months.

I don't agree. The Eleven rack will be around for a good while. Remember, not everyone has $1900 to spare on a modeler.
Having owned and used both, they each have their niche. The 11R is not trying to be an Axe FX even though we try to compare the 2. It has limited effects options and far less amp, cab and mic sims. Where it does excel is in how easy you can get a great guitar sound quickly. What it does, it does very well. The Axe has waaay more power and options and better effects, but I wouldn't say it sounded better. Actually with so many options and tweakability, the Axe is probably easier to make sound bad.

Seeing that the 11R is also a PT interface, and it's other benefits--like the re-amping abilities, I'll bet it's going to be a valuable piece of gear for a lot of people.

A pod x3 live is also an interface AND a floor controller with an expression pedal and you can get the plugin for reamping. Way more bang for the buck IMO. Do you think the eleven sounds and feels better than the x3?

I have limited experience with the x3--I really soured on the L6 stuff after a while. But, going on what I hear, the 11R does sound better and more importantly, feels better. It does react like an amp. You get that "pushback" feeling that tube amps have. You can manually set the input impedance to get some more variations on overall sound and response. I also really dig the fact that you can hear the ghost notes on the plexi model--like the real thing. Digidesign did put out a nice box with the 11R.
The re-amping is sweet feature. It's so easy.
The x3 may be an interface, but I'm a ProTools user so the L6 interface won't help me.

In a perfect world, I'd probably own all of them. Unfortunately, not right now.

 

[RedRider]

The axefx has been out for more than 2 years, and new generations have come from line6, boss, digitech among others. Yet all the big names have abandoned line6 like Lincoln Brewster and many big names such as Petrucci, Friedman, Sfogli, Zappa among other famous tube amp players have said great things or have been playing it. And Fractal Audio does NOT have endorsement programs, they're too small and they spend their money on continuously improving the axefx and fixing their roof .

Even our own Ed Degenaro aka "I don't sell gear, period", has sold nearly all his amps (something like 20!) and now enjoys life carrying only his axefx on most gigs AFAIK. Gainfreak and Sam Hill have also joined the party. Just have a look at Sam's mindblowing videos.

If line6 and digitech can catch up, why haven't they done it yet? Line 6 has rapidly lost its reputation but has rereleased its xt and valve lines yet another time! With Bogner's help! It takes SKILL to make a better product.

I would gladly buy an equivalent unit for 800 bucks, I need a backup rig badly, but I know I prefer to spend 2000$ more (which I cannot afford) than waste 800$ on something not much better than a 200$ old pod, and if I'm wrong, I will buy the 800$ unit, but I don't think I am.

THey havent done it yet because it doesnt make financial sense to do it. IT will cost them money to redesign a product to compete in the high end market. Why would they if they have millions of teenagers buying up their 500 dollar product line. They arent really making much in way of high dollar gear to appeal to the boutique user. Once there are products out there taking a significant amount of money out of their pocket then they will spend the money to compete. If the AxeFX cost 600 bucks and suddenly they were loosing 1000's of sales to them, then you would see them moving immediately...not to say they arent right now...I dont know...but I cant imagine them not starting to consider it. I dont know how many AXEfx's sell in a month but I can promise it isnt even remotely close to how many pods, gt10's, tonelabs sell....once they see their market change then they will change, but they will continue to milk the market they are in until its dry before moving on to something new. I am sure at some point the big modeling companies will step up and see them as a threat and will generate something REALLY nice....but until the point comes that they believe they will see revenue to justify their R&D cost and manufacturing cost, well they are going to milk the money they have spent as long as they can...its the way big business works...

 

[Rogue]

I haven't played the AF, but I got an 11R this weekend. It's weakness, like most modelers I've tried, is the cab/mic sims. When it first arrived, the first thing I wanted to do was run it through my cabinet with the amp sims off to see if it was going to suffice for a live thing. I was stoked. It sounded very good through my cabinet and I was sure this was the route I was taking. While maybe not as good as the real thing, it was adequate and I had a blast playing through it. Felt nice too.

Then I tried it through the computer which was where I thought it would shine. To my displeasure, I spent forever trying to dial in the right amp/mic combination. I never really got something I liked, just the best I could come up with at the time. It was ok, at best. I decided to try the Red Wirez IR convolubot (or whatever) to see what a cab/mic-less signal would sound like through one of their selections. Much better. I understand why people like the Red Wirez so much now.

I have asked the digidesign forum if they plan on putting in new cab/mic sims or opening it up for 3rd party IRs and have thus far not received an answer. I'm not sure they ever intending on putting out an expandable unit like the AxeFX.

A very cool unit if they could open it up and allow different, BETTER, cab sims in there. And it's not BAD, just lacks the cab/mic sims seem very limiting. The Greenback cab was overly dark and hardly usable, and that's my favorite speaker. The V30 sounded very V30ish, and perhaps moreso than is normal. And I'm not a fan of V30s by themselves. So, that leaves me with a cab that sounds ok, but don't really like that speaker and a cab that is too dark with the speaker I like the most. Sucks.

Other than the cab sims, it seems to be a fine unit. Like I said, I had a blast playing through my cabinet when the cab sims were off.

 

[Anonymous]

its less than half the price of the ultra AND comes with the recording software..granted its the LE software but still...for a guy like me sitting in his cave dreaming about recording, its a VERY attractive deal

Why do you say "granted its the LE software, but still..."? There's hardly any difference between the HD and LE software, except that HD supports the HD hardware. HD is all about the 3rd party plug-ins that run on the HD processors that you have to buy for huge cash, not the recording software itself...

Steve

 

[Sacha]

I just got the 11R and have had the Axe Ultra for a while, I don't think they are really that comparable features or price wise. The 11R is more along the lines of a POD, but I think it sounds and more importantly feels a good bit better. Less latency and over compressed feeling. The amp selection and FX are pretty basic but covers all the bases I would need and the interface is quite well done. For recording and laying down ideas it will work just fine for me. Pro tools interface is a nice bonus.

The Axe is in another league options wise and so far I prefer it tone wise, but it is also 3x the price so that isn't such a surprise.

 

[Anonymous]

I just got the 11R and have had the Axe Ultra for a while, I don't think they are really that comparable features or price wise. The 11R is more along the lines of a POD, but I think it sounds and more importantly feels a good bit better. Less latency and over compressed feeling. The amp selection and FX are pretty basic but covers all the bases I would need and the interface is quite well done. For recording and laying down ideas it will work just fine for me. Pro tools interface is a nice bonus.

The Axe is in another league options wise and so far I prefer it tone wise, but it is also 3x the price so that isn't such a surprise.

If you already have an Axe-FX and dig it, why buy the 11R? Were you just seeing what it could do because it was so much cheaper? Just wondering...

Steve

 

[Audioholic]

some clips of 11R posted on TGP, sounded pretty great to me.

 

[Sacha]

I just got the 11R and have had the Axe Ultra for a while, I don't think they are really that comparable features or price wise. The 11R is more along the lines of a POD, but I think it sounds and more importantly feels a good bit better. Less latency and over compressed feeling. The amp selection and FX are pretty basic but covers all the bases I would need and the interface is quite well done. For recording and laying down ideas it will work just fine for me. Pro tools interface is a nice bonus.

The Axe is in another league options wise and so far I prefer it tone wise, but it is also 3x the price so that isn't such a surprise.

If you already have an Axe-FX and dig it, why buy the 11R? Were you just seeing what it could do because it was so much cheaper? Just wondering...

Steve

Nah I use the Axe in my live rig and we have a lot more shows coming up, so it was a pain in the anus to keep taking it out of my rack and bringing it home. I needed something for teaching and recording demos / ideas etc. Another Axe would have been ideal but I can't afford that right now, so the Digi fits the bill nicely. Protools is cool too since I am into recording and have never used it, but i'd like to get more familiar with it and i've heard it's the best DAW for editing.

 

[Anonymous]

I just got the 11R and have had the Axe Ultra for a while, I don't think they are really that comparable features or price wise. The 11R is more along the lines of a POD, but I think it sounds and more importantly feels a good bit better. Less latency and over compressed feeling. The amp selection and FX are pretty basic but covers all the bases I would need and the interface is quite well done. For recording and laying down ideas it will work just fine for me. Pro tools interface is a nice bonus.

The Axe is in another league options wise and so far I prefer it tone wise, but it is also 3x the price so that isn't such a surprise.

If you already have an Axe-FX and dig it, why buy the 11R? Were you just seeing what it could do because it was so much cheaper? Just wondering...

Steve

Nah I use the Axe in my live rig and we have a lot more shows coming up, so it was a pain in the anus to keep taking it out of my rack and bringing it home. I needed something for teaching and recording demos / ideas etc. Another Axe would have been ideal but I can't afford that right now, so the Digi fits the bill nicely. Protools is cool too since I am into recording and have never used it, but i'd like to get more familiar with it and i've heard it's the best DAW for editing.

Cool, I get it now...

BTW, Logic 9 is every bit the equal of Pro Tools for editing. I'm a long time Pro Tools TDM user and I now see no reason to keep Pro Tools around (I used to edit with it and mix in Logic 8) with the editing enhancements in Logic 9 - they have the liquid audio stuff - everything...

Steve

 

[rsm]

The 11R's dynamic input looks like an interesting feature. I had an Axe-Fx Ultra for 4 months, it was overkill for my needs. I have a ToneLab LE which I use direct, it gets enough of the tones and decent feel, response to picking dynamics for the price. I liked the ToneLab enough to get a Vox modeling amp stack, and upgrade the speakers in one of the cabs where the OEM speakers were replaced by a prior owner... do they come close to the Ultra? No way. Nor do they come close to my Vox and Fender tube amps, but they provide a good fit into my solutions.

As far as modelers go today, I don't think anything comes close to the Axe-Fx; at least nothing that I have tried thus far. YMMV. The 11R may get close enough for the price, but I want to wait and see what they do with upgrades and expansion options before I would consider it.

There are two things I'm waiting for. The first is the Axe-PC plug-in (I think it will be VST based or compatible) from Fractal. I need to see what it is, how it works and what the hardware dongle will be as well. Then second is a VST floor controller to load the Axe-PC VST plugin presets into. The SM Pro Audio V-Pedal looks like it will work. Of course, neither is released yet, but I'm in no hurry. I want a good modeling software plugin package and a floor controller that I can load only what I need/want into, and use decoupled from the computer, and tweak as needed using the floor controller interface. This way, I can manage my software separate from the hardware device and upgrade each as needed. It would be great if the V-Pedal would let you upgrade memory, processors, storage, etc., like an expandable PC, but I doubt it.

At some point, I hope a few people start building a VST plugin / standalone capable computer into a hardware expandable/upgradable foot controller. The TC Electronic G-System form factor, running Fractal's Axe-PC...now that would be interesting! IMO.

YMMV

 

[thiswaythatway]

Which one do you think ? I got the Axe Fx on order coming, and I think it kicks the hell out of the Eleven Rack, however the Eleven Rack does have some impressive features, but there's no way it can be a competition for Axe Fx, Am I wrong ?
Cheers
Ed

Don't worry, come back in a few months and nobody will remember the eleven rack. The axefx has been under rigtalk's spotlight far longer than any tube amp ever. Powerball, Cobra, JVM, all came and went in a few months.

Amps like the SLO and Mark IV have been around since the early 90's and are talked about everyday here.