Axe_FX II Rigs, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Digital Modelling.

Drew_TNBD

So @Si_ ... what's the plan? What rig are you going for now?

Si_

Currently using my Friedman Pink Taco.  Sounds miles better than the AxeFX.. 

Drew_TNBD

You tease

I've been using the Friedman HBE model on the Axe quite a bit recently. It's very nice, makes me want the real thing!

I'm going to go meet up with Clarky tomorrow to hear his rig. At the moment, the Axe is a great recording tool for me, but I'm not sold for anything other than that so far. Through my valve power sections it doesn't sound as good as my Diezel D-Moll.

octatonic

Si_ said:

Currently using my Friedman Pink Taco.  Sounds miles better than the AxeFX.. 

Are you 100% done with the Axe FX now?

Would you consider the Fractal FX8 floorboard when it comes out?

Si_

100% done with digital.. It just doesn't work for me.. no matter what my mindset is, it's just not as good as a valve amp IMHO. 

There fantastic units, fantastic for recording and studio work, great for Pro musicians touring around the world, but I bought the pink Taco, plugged it straight into a cab, plugged a Les Paul in front and B A N G, there was that Valve tone.. the AxeFX is 95% there, but that last 5% makes all the difference. The AxeFx is just lacking something, there isn't the buzz or feel of a valve amp there, they obviously work for a lot of people, and don't work for others. @Drew_fx very curious to know your thoughts if you ever go get to gig it

Sold almost all of the rig now, just 1 bit left, looking to get either a Brown Eye or a Helios with the cash.

Drew_TNBD

I will let you know how I get on tomorrow with Clarky.

octatonic

Chek out the FX8- it is an Axe FX without the modelling- so basically an FX unit, designed for 4 cable method.

It handles channel switching and you can integrate a pedal.

Saves the tap dancing with different pedals but still quite portable, unlike a lot of switching systems.

Si_

Yea, noticed it on the forums. I'm not really a big FX user so it doesn't really appeal to me (plus it's bound to be expensive).

Not a digital chip in sight...

Drew_TNBD

That Stoneham amp looks sick as fuck

Clarky

here's a thought [that seems to be missed by a lot of folk]..

the Axe still gets fw updates that are related to the amps.. Cliff has some sort of  brainwave and off he goes on a voyage of discovery.. that tells you that the Axe is not 100% exactly the same as a valve amp.. and maybe it never will be.. but then.. a year ago it was very very close.. and now it's even closer..

but my take on this is different.. do I really care that the VH4 model is 100% exactly the same as a VH4?? and the answer is... nope ! !

so what do I care about?? I care about sounding really good, feeling really good, no matter if the tone is 100% accurate, or even just 50% accurate.. it really don't matter to me..

the VG-99 modelling is nowhere near as close as the Axe.. it's "JCM800" model is not that close [not like the Axe].. however, it's tone is in the same ball park.. so if you change your thinking frmo "I want a JCM800" to "I want a bright crunchy tone", then the VG-99's model with start you off in the place..

so... the VG-99's modelling is miles away from the Axe, does that mean that it's not possible to get great tones from the VG-99?? not at all.. I've managed to get some awesome tones out of the VG-99.. and that's because my aim is to get the VG sounding great in a way that I think is great.. rather than trying to get it to sound exactly like a specific amp..

the long and the short of it is... do you want to sound amazing? or do you want to sound exactly like the real thing??

if you want to sound amazing then these units can be awesome for carving out your owbn voice..

if you want to sound / feel 100% exactly like the real thing, you're best off going out and getting the real thing..

the principle question is always.. what is it that best meets your needs?

guitarfishbay

Clarky said:

the principle question is always.. what is it that best meets your needs?

One of everything, a team of roadies, and a tech to press the buttons for me.  )

Clarky

guitarfishbay said:

Clarky said:

the principle question is always.. what is it that best meets your needs?

One of everything, a team of roadies, and a tech to press the buttons for me.  )

you forgot to mention the girls, the leather and the machismo

Si_

Clarky said:

but my take on this is different.. do I really care that the VH4 model is 100% exactly the same as a VH4?? and the answer is... nope ! !

That's not the issue IMHO, I don't know what 90% of the amps in the AxeFX should sound like because I've never heard the original amps, so I don't care how close they are to them. The issue I find is that the AxeFX sounds great in isolation, and when you use it for a few months you get used to it's "sound", until you then play a Valve amp again and you really notice what the digital modelling is missing. It's that last few percentage of the puzzle that's missing.

It's not something I can put my finger on, but there is something more alive about a true amp that the digital modelling still can't capture. On a recording, or in a studio there is probably less difference, and certainly from what I've heard, there almost identical. But when you get it to volume in a room through a speaker cab it's just lacking something.

Does the AxeFx (or any modeller for that matter) sound great, yes, does it sound as great as a quality valve amplifier, not in my opinion. 

However, horses for courses, each to their own, every dog has it's day, whatever analogy you want to use. 

octatonic

Remember the Alamo.

Clarky

Si_ said:

Clarky said:

but my take on this is different.. do I really care that the VH4 model is 100% exactly the same as a VH4?? and the answer is... nope ! !

That's not the issue IMHO, I don't know what 90% of the amps in the AxeFX should sound like because I've never heard the original amps, so I don't care how close they are to them. The issue I find is that the AxeFX sounds great in isolation, and when you use it for a few months you get used to it's "sound", until you then play a Valve amp again and you really notice what the digital modelling is missing. It's that last few percentage of the puzzle that's missing.

It's not something I can put my finger on, but there is something more alive about a true amp that the digital modelling still can't capture. On a recording, or in a studio there is probably less difference, and certainly from what I've heard, there almost identical. But when you get it to volume in a room through a speaker cab it's just lacking something.

Does the AxeFx (or any modeller for that matter) sound great, yes, does it sound as great as a quality valve amplifier, not in my opinion. 

However, horses for courses, each to their own, every dog has it's day, whatever analogy you want to use. 

I do see where you're coming from.. I think some amps seem to translate to modelling better than others..

In particular, the real VH4 ch3 has this magic feel that the Axe has never quite been able capture..

I love it's tone though and the Axe does get that, so I tend only to reamp with that model

Drew_TNBD

Well that was a bloody interesting day. Will do a bit of a write up once I'm properly home and fed. Suffice to say... think I want a Marshall Valvestate 8008!

ThePrettyDamned

Looking forward to this!

guitarfishbay

Over the Matrix?  That is interesting.

Clarky

yup.. a very interesting day indeedy

Drew_TNBD

Okay... so.... big thanks to @Clarky for inviting me along and carting all his gear into the studio. Nice to see @Handsome_Chris pop by as well!

Here is the scoop...

We had Clarky's two Morgan flying V's and my Orville Les Paul. Clarky bought his Two Marshall 4x12s, one a 1960B Lead and the other a JCM900 1960B. Matrix GT1000 and a Marshall Valvestate 8008. Axe FX then went into one of these poweramps and out into the cabs at 4ohms each side - Clarky will correct me if I've got this wrong.

So first off we listened to some of Clarky's presets for his various bands. This was using the Matrix amp. It sounded pretty good. I wasn't entirely sold on the low-end, but put it down to differences in taste between what I'd go for and what Clarky would go for. Also his guitars are a bit brighter than mine. But it did sound good, and quite amp like. I wouldn't have thought the extra 10-15% of tone was really a problem. I would've been quite happy to play a gig with those sounds.

There was a bit of ice-pickyness, but the global EQ sorted that out. This was the first time since November that Clarky had used the Axe through his cabs, so his objective was to put firmware 15 through its paces in a live setting.

Then it was my turn. I put my guitar in, and we went through some clean tones. Deliberately steered clear of the Fender models, as they're what I've been using at home and just fancied a change. It so happened that the test preset I sent Clarky had the USA Clean 1 model loaded in it, so had a bash on that. Very convincing. Quite nice lows, snappy highs. Add my slow-rate phase 90 sound, add my reverse delay and digital delay, and then the reverb... and bobs your auntie - you've got the basic clean Tacoma sound. Piss of pissssss.

Then high-gain amps. Started off with a Fryette D60 model, and it sounded bad. Don't know why, but I couldn't get a good sound out of it, even when I tweaked the saturation and overdrive boost and what not. So we thought, screw that, and jumped over to Das Metall. Now THAT is what we wanted. Very nice high-gain sound, very little tweaks required. Cut switch on. Saturation set to 'ideal' mode. Gain around 7. Bass 4, mids 7, treble 5. Depth 4, presence 5. Master volume 5. It sounded good. I played some Tool riffs and a few Tacoma riffs, and it wasn't miles apart from my Diezel D-Moll if I'm honest. Perhaps a hair brighter than the real amp... but then, this isn't a model of the D-Moll, it's a model of the VH-4.

Then we tried the Dizzy VH4, the Herbert, Recto Orange, Angel Savage, dialing in each of them to sound the best through that system.

Worth noting that there was no real ice-pickyness to speak of at this point. At home I very rarely use the low cut switch, but today at live volumes I was finding I needed to use the lowcut switch and then bring back the lows using the depth knob in the power section. This resulted in it actually sounding clearer and more defined, and I preferred it to just throwing a tubescreamer pedal in front of it like you would a real valve amp. It worked well with each amp.

We did some more clean tests; 5153 Green was a favourite. Now in my opinion, it only bore a minor semblance to the real amp. At least the 50-watter that I used to own. I could not get clean tones this good from the 50-watter. These clean tones were great. The sort of thing where you're constantly on the edge, and digging in slightly would give you all these lush harmonics. The real amp just distorts and gets mushy. The model doesn't do that. Could be down to differences between the real world 50-watter and 100-watter perhaps? In any case, we were both really surprised at how good it sounded. One of the Diezel Herbert channels set to clean sounded killer as well, but broke up much later.

Now at this point, Clarky shows me a bunch of his tone morphing presets. Where he can go from clean+phaser+delay+reverb to straight up RIFFAGE on a single expression pedal. Not once does it lose body or sound thin and weedy, like what you get if you crank a Recto and roll back your guitar volume. No, this was full and proud across the board. All of his presets have some of this morphology in them, and I have to say... I'm sold on that aspect of performance. I'm going to try to switch.

We also did turn down each of the cabs and limited ourselves to just one amp model coming through one speaker. It still sounded good, not quite as loud, but detailed enough to work for a live sound.

But there was still a bit of nag in my head. It didn't sound quite as good as my Diezel D-Moll into a cab does. It was good enough, and you'd be happy to use those sounds I expect. But it was missing something - I dunno.. fuck it, call it mojo if you want. Low-end thump... smoothness, trouser-flapping cock-rocket frequencies.. whatever. It just kinda lacked it. On a whim Clarky suggested trying out the Marshall, even saying that it sounded pretty much the same as the Matrix.

Well I have to say, I disagree. The Marshall sounded soooooooo different - at least when the valvestate option was enabled. In linear mode, they were close to one another. But the valvestate option just sounded fucking lush as tits covered in honey!

The only comparison I can really draw that people will get is like ... when you all listened to those Blackstar ID videos, and they disable the TVP button. Without the TVP button.... you're talking Matrix amp. Pretty good... the tone is there, but it lacks that special thing. With the TVP button, those amps came alive in the demos and made you want to go out and buy one, because holy shit that sounds good!! .... well at that point you're talking Marshall valvestate. It really was that night and day to me. The Valvestate glued everything together, smoothed out some of the high-mid frequencies, and brought back some of the lowend THUMP I was kind of missing with the Matrix. It filled out the sound and gave it that whizz-pop-bang mojo vibe that we all love from our stacks.

I don't know if the Matrix 1600 model is any different, but to me, as soon as I heard the Marshall I lost all interest in buying the Matrix. This really did sound as good as valves. Dial in my D-Moll to sound like Das Metall, get the levels matched and go through the same cab and I really suspect that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I think even Clarky is now considering going back to the Marshall and using the Matrix as his backup - *gulp!*

So I just found a guy who tried to sell his Valvestate on ebay but it didn't sell. I text him to buy it and I'm picking it up from him next week when he's down in London. I was that impressed that I came home and immediately started looking for one to buy.

Now there will be some differences. I'll be going through a single 4x12 cab. But we tested for that, and I still liked the tones. I don't have the MFC anymore, I have the FCB1010, so switching-wise I'm going to have to think it through carefully and think about what I need to tackle.

All in all, a really interesting and revealing day. I wouldn't have thought to come away with this result. If I'm honest, on the back of last nights band rehearsal where my D-Moll and regular pedalboard sounded utterly fan-fucking-tastic... I half expected to go into the room and come out with "it's good, but it's not as good as my main rig..." and that really hasn't happened.