AXE FX-III

Loving all the IO on this thing!

 

May seem like a joke but people get attached to their rigs, and even though you are putting less into it when splitting it three ways having to sell off your axe fx and lose all your sounds when you're already in a shitty situation of band breaking up sucks balls.

Also having your own jam space is cool and all, but the Axe is such an incredible tool for home use that im it would be wanted in multiple places at once.

and unless someone is going to stay at your own specific secure practice/recording studio constantly when do you guys get time to endlessly tweak the endless settings!?!?!?!?!?!?

 

well how we get around that issue would be, just buy more gear right?. Which we all love to do haha

our Touring rig could be the suggested Axe III setup, whilst we have our Kempers/Axe IIs and HD Pros respectively, sat on our desks at home haha.

everyone loves just buying more gear (im so guilty haha)

 

I note they're bringing out new MFC's for it, will the older MFC-101 still work with it?

 

Midi functionality only. No faslink. I'm a bit disappointed by this as i like having all the buttons that the mfc has. I get the impression the new ones will be cheaper and do have some cool features ie coloured lights and 'scribble strips' and supposed to be fully programmable but have less buttons. Wait and see i guess

 

are we at a stage with these modern processors where they are already so so good, you can basically buy one "older generation" model the second a new one is announced, for alot less. And Keep that for like 2 generations worth of new models, then do the same again.
Even off the used market if you wanted to save extra $$$ although that is harsh on the company.

rinse repeat?

 

Exactly this. My Axe-fxII still sounds just as good as it did the day before they unveiled the axe-fxIII, and since there's no new "must have" features I'd be hard pressed to upgrade anytime soon.

 

especially in a mix right?

Like just how "close" to a "real" amp can we get? the Axe II and the Kemper already sounds exactly the same in a mix and they feel pretty darn convincing too. Other than even MORE effects on chains or much much more I/o, I dont see the rush to upgrade.

 

Absolutely. Yesterday I spent some time with my Axe-Fx 2 and tried comparing a few things like how tube types affect the sound and how the different quality levels of cab sims (normal 1024 sample vs ultrares) change the tone. With the preamp tubes the differences were minor, with the power tubes depending on the amp model there were more significant changes in feel and response if going from say EL84 to 6L6. Using a VOX AC30 sim going to 6L6 tubes cut the mids, made the feel stiffer and removed some of the jangle from the highs.

With the cab sims, I swear I could hear something more with Ultrares but to be honest I would be fine with the 1024 sample versions like you find on many cheaper boxes like Atomic Amplifirebox or Mooer Radar these days. It was one of those things where you would not notice without a comparison.

I'm perfectly happy with the way the Axe-Fx 2 sounds and feels and that's without touching any of the advanced settings. At the moment the Axe-Fx 3 is most likely not going to sound much different, maybe in future updates they will make it better (like what happened with Axe-Fx Std/Ultra vs Axe-Fx 2) but even then I'm going to wonder how much further they can go. I'd rather Fractal concentrated on improving the usability of their devices rather than adding more of everything.

 

Seems more of an excuse to get customers to have to buy more then one imho. Oh well I cant afford one atm anyway it looks like im gettting a few hx effects boxes and engl e530 pres for guitars. I just cant swing 2.5k atm sadly it looks killer though

 

If Fractal wanted their customers to buy a new device they would have dropped the Axe-Fx III with the Quantum update. I'm really surprised they didn't since it would have been the perfect push for customers to drop their IIs but they squeezed 9 more big updates before bringing out a new device. They even said its the same software on the the III on release and that it basically sounds the same apart from the higher quality input and converters now. The III is mostly future proofing but I don't see Cliff bringing out a 4th version of his amp models anytime soon. If anything Fractal have done a terrible job trying to market the III but the community has done all the work and the products reputation will have the waiting lists full for years to come.

 

The future proofing is the selling point, just ask Standard and Ultra users.

 

As a former Standard user, current Axe-Fx 2 owner..if I hadn't found a decent deal on the Axe-Fx 2 used I would still probably rock the Standard. I bought the 2 mostly with the hopes of slightly easier adjustability (which it has by not requiring as much tweaking as the Standard) and the future proofing. But when I bought mine about 1 year after the 2's release they were only starting to break away from the Standard. At release I could not find much reason to get the 2.

With the 3 out, I have even less reason because I don't know how much further the modeling can improve when it already sounds stellar on the 2. Going from Axe-Fx Standard to current gen Axe-Fx 2 was a marked improvement so maybe we will see something like that in a few years but right now, the 3 is just a device that offers more of everything if you need it.

 

Found this demo today scouring youtube. Thought all us gear-nerds would like it:

 

Is it true that the screen has built in axe edit?

 

The workflow has always been similar on the hardware and Axe-Edit. The main difference is that it's a lot easier to do things with a mouse than with the navigation controls offered by the Axe.

 

Yeah, Axe-Edit and the UI on the Axe-FX has always been kind of similar, it is just easier to see everything on the computer screen. I have always thought the Axe-FX was easy to use. The Axe-FX just has a ton of parameters either way. I don't think the III has "built in Axe-Edit", but I think the larger color screen makes the experience a little closer to a computer screen.

 

This had to be done

Thats one of the biggest pros for getting a II now, its near the end of its cycle bar a few minor updates and sounds great. You can dial in all your tones and just be done. Maybe Cliff will surprise us with a bunch of new things.

 

Any reason why Axe FX III cost so much? I saw the specs and it has 4 1 GHz processors and 4 GB of old DDR3 ram, thats kinda the specs of a budget smartphone these days. I guess most of the cost comes from the time actually modelling all the amps and effects and so on, as well as the pre amps. It seems like they would be able to compete with a bigger audience if the price was more in the $1500 range rather than $2500.

 

Because DSPs =/= smartphone processors. They are deliberately going for the pro audio audience.