Axe FX II ~ Am I crazy or just stupid?

[Korbl]

Hello everyone.

For a while now, I have been researching and looking into the Axe FX II as a bass player. I've heard and read a lot about the pros and cons of it as a guitar player but unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot ( from what I can find ) on bass players using it. What I have been thinking/wanting to do is this:

Small shows - using normal rig which consists of a Markbass LMII and a Markbass 104HR. No need to get crazy when doing the typical bass player gig.

Solo bass and larger/touring shows - AXE FXII with a fractal audio MFC-101 midi controller, Boomerang 3 Phrase Sampler ( getting soon, mainly used for solo bass material ) with the LMII, plug directly into PA. Doing this of course would save room and time dealing with the cab. Also, from my experience touring with metal bands, the sound guys always plug me in via direct.

I've been thinking that, because of the stuff I like to do, I could create and use all of the tones,sounds and effects just by using the Axe instead of getting lots and lots of pedals. I do realize that it does cost a lot of money as of right now but I'm really trying to figure out if it's exactly the right thing to do. I wish I could just try out one for a year before making the leap haha. I would love to get my fellow TB'ers thoughts on this.

[JimmyM]

I know a couple dudes who have the Axe FX and love it. But they're guitarists For bass, they seem wildly behind the curve. The only bass model I know of for the Axe FX is an Ampeg model, which is all I'd need, but I don't think they have bass players first and foremost in their minds. The effects may be cool, but to this day I haven't found an all in one FX unit that violates what I call "The Law Of The Multi-FX," which is 3 effects will be good, another 3 or 4 will be adequate, and the rest will suck. Then again, that's the price you pay for portability.

[DeltaPhoenix]

For $2200...no thanks. I would rather make a killer pedal board.

[superbassman2000]

I've been interested in the AxeFX too--I don't see an issue using them, especially for solo bass stuff. I would check on the EQs and whatnot to make sure that you can get the bottom end that you want from them, and I wouldn't even worry about the modelling on them--just go direct. By the sound of it, you already do anyways.
Not to outright disagree with JimmyM, but I outright disagree with JimmyM. There are plenty of multi-FX options that can compete with pedals. My beef is that most bassists here on talkbass are comparing a 200 dollar multiFX box with 200 dollar single effect pedals, and I don't think that's fair. Most people in general (guitar players too) seem to do it, but they don't even give equivalent multiFX systems a chance, like the eventide harmonizers, the high end lexicons and tc electronics, and when they do, they get so overwhelmed with the options that they throw them in the junk pile because they don't come with the presets they want right out of the box.

If you are getting the AxeFX in hopes that you find your sound right out of the box, you'll wonder why you spent 2200 bucks on it, but if you really know what sound you want, then you'll be able to zero it in with precision. you said that you were using the LMII with it, and I believe their FX loop is parallel, so that'll be something you want to be aware of, so if you plan on one of your effect patches being a very treble heavy tone, you won't get a whole lot of effect, because your LMII is still there, so you'll want to plan for that. Personally, i'd bypass the whole LMII for your solo stuff and go through the AxeFX solely, and that way you have complete control over your tone.

[Andy Will]

I bought and tried the Axe-fx Ultra route for my rig and it didn't work out for me.
The thing you'll need to account for is that you will still need a poweramp or as Superbassman pointed out, your amp unless you want to spend all your time playing with Headphones or through studio monitors or a PA system.

I know some people who are doing amazing things with the Axe-fx and maybe it will work great for if you have the spare cash and a lot of time for programming and studying all the options available.

For me the downsides were as follows:
1) You really need to understand frequencies you are aiming for when programming your Bass sound as the Ampeg wasn't my ideal amp.
2) I spent ages trying to get a sound like my Aguilar amp programmed in, but was still having to use my Aguilar as a poweramp (kinda counter-productive).
3) Harmony tracking lacked the range/speed of my Whammy IV and the depth of my Eventide Eclipse/Pitchfactor (tracking on low notes wasn't good).
4) Several other effects were heavily voiced for guitar even with some tweaking.
5) There aren't any plans for any extended support or improvements for Bass Guitar.

On the other hand, with Guitar it is freakin' amazing!!!
But as I said for my Bass rig it worked out being a very expensive DI box which still required external pedals to get the sounds I wanted and was used to.

Maybe there have been some more Bass-friendly tweaks that improve things for Bass Players in the Axe-fx 2 and if I had more spare cash and time for experimenting would definitely give it a go again. Also, if they release the rumoured FX only model I'm sure To buy one, but for now I can get everything I want from my amp and Pedaltrain mini.

This isn't a slam on Fractal as I really loved it but not all the boxes were ticked for my requirements. Plus most venues I play don't have good enough PA set-ups for going without a proper backline.

Hope this helps to calm the G.A.S. a bit and definitely give it a go if you can afford to. Remember all the negatives mentioned above only relate to how I perceive my sound and rig so, have a chat with the other Talkbass members who use the Axe-fx to get more views before taking the plunge!

Hope this helps!

[Bryan R. Tyler]

I have an Axe-FX Ultra as the main provider of my effects (I only play bass). I still have a couple pedals that I keep to cover the few areas the Axe FX doesn't cover- a couple synthy gated fuzzes, a bitcrusher, an EHX Freeze, and a Source Audio envelope filter. The Axe FX II, as opposed to the Ultra, does have some bitcrushing options, a delay hold which apparently acts similar to the EHX Freeze, and if you want to take the time to do it, you can program in quite a wide variety of envelope filter sounds. It really can act as an all-in-one effects unit if you don't need the truly gated fuzzes. I've been considering putting my Ultra up for sale to fund an Axe II.

The frequency range on nearly all the effects goes down to 20hz, and you can blend in clean signal in a variety of ways, so you don't have to worry about that area. There doesn't need to be any bass-specific effects as all the effects can be tailored to bass.

There is only the Ampeg model as Jimmy mentioned, but many of the amp models sound great with bass and the Axe II allows users to create their own IRs, so you could program in new amps of your own. There's also getting to be more bass cab models to choose from. But if you're running through a Markbass head, you may want to skip the whole amp/cab modeling thing anyways. I skip it at this point as I like using a standard head- makes me wish you could buy a 1ru effects-only version of the Axe FX.

Andy Will is correct in that the harmonizer (and tuner) don't properly track down to a low E. I'll have to disagree about the speed though, and the polyphonic tracking is excellent. I've owned a Whammy IV, a Bass Whammy, a Pitchfactor, an Eventide Eclipse, and others (POGs, HOGs, etc.), and you can dial it in to polyphonically track as well or better than all of them, with the exception of low notes.

You can get the unit to do almost anything sound-wise, but it will take quite a bit of time to learn to program it to do so. There are a lot of ways to improve your patches that you may not even think of- download patches other folks make and seeing how they constructed them can be a real eye-opener. The fact that you can edit everything easily on your computer is essential when you're doing that much experimentation- I'd never use it if I had to use the front panel only.

Also, you may want to look into the Gordius Little Giant series of MIDI foot controllers. They're actually more powerful and offer a lot more interesting options in how you set up the controller than the Fractal MFC, particularly if you're controlling MIDI devices other than the Axe FX as well. I use a Looperlative looper which is rackmounted and MIDI-controlled, so I use one foot controller for everything.

[Andy Will]

Hey Bryan, was hoping you'd spot the thread to help out!
You've had a lot more time with the unit so is great to hear it's working well for you.

Have you had the chance to try the whole rig live yet?

[Bryan R. Tyler]

Pfft, I don't do anything live I'm just a hobbyist. I've played it in front of a bunch of people and it sounds great, but haven't dealt with going direct to the board with it or anything. There's been several firmware upgrades that have improved the sound and several features, so there's a fair chance some of the effects that gave you trouble were improved upon by the time I really started getting into mine.

One cool thing the Axe II has that we Ultra owners missed is that there are four knobs on the front that you can dedicate to whatever you want per preset. One reason I went back to using a normal amp instead of a poweramp (using the Axe as a pre) was for easy EQ changes- now you can do that with the Axe II.

[IntrepidCellist]

The AFX-II has better tracking than the AFX-I.

[MikeBass]

A good friend of mine is a beta tester/developer for them (and the owner of The Gear Page - Powered by vBulletin) .
It's the real deal. I would challange pretty much anyone to identify the actual amp vs. the AXE FX version (not sure on the Ampeg model though as I've only spent a little bit of time with it).
But for bass, they are as others mentioned, behind.
But, they are going to start on a few more bass specfic amps and such from what I was told.

[FreaqyFrequency]

Originally Posted by IntrepidCellist

The AFX-II has better tracking than the AFX-I.

I haven't read that Cliff did anything with the pitch block between units, though I have made a few bumps up the Wish List to implement a bass mode to allow for tracking below 50 Hz. As for the speed, I'm in Brian's corner - picks up on the pitch very quickly. Reminiscent of my Turbo Tuner ST-200, in fact.

I recently sold my Ultra, as I encountered some costly car problems, and had purchased mine 4 months prior to the II coming out anyway. I felt like I had bought an Apple product. *sigh*

But, make no mistake about it: this box violates JimmyM's ultimate law of the Multi-FX, and on many levels. You will never find another box which compromises so very little. Cliff once stated in an interview, in fact, that he found a way to implement a chorus block which used 10x more CPU than the standard implementation, but sounded significantly better as well. He gives himself plenty of room to work with in selecting the DSPs he uses, which is why he's able to code in some pretty amazing-sounding algorithms.

For distortion junkies, I think this box is pretty much a dream. If you have a bassist idol who uses 2 or 3 dirt boxes or guitar amps in parallel with the dry signal, it is a breeze to program that in on here. I bought mine originally, in fact, because I'm a Wolstenholme junkie, and it much more than satisfied my needs, and got me Hysteria/TIRO/etc. tones which I was supremely happy with. Of course, the rabbit hole extends far deeper than that; be prepared to lose yourself in it.

Another reason I sold it was ultimately because of a reason I had in common with Andy: it was rapidly becoming a $2000 DI box, and little more, for my current uses.

If I were a studio engineer or producer, I would snap the Axe II up in a heartbeat. The depth of what can be achieved with it is just amazing, and the USB functionality will prove to be invaluable, like having another computer full of awesome-sounding plugins to work with outside of your DAW.

Not really any competitors with it out there right now, to speak of. It's in a league of its own.

[IntrepidCellist]

The AFX-II is incredible on guitar; it'd be too much for me on bass these days, but in terms of "feel" it's leaps and bounds ahead of the Standard and Ultra.

[FreaqyFrequency]

Curious @IntrepidCellist: Where had you read the bit about tracking better?

[fasto]

Fractal Audio needs to show us bass players much more LOVE (more bass presets/amps/speakers), then i´m in.

[FreaqyFrequency]

Fairly sure the presets won't change at this point; Cliff makes some slight tweaks for level with recent firmware updates, but otherwise they are what they are.

You can supply up to 50 of your own bass cab IRs, which you can either make yourself or download from various IR libraries across the internet, RedWirez being one of the most reputable.

If what Mike says is true, then there may be new bass amps coming up with the brand new pentode modeling Cliff introduced in 3.00. As of now, though, I don't really see what's to stop you from getting a monster bass tone. It's in there right now.

Also, of interest to those of you who turn away because of the rackmount factor, check this out:

http://www.guitarmessenger.com/inter...fractal-audio/

TL;DR edition: They may well have a floor-based unit coming out soon, set to compete with the M9 and M13...

[Seattle_BassMan]

I just recently received my Axe-FX 2. I bought it primarily for use with guitar, but since my live gigs are mostly all bass, I decided to plug my Nash J-bass into it. To my ears, the Ampeg SVT model is quite good. I was able to get a sound that works well for me right away.

However, the most compelling feature for me is the ability to use it as a pitch shifter a la "Morpheus Droptune" pedal. As I was scrolling through the guitar patches I found that patch #75 is a full step drop for guitar. It worked very well on my guitar, so I copied the settings over to my bass patch....and voila I'm now playing a bass tuned a full step lower. So, I decided to push the limits a little more. I took it down another 1/2 step, then another....I have found that I'm able to use it to recreate a virtual 5 string bass (BEAD)....and it sounds pretty damn good. No, it's not absolutely perfect, but in a live setting it would be very passable. Since I gave up dragging my 5-string around about a year ago, this should be a god send to use with my 4-string on the few songs where I need access to those lower notes.

For me this totally justifies the price since it effectively can be a replacement/stand in for a 5-string and also simplifies my load in/setup/tear down, etc.

I also quite like the BB Pre distortion to add a little grit, and the studio compressor is quite good.....bye bye pedal board...you're history now.

As always, your mileage may vary. What works for my particular situation may not work for yours. But I have found it to be a very compelling device so far. I have not yet played it live, but it will be going out with me on my next few gigs and we'll see how well it does in a live situation.

On a side note, I used it on my guitar last night for a solo show I do and I simply loved the preset called "buttery" on my tele. It's a nice grit that worked very well with that guitar.

Keep gigging :-)

[ksandvik]

Might as well get a laptop running Amplitude/Guitar Rig et rest with bass amp simulations. Now, in a live environment, it's really hard to get the amp bass simulation sounds stick out. Especially i a loud environment. Recording is another story.

[Schizoid75]

I just got an Axe two recently and used it live for the first time last night. Like just about everything in life, the value of the Axe will depend on your priorities and what you compare it to. For me, I had a fairly large pedal board. It took up too much real estate at some of the smaller clubs I play and rearranging things was something I never wanted to do. Ergonomically, it was hard to get everything exactly where I wanted it. If I decided to remove a pedal or buy something else, major surgery was frequently required. It sounded good and was easy to use.

I guess I should mention that I've been running direct into the PA for a couple of years now. So that's no change for me. I just get a little bass in my monitor and I'm good to go.

With the Axe, I'm back to a rack setup with just the Fractal foot controller in front of me. Much less real estate and much more ergonomic to use live. Easier to hit the buttons I want. Plus, I can designate just about any button the controller to anything I want.

The unit itself is a tweaker's delight, but amazingly user friendly for as much crap as it's got in there. It's super high quality, super high fidelity. The distortions and amp simulations are glorious. I'm still working on the synth, but it's getting there. I find the tracking to be very fast and less finicky that my Markbass Super Synth. I find the tracking good until I get to low G on my E string. Above that it's great.

This unit does a lot of things better than any alternative anywhere near it's price range. For the things it doesn't do the best, it still does them very, very well. To have all that in one box with almost unlimited customization options was very appealing. I can basically redo my entire rig any time I want just by spending time tweaking the unit.

My $0.02.

[MikeBass]

I haven't taken the plunge into one yet is I really don't need as much as it can do.
I would use all of about 20% TOPS of it.
Plus, it's bit more than I want to haul around.

It does sound awesome to my ears.

[fokof]

To the OP FWIW :

Have you thought about the VB99 ?


I have one and I only need to carry this , the FC300 controller (the integration between both is sublime) and a monitor or IEM.

The bass emulation are from good to perfect , lots of FX modules , filters , pitch , ability to have 3 sounds at once , you can split the sounds between strings , if you want the 3 lower strings as a bass and the 3 upper as a guitar or a synth. Independent pitch shift on all strings.
The tracking is perfect down to the lowB / no latency (very low)
The amp section is good , not perfect but good. I must add that I don't use it much and never was into bass amp "tone" , being a DI guy.

There is no looper.

I personaly use Live with my MBP so all the gear with all the tones in the world and the badest looper fits in a medium sport bag.



I use RCF ART series as my monitoring.