New: Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III

[Selta]

Pitch shifting is probably one of the more talked about, tweaked, and frustrating effects in current form. I don't yet have my III, so I can't comment on its improvement.

I think what you are shooting for is possible, though I've never tried it. You'd assign a Modifier to the Pitch block, and have it control the Voice parameter - to drop a step, for instance, you'd set it to -2.

I'd actually suggest that, unless you're changing "tuning" in the middle of the song, that you use Scenes for that though. Have 5 different scenes, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 - or whatever you need. Then switch scenes as needed. You could even do this in the middle of a song as long as you're not trying to do it in the middle of a phrase where a tiny dropout would be noticed (I have examples of the dropout on my SoundCloud page if you're curious about how long it is in actual use). I think they changed/improved/added onto the Scenes concept in the III, but again, I don't have mine yet so I can't really comment a whole lot on that just yet.

Hope that helps! If not, feel free to browbeat me with the question again

 

[jimfist]

Just heard that the latest firmware for the AxeFXIII includes an updated SVT and Portaflex. Around 8min 45sec in the video below he talks about the new amps. Multi-band comp got some upgrades as well as the Cabinet Block. That's worth checking out in the video....really nice "in the room" simulation room reverb in the Cab block now. Sounds great IMO.

 

[FieldingMellish]

How do the clean jazz guitar models sound on bass? Is there a fender twin model that sounds cool with bass?

 

[pravus]

I have an AxeFX-II and was playing around recently. There are a lot of cool amp tones on it and I found several where I just couldn't switch away until I played around for awhile. Tons of stuff from clean to absolutely filthy and you can always build whatever you want using pre-existing profiles. They are fun units.

 

[BunchyMutt]

I'm thinking of replacing my large pedalboard (most of which is dedicated to a parallel processed distortion/preamp/cab sim), with an Axe FX 3. Given the information below, do you think I should NOT replace my board with an AFX3?


My board right now (there are pedals regularly being added however):

Shortcomings of the current setup:

• The pedalboard is big. It's fragile (lots of connections that could fail, knobs that could be bumped).
• Limited versatility: adding different flavors of distortion and preamps takes up limited space, adds to the cost
• As much as I try, and I've tried many, many high gain distortion/preamp pedals and paired them with the Two Notes Cab M+ and the Source Audio EQ2 (as a cab sim), there's always something missing. It's a dynamics and feel thing, there's hearing fatigue I'm assuming from the eq- generated cab sim as opposed to IRs which provide some compression and more texture.

Issues I'm hoping the AFX3 will solve:

• Cab sims that don't sound boxy and weak. The Two Notes offerings, and other amp sims like from Neural DSP, sound boxy and either anemic or muddy. On the other hand, while the EQ2 is much more immediate and delivers more gut punch, low passing the highs generate both some mushiness and/or unpleasantly peaky frequencies
• Switching different tones and low/med/high easily. Doing so now requires auditioning different pedals, which takes more time and adds to the cost. Once I find a fit, it often doesn't match perfectly with the setup I have down the chain.
  
• Meet or exceed the reverbs and delays in HX FX
• In the future, make stereo rigs easier to integrate with effects and amp/cab sims
• Portability and and fewer bumped controls. I'm planning on getting an FC-6 or -12 at some point too

Lastly, the cost and learning curve of the AFX3 isn't so much a factor for me since there's a comparable cost and learning curve in my current pedalboard.

 

[Thoxig]

I think you offer a fantastic case for replacing your setup with AFIII. I've been using AF for many years (now using AFIII), but my usual setup is much less complex than yours. I've been very happy with the unit and consider it one of my best-ever gear purchases. I think you will find the AFIII more flexible and more capable -- if you have the patience to develop that pedalboard, you will have even more fun with the AFII.

It works great for me (using multiple instruments), offers cutting-edge quality, and is mainly limited by your own imagination and virtuosity. Not that I'm much of a player, but it does NOT hold me back -- it inspires me to be better, and have more fun along the way. No financial interest, not an endorsing artist, just a satisfied customer, etc. etc.

I'm thinking of replacing my large pedalboard (most of which is dedicated to a parallel processed distortion/preamp/cab sim), with an Axe FX 3. Given the information below, do you think I should NOT replace my board with an AFX3?

 

[BunchyMutt]

I think you offer a fantastic case for replacing your setup with AFIII. I've been using AF for many years (now using AFIII), but my usual setup is much less complex than yours. I've been very happy with the unit and consider it one of my best-ever gear purchases. I think you will find the AFIII more flexible and more capable -- if you have the patience to develop that pedalboard, you will have even more fun with the AFII.

It works great for me (using multiple instruments), offers cutting-edge quality, and is mainly limited by your own imagination and virtuosity. Not that I'm much of a player, but it does NOT hold me back -- it inspires me to be better, and have more fun along the way. No financial interest, not an endorsing artist, just a satisfied customer, etc. etc.

Thanks, this is reassuring

 

[Selta]

Issues I'm hoping the AFX3 will solve:

Gonna jump in and tackle each of these right here .

• Cab sims that don't sound boxy and weak. The Two Notes offerings, and other amp sims like from Neural DSP, sound boxy and either anemic or muddy. On the other hand, while the EQ2 is much more immediate and delivers more gut punch, low passing the highs generate both some mushiness and/or unpleasantly peaky frequencies

There are an absolute TON of Bass cab IRs out there, and a lot are downright fantastic. ToneHammer ones are OK. Dr. Bonkers ones are very sweet, and widely used, and also very affordable. MLSound also has a fair amount that are very tasty. I can't point you to a single cab IR and say "use this one", as just in real life, you'll have to explore around and see which one(s) fit you the best. I wouldn't let this be a big hang up at all. You also don't even need to use an IR - I have quite a few presets where I have no cab in it at all.

• Switching different tones and low/med/high easily. Doing so now requires auditioning different pedals, which takes more time and adds to the cost. Once I find a fit, it often doesn't match perfectly with the setup I have down the chain.

I'm not quite clear what you mean here. If you have a signal chain, and want to add to it, it's very simple to do so. Then dialing in that effect is pretty straight forward. Just like in real life, you'll have to do some adjusting to things when you drop a new pedal in. For example, if you're adding a 2nd (or 3rd) fuzz/OD/distortion pedal, you can drop it in very easily, but you'll spend time flipping between the different pedals themselves, then you'll have all the normal tweaking options available to further refine. There's a ton of shared presets out there you can leverage as starting points, and some may even be good enough that you have to do very little tweaking to.

• Meet or exceed the reverbs and delays in HX FX

This is super easy. Fractal's standards are just well beyond Line6 (and any others). Their attention to detail and methodology behind modeling pedals is much more thorough and realistic in the end.

• In the future, make stereo rigs easier to integrate with effects and amp/cab sims

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, either. You can have parallel signal chains in the Axe-Fx III, and route each chain to a different output. What you do with those outputs would then be up to you. However, I've found that with how things work in modelers, you don't need to have physical rigs to have good stereo imaging, and everything is summed to mono for FoH anyway (unless you're in an act that has a FoH that is stereo, which would put you in an echelon where you'd get personalized support from Fractal Audio if you were wanting to buy their products).

• Portability and and fewer bumped controls. I'm planning on getting an FC-6 or -12 at some point too

Portability will be what you make of it . For me, I have my Axe-Fx in the studio, and use an AX8 (yes, still) live. My load-in / load-out is: Bass case over the shoulder, AX8 case in one hand, QSC K12.2 in other hand. I can be setup in under two minutes if needed (this is good, as one of my bands often opens for national and international bands, so speed of setup/tear down is essential).
- Get bass out of case
- Get AX8 out of case
- Run cable from AX8 to K12
- Plug in FoH XLR into AX8
- Plug in power for AX8 and K12
- Plug in bass to AX8 (or wireless, depending on gig, which lives on the pedalboard anyway)
- Turn on power switches and be ready to go

Lastly, the cost and learning curve of the AFX3 isn't so much a factor for me since there's a comparable cost and learning curve in my current pedalboard.

Keep in mind it's still a pretty steep learning curve. You'll spend quite a few hours just getting the basics down, and, you'll want to make sure you know how to get back to any good sounding point, just in case something goes horribly wrong in the middle of a set (I had a faulty power situation once cause a series of issues where my then Axe-Fx II lost all it's presents. In between songs I had to use the front panel to craft a 'good enough' preset to get through the gig).

 

[BunchyMutt]

Gonna jump in and tackle each of these right here .

There are an absolute TON of Bass cab IRs out there, and a lot are downright fantastic. ToneHammer ones are OK. Dr. Bonkers ones are very sweet, and widely used, and also very affordable. MLSound also has a fair amount that are very tasty. I can't point you to a single cab IR and say "use this one", as just in real life, you'll have to explore around and see which one(s) fit you the best. I wouldn't let this be a big hang up at all. You also don't even need to use an IR - I have quite a few presets where I have no cab in it at all.


I'm not quite clear what you mean here. If you have a signal chain, and want to add to it, it's very simple to do so. Then dialing in that effect is pretty straight forward. Just like in real life, you'll have to do some adjusting to things when you drop a new pedal in. For example, if you're adding a 2nd (or 3rd) fuzz/OD/distortion pedal, you can drop it in very easily, but you'll spend time flipping between the different pedals themselves, then you'll have all the normal tweaking options available to further refine. There's a ton of shared presets out there you can leverage as starting points, and some may even be good enough that you have to do very little tweaking to.


This is super easy. Fractal's standards are just well beyond Line6 (and any others). Their attention to detail and methodology behind modeling pedals is much more thorough and realistic in the end.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, either. You can have parallel signal chains in the Axe-Fx III, and route each chain to a different output. What you do with those outputs would then be up to you. However, I've found that with how things work in modelers, you don't need to have physical rigs to have good stereo imaging, and everything is summed to mono for FoH anyway (unless you're in an act that has a FoH that is stereo, which would put you in an echelon where you'd get personalized support from Fractal Audio if you were wanting to buy their products).


Portability will be what you make of it . For me, I have my Axe-Fx in the studio, and use an AX8 (yes, still) live. My load-in / load-out is: Bass case over the shoulder, AX8 case in one hand, QSC K12.2 in other hand. I can be setup in under two minutes if needed (this is good, as one of my bands often opens for national and international bands, so speed of setup/tear down is essential).
- Get bass out of case
- Get AX8 out of case
- Run cable from AX8 to K12
- Plug in FoH XLR into AX8
- Plug in power for AX8 and K12
- Plug in bass to AX8 (or wireless, depending on gig, which lives on the pedalboard anyway)
- Turn on power switches and be ready to go



Keep in mind it's still a pretty steep learning curve. You'll spend quite a few hours just getting the basics down, and, you'll want to make sure you know how to get back to any good sounding point, just in case something goes horribly wrong in the middle of a set (I had a faulty power situation once cause a series of issues where my then Axe-Fx II lost all it's presents. In between songs I had to use the front panel to craft a 'good enough' preset to get through the gig).

Excellent. Thanks for insights into the AX8. Sounds extremely portable. And thanks for pushing back on the learning curve. I'm actually worried about it, especially since I'm perhaps counterintuitively wanting to go the AFXIII route because I'm annoyed at the constant tweaking of my pedalboard.

You answered my questions, but to answer you:
- By "Switching different tones and low/med/high easily. Doing so now requires auditioning different pedals, which takes more time and adds to the cost. Once I find a fit, it often doesn't match perfectly with the setup I have down the chain" I meant that if I wanted to try a distortion or preamp pedal, I'd have to read reviews, then scour various sites for the best deal, maybe wait until something pops up, then wait for it to be shipped. Whereas with the AFX3 it's right there. Additionally, I like trying new pedals in different positions, which means messing with patch cables, moving things around, etc, while moving things around on the AFX computer editor seems quicker

By "In the future, make stereo rigs easier to integrate with effects and amp/cab sims" - there are some situations where creating a stereo setup would be cool to try. With my current setup, that is more limited than with the AFX3

 

[BunchyMutt]

So I've sold off most of the major parts of my pedalboard to go toward an AFX III. What's up with used prices? Why are they so much more than buying new direct from Fractal?

 

[RoketRdr]

So I've sold off most of the major parts of my pedalboard to go toward an AFX III. What's up with used prices? Why are they so much more than buying new direct from Fractal?

A couple of years ago there was a shortage of components and folks were having to wait 6-8 months to get an AXE FX III. So used prices went out the roof with people trying to capitalize on the short supply. Now they're just being dumb because Fractal caught up and there's no wait for a unit. Also, when you buy a used unit the Fractal warranty is void so anyone buying a used FX III for more than the retail price is out of their mind.

 

[BunchyMutt]

A couple of years ago there was a shortage of components and folks were having to wait 6-8 months to get an AXE FX III. So used prices went out the roof with people trying to capitalize on the short supply. Now they're just being dumb because Fractal caught up and there's no wait for a unit. Also, when you buy a used unit the Fractal warranty is void so anyone buying a used FX III for more than the retail price is out of their mind.

no need to sugar coat it Just kidding, thanks for confirming my guess

 

[BunchyMutt]

@Selta @Thoxig Thanks again for your insights. I just purchased an AFX3.

 

[Selta]

@Selta @Thoxig Thanks again for your insights. I just purchased an AFX3.

Great! Make certain to let us know how you get along with it!

 

[BunchyMutt]

Great! Make certain to let us know how you get along with it!

will do!