by playingdead » Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:36 pm
I did have reservations, it was a leap of faith to bring it out to the first gig. And it took some time to get it dialed in properly. If you have a "Jerryfied" guitar with the Super IIs, effects loop and buffer, I can help get you set up.
I think that the "miked" description is a bit of a misnomer. People talk about the "in the room" feel of a "real" amplifier, but in reality, you have a guitar speaker that's pushing air in a room and the resultant reflections and room characteristics that you're hearing.
Running the AxeFX into a single QSC K10 in a room gives you the exact same sonic characteristics, and the sound is bouncing all over the place just like with a real amp. I did some pretty extensive comparisons between my old Hard Truckers cabinet and E-120s to the QSC K12 using the impulse response file from that same cabinet. I set them up side by side in an open room and A-B'd them by using the Fractal's output on one channel with no cabinet block into my former Focus 2R amp and the HT cabinet, and the other side with the cabinet block into the K12, switching back and forth, nice and loud. Sounded just like my guitar to me on both sides.
This is a pretty rare comparison to be able to make, since I did do a custom IR of my own cabinet. If you put a Twin Reverb on the floor, and an K12 and then try to compare the real amp with the AxeFX's Twin setting and whatever factory 2X12 IR you can find, it's not apples to apples any more. But running the same AxeFX amp setting into the real cabinet and a custom IR of that very cabinet side by side was very telling to me. The technology works, of course. It's merely applying the measured speaker response from a speaker cabinet to a fullrange speaker.
But I will also say that I have a Fender Vibrolux reissue sitting right here with a pair of JBL K110s in it, and it was easy for me to take the AxeFX and match the sound through the K12 or K10 using my IR of the K110s. And I prefer to use the AxeFX to dial up a Bassman or Deluxe Reverb setting through the K10 at home, because I like being able to step from the K110 to a Jensen or K120 or Celestions, and so forth.
It's not for everybody, but if you like to tweak stuff, and you would like to be able to easily step from a Boogie to a hotrod Marshall to the Vox or Fender to an Engl to a Soldano to a Dr. Z to a Trainwreck ... and from an open back 2X12 with Jensens to a 4X10 with V30s to an EV to a 1X8 oval speaker like Jimmy Page used on the early Zeppelin stuff ... at the click of a mouse ... you'll pretty much be in heaven. All the crazy effects and stuff that this thing can do is just icing on the cake at that point.
I love the fact that Fractal will give you a free 15 day trial, so you risk only the shipping if it's not for you. And Guitar Center will give you a return option on a QSC. My advice to anyone starting out with this is ignore all the crazy factory presets, set yourself up a patch from scratch with a Bassman amp block and a cabinet block of your choice and let it rip. Then step through each factory cabinet block to hear the sound variations available to you. Then go and step through all 70 amp blocks to hear the basics, because every single one can be adjusted ad infinitum for gain, tone, master, and all those little variations from sag to Class A to AB response to resonance frequencies and all that other stuff that gives the non-soldering types like me a headache.
Ultimately, I settled in with a bunch of different amp types that I like with cabinets that complement them to my ears ... the Garcia setup I use live, a nice Bassman, Deluxe, Trainwreck, Vox, Plexi, early Van Halen Marshall (Dave Friedman's "Marsha") just for fun, Boogie and a couple of other boutique ones. Keeps me busy when I feel like playing, and it's a lot more convenient than that room full of amps!
You don't have to run Fractal's foot controller (although it's nice having the tuner on the floor, I'm sure). A used Ground Control Pro works fine, as do various other MIDI boards. Probably $300 or so for a GCP.
?
