DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Backstory - a couple friends of mine and I run Metalguitarist.org, and one of them just bought a place way up near the New Hampshire border. To break it in a bit after he got situated, he threw a "gear fest" sort of get together where a bunch of us more or less in driving distance all came up for a long day of drinking, jamming, and drooling over guitar gear. Chris owns an AxeFX or AxeFX Ultra (I forget which), and since Fractal is located just over the NH border he invited Cliff down to jam for a while. He showed up with an AxeFX II with the latest firmware, he'd just finished about ten minutes before he hopped in his car.
First, Cliff's a pretty cool guy who's actually a pretty damned good guitarist - something I wasn't really expecting, but probably should have (the guitarist part).
Second, a couple of us sat down with it and put it through their paces. Two pretty accomplished shred guys (Eric Clemenzi and Angel Vivaldi, if anyone else follows the scene) ripped through it for a while, but when Angel finished up I grabbed my Strat (for something completely different) and Cliff plugged me in.
I was running through I believe a solid state Carvin poweramp and my Recto 2x12 cab, and after a brief foray through a Mark-IV model (which was a bit hairier than I'd like, but I didn't get too far into dialing it in) Cliff pulled up some sort of a blackface model.
The thing OWNED. Had I been blindfolded, not only would I not have guessed a modeler, I'd have wanted to know what amp I was plugged into to maybe try to pick one up. I'm no fan of modeling, but this was hands down the best model of a Fender-y sort of amp dialed in for some SRV-ish grit I've ever heard. I hate to say it, but it was better than the "tweed" channel in my Roadster.
We eventually started jamming again, and I ended up playing through a few of the older Marshall models. What impressed me the most about them was not that they sounded great, but rather the way they sounded realistically bad. If you pushed the gain too high, the lower strings would just crap out on you ans turn to chainsaw-like flub, in an appealingly Jimi sort of way. It was actually a lot of fun.
I love my current rig (a Mesa Roadster head, into a 2x12 cab) and I wouldn't really have any interest in the range of tones a modeler would offer - I like my lead sound, I like my rhythm sound, and I like my clean sound, and I don't think I'd do much with the other models other than just screw around a bit. It makes no sense for me to sell the rig I own and love for an AxeFX rig. However, I also live in an apartment with pretty thick walls and pretty volume-friendly roommates. If I moved into somewhere where a 100-watt tube rig wasn't feasible, I'd be thinking long and hard about making the switch.
Modeling may not be quite there yet (the 5150 II model Angel was playing through sounded a little too unnaturally articulate, slightly more like a recording of a 5150 than an actual amp), but the AxeFX II is way closer than anything else I've ever played through.
First, Cliff's a pretty cool guy who's actually a pretty damned good guitarist - something I wasn't really expecting, but probably should have (the guitarist part).
Second, a couple of us sat down with it and put it through their paces. Two pretty accomplished shred guys (Eric Clemenzi and Angel Vivaldi, if anyone else follows the scene) ripped through it for a while, but when Angel finished up I grabbed my Strat (for something completely different) and Cliff plugged me in.
I was running through I believe a solid state Carvin poweramp and my Recto 2x12 cab, and after a brief foray through a Mark-IV model (which was a bit hairier than I'd like, but I didn't get too far into dialing it in) Cliff pulled up some sort of a blackface model.
The thing OWNED. Had I been blindfolded, not only would I not have guessed a modeler, I'd have wanted to know what amp I was plugged into to maybe try to pick one up. I'm no fan of modeling, but this was hands down the best model of a Fender-y sort of amp dialed in for some SRV-ish grit I've ever heard. I hate to say it, but it was better than the "tweed" channel in my Roadster.
We eventually started jamming again, and I ended up playing through a few of the older Marshall models. What impressed me the most about them was not that they sounded great, but rather the way they sounded realistically bad. If you pushed the gain too high, the lower strings would just crap out on you ans turn to chainsaw-like flub, in an appealingly Jimi sort of way. It was actually a lot of fun.
I love my current rig (a Mesa Roadster head, into a 2x12 cab) and I wouldn't really have any interest in the range of tones a modeler would offer - I like my lead sound, I like my rhythm sound, and I like my clean sound, and I don't think I'd do much with the other models other than just screw around a bit. It makes no sense for me to sell the rig I own and love for an AxeFX rig. However, I also live in an apartment with pretty thick walls and pretty volume-friendly roommates. If I moved into somewhere where a 100-watt tube rig wasn't feasible, I'd be thinking long and hard about making the switch.
Modeling may not be quite there yet (the 5150 II model Angel was playing through sounded a little too unnaturally articulate, slightly more like a recording of a 5150 than an actual amp), but the AxeFX II is way closer than anything else I've ever played through.
