New Stuff Day

[Muad'zin]

New Stuff Day


A long held wish of mine has finally become true. I finally have the Rolls Royce/Ferrari of digital modellers, the Fractal Axe-FX. I've been selling stuff left and right, would have sold all my blood if I could and my children if I had them to afford one. I still have to sell some guitars (anyone want a 90's Gibson Explorer) and pedals but today, €3700 poorer (damn you exchange rate!!!), that glorious day has finally arrived.

I wanna make sweet digital love with this baby!

Of course, every digital modeler needs a midi controller in order to change presets. Enter the MFC-101:

Complimentary box of chocolates. Never had one of those before.

300 pages worth of printed manuals for the both of them. Should be no problem to master, right?

Does this mean that I have sold my analog soul to the digital devil? Probably. And probably not. I do love my old stompboxes. I do love to tinker with them in rehearsal and conjure up new sounds. I can do that with the Axe-FX too, but then again twisting simple knobs and switches will always trump digital menus for spur of the moment creativity in my opinion. It's just that I hate having to change knobs and settings during a live show. Presets for the win in that regard. So the master plan is to keep on using ye olde pedalboard for rehearsal, for creating new sounds and writing new songs. And probably some close by live gigs where there is plenty of time for changeovers. And use the Axe-FX for most live situations that require quick changeovers and/or long distance travel.

What it now sort of replaces, a recent (but not the most recent) pic of my pedal board.

 

[Mack_Again]

you've reached the pinnacle, Muad'zin, congrats! Hope your virtual pedal board you'll be making in Axe is as good (and chaotic, in good way) as your real-life one! Are you planning to use amp-sim as well as effects? I feel like lots of people like bunch of guys from Periphery, Ken and Greg from Failure, guys from Metallica and DJ Ashba (lol) is running direct to FOH and I bet more professionals will be doing so in future.

 

[Muad'zin]

I'm a big fan of amp sims. And cab sims. For three reasons:
- Because amps are heavy And the less heavy gear I have to haul around the better. I have hauled enough amps around to last me a lifetime.
- Because not having to set up amps on stage but just plugging in some XLR's significantly reduces change over time. It's fun being the guy who for once just ploinks his pedalboard on stage, connects to the FOH and is ready to play while everyone else is still busy.
- Tube amps are magical. They sound awesome. Can amp/cab sims be as good as tube amps? Who knows? I'm sure there are people who can hear the difference. I'm also very sure 99% of the people in the audience will not.

 

[gareth brown]

looks great!

1) Excellent photo of the complimentary chocolates. Never seen anything like it. But then again all my stuff is second hand and rather old.
2) What is the SHUT THE FUCK UP pedal?

enjoy your new toy!

 

[the tourist]

Geez, and I thought I'd just gone nuts ordering a Lovepedal Eternity Burst, Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Deluxe, Timeline, H9, Disaster Area DPC-5 (programmable loop switcher with MIDI) and SmartCLOCK (BPM/eternal tap to Chase Bliss pedals, receiving BPM preset impulse from the DPC-5 MIDI).

Congrats!

 

[Mack_Again]

I am in need of new gear (well, isn't "need" 1st world "want"?) but all the ones I want is kinda expensive!! Darn it.

Im looking into buying Variax standard which is virtually a Yamaha Pacifica with variax system jammed in. Or Key9 from EHX. yeah, basically anything that would help me crete crazy sounds.

 

[Mack_Again]

I'm a big fan of amp sims. And cab sims. For three reasons:
- Because amps are heavy And the less heavy gear I have to haul around the better. I have hauled enough amps around to last me a lifetime.
- Because not having to set up amps on stage but just plugging in some XLR's significantly reduces change over time. It's fun being the guy who for once just ploinks his pedalboard on stage, connects to the FOH and is ready to play while everyone else is still busy.
- Tube amps are magical. They sound awesome. Can amp/cab sims be as good as tube amps? Who knows? I'm sure there are people who can hear the difference. I'm also very sure 99% of the people in the audience will not.

right on, Muad'zin, I used to think that I can distinguish between tones of amp+cab sim and real amps and cabs. but whenever there's comparison video, I realized that I can't even hear the difference. I mean i really can't. I know it would "feel" different and obviously artists in major label won't care real amps being inconvenient because they've got roadies. Edge has Dallas, who's probably more than roadie at this point. anyway, it's true that it's so hard to tell them apart purely with tones. Even Michael Angelo Batio is using amp model from DV Mark.