Fractal fractal

Love Fractal and their gear! Cliff is a mad genius and has a great team! Gigged with an Axe 8 and then picked up an Axe-Fx III and FC-12 a few years ago and love it. The tones and options get better with each firmware update. What frankencat said - Congrats and welcome!
 
I still have my Axe FX Ultra. I also have an FM9. IMHO, they are not the end all be all. I also have a Kemper as well as all of my tube amps and pedals. I still prefer the amps and analog pedals. The next in line for me is the Kemper. The raw amp profiles feel and sound much more like my amps to me. The Fractal is good if you are a high gain player. If I want high gain tones, I think the Fractal is great at those. I could also just plug in my Mesa with some pedals and get there much faster.

I am nobody's fan boy, well, maybe PRS... I give honest opinions of all of this gear based on how it works for me and what I hear from it. I do have guitars by a good handful of manufacturers but prefer my PRS, although I have one from another brand that I had custom made that I absolutely love and it is always in regular rotation along with the PRS guitars.
 
I love my FAS Axe FXIII ;~)) Picked it up in Dec '21 and it has given me thousands of options that I think sound fantastic! Of course, a large part of it is how you are listening to and amplifying the signal you are getting and this is where I think many people discount modelers claiming they don't sound like amps. If you are pushing your modeler through a FRFR speaker, or some studio monitors, or some headphones, it is NOT going to "sound" like a 4x12 cab being driven by a tube amp. But take the output of that modeler and push it through that same 4x12 speaker cab and amplify it with a "no coloring" amp (if such a beast existed), and I believe you can dial it in to a place where most people could not tell the difference between that output and the tube amp/cab. I think Steve Vai's rig is pretty much what I would view as the perfect rig. Axe FXIII, a couple of pedals, Fryette LXII rack mount tube amps and a 4x12 with your speakers of choice. Best of all worlds!!!
 
I was a non-believer… hard core tube amp guy. And I still own and love tube amps… 7 great ones and many cabs here as I type. I tried and abandoned digital many times, but the Eleven Rack actually convinced me that digital modelling could work. I then upgraded to the Axe Fx in 2011, and have been gigging mostly FAS gear ever since. I’m currently using an FM9T & FM6 rig, having downsized from my full Axe Fx III & RJM rig earlier this year with smaller scale gigs the order of the day in my post-pandemic world. You just can’t beat the combination of benefits from such a portable and predictable setup.

I’ll always have some amps around; I just love playing on them. There’s no either/or choices between analog or digital amplification. You can do one, the other, both together… whatever. The amp vs modeler debate is a waste of time. Just try it and see what you think! I’m betting you’ll have a good time with it. If not, good tube amps are easy to find. It’s all a win.
 
Ihbond said:
Fractal fractal on the wall, should have never sold my matchless but heres to learning another tech and chasing the perfect tone..
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Sergio, please tell this gentleman the house rules. “Never sell. Only buy!”

This is X 10 when it comes to selling tube amps to buy digital. If you want digital, that’s fine. Buy it by all means. But NEVER sell a good, much less a great one like that, tube amp to buy digital anything! I’m not trying to go Les or anything, I just feel bad that I wasn’t there when you needed me most. :(
 
DreamTheaterRules said:
Sergio, please tell this gentleman the house rules. “Never sell. Only buy!”

This is X 10 when it comes to selling tube amps to buy digital. If you want digital, that’s fine. Buy it by all means. But NEVER sell a good, much less a great one like that, tube amp to buy digital anything! I’m not trying to go Les or anything, I just feel bad that I wasn’t there when you needed me most. :(
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This is how I went into digital. I didn't sell anything and still have them all...
 
DreamTheaterRules said:
Sergio, please tell this gentleman the house rules. “Never sell. Only buy!”

This is X 10 when it comes to selling tube amps to buy digital. If you want digital, that’s fine. Buy it by all means. But NEVER sell a good, much less a great one like that, tube amp to buy digital anything! I’m not trying to go Les or anything, I just feel bad that I wasn’t there when you needed me most. :(
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We need a support line, for sure…heh…
 
Admittedly, I'm a tube amp person, but I've found that between the different modeling products, each seems to have its sonic advantages and disadvantages.

And of course, each has its own interface and controls personality.

It's all a matter of 'pick your poison', even with my beloved tube amps, but the top modelers are all good at what they do.

If I still played out, I'd probably need a modeler for certain gigs just to be able to get the gear to and from the car (tube amps and cabs are heavy!), and I'd have a really hard time deciding which one to get.
 
DreamTheaterRules said:
“For erections lasting over 4 hours, please press 1 to speak with one of our live representatives.”
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Mr. Hyde (Dr Jekyll): [as Hyde] I'm a drug crazed beast with a giant erection that won't go away no matter how many times I do it. You're a nurse; what can you give me for it?

Nurse with Telegram: I can give you sixty dollars and my wedding ring.
 
László said:
Admittedly, I'm a tube amp person, but I've found that between the different modeling products, each seems to have its sonic advantages and disadvantages.

And of course, each has its own interface and controls personality.

It's all a matter of 'pick your poison', even with my beloved tube amps, but the top modelers are all good at what they do.

If I still played out, I'd probably need a modeler for certain gigs just to be able to get the gear to and from the car (tube amps and cabs are heavy!), and I'd have a really hard time deciding which one to get.
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If all of the purchase justifications and fanboyisms are put aside, this is really the truth of the matter. Once you get to the high end of these things, they can get the job done well. They have their own plusses and minuses, ALL OF THEM. I went with the top two and I like them for different reasons. They definitely have their own sonic advantages and disadvantages. I am very objective on things like this. I don't need to justify my purchases to anyone by towing that company's line. The two I have are being used by many touring professional guitar players. That says something about them.
 
JasonE said:
If all of the purchase justifications and fanboyisms are put aside, this is really the truth of the matter. Once you get to the high end of these things, they can get the job done well. They have their own plusses and minuses, ALL OF THEM. I went with the top two and I like them for different reasons. They definitely have their own sonic advantages and disadvantages. I am very objective on things like this. I don't need to justify my purchases to anyone by towing that company's line. The two I have are being used by many touring professional guitar players. That says something about them.
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Agreed.

I kid around about modelers here. Mostly that's me being a bit cheeky. Do I think they're a little bit compromised compared to a tube amp? A little, but in my studio I don't have to compromise.

A gig comes in and I don't have the amp I need? I buy it, or rent it, or borrow it. No worries. It's part of the studio budget (and in the case of rentals, it's right there in the estimate, so the client pays the cost).

It's a nice position to be in. Not everyone gets reimbursed for out of pocket expenses when they play.

Playing out, heck, there are a ton of compromises, for most -- not the least of which is dragging the stuff around in order to play at all. So for that, I'd definitely have a modeler on hand. I'd need it.
 
László said:
Agreed.

I kid around about modelers here. Mostly that's me being a bit cheeky. Do I think they're a little bit compromised compared to a tube amp? A little, but in my studio I don't have to compromise.

A gig comes in and I don't have the amp I need? I buy it, or rent it, or borrow it. No worries. It's part of the studio budget (and in the case of rentals, it's right there in the estimate, so the client pays the cost).

It's a nice position to be in. Not everyone gets reimbursed for out of pocket expenses when they play.

Playing out, heck, there are a ton of compromises, for most -- not the least of which is dragging the stuff around in order to play at all. So for that, I'd definitely have a modeler on hand. I'd need it.
Click to expand...

And ultimately, it makes your outcome better. You say you can hear the difference - maybe you can, maybe it's a rationalization*, but that's not important. What's important is that you feel strongly enough about it that if you used a modeler it would likely nag at you a bit and you'd think about how a real amp would be better. You're in a position where you don't have to compromise, and that allows you to focus on the art.

* - A talk show host here used to say, "A rationalization is more important that sex, and if you don't think so, just try to go a week without a rationalization."
 
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