Fractal Audio Systems

I use it for playing Rock, Blues, Hard. At home, I plug it straight to my 8" KRK monitors. In rehearsal, it gets into an Engl E810 poweramp/20 stereo ins outs and to an Orange PPC212C modified cab in Stereo. Simulations are very, very realistic. The settings are clearly extreme. The delays, flangers, drive, whammy, rotary (and so on) are exceptional (much better than a Kemper – according to me, of course). The practical aspect of having the preamps, sims and so on directly on your pedalboard makes for a real pleasure: no need for an additional amp or pedalboard on the road. A real professional conception. For the record, I’ve owned the Kemper 6 for 3 years, the FX8 for 6 months and I recently got the AX8. The French importer is very nice and reactive! A great product that sounds great, editing is very easy and intuitive but you can easily get into deep settings if you have spare time :-). I’m very happy with it so far, and I’m now planning to sell my great FX8 while keeping my Kemper, although it sort of acts as a duplicate now – I still haven’t managed or taken the time to reach the same dynamics or organic grain that I have on my Kemper. A cons: still no patch exchange platform for AX8 and FX8.

Very compact midi floor controller for the Fractal Audio Axe-Fx, or any other device that needs a midi controller. Jacks for 4 external switches and 4 external continuous controller pedals. With 5 pin midi cable you will need to run the wall wart up front, with a 7 pin midi pedal you can have the wall wart in the rack plugged into the Axe-Fx for less clutter on stage. 15 instant access switches depending on how you have it configured. plus one for tap tempo and one for tuner. You can select multiple instant access switches to toggle more than one button on or off at the same time. My favorite way to use it is with preset banks of 5, which leave you with 5 less instant access switches until you stomp on the reveal switch which will toggle back to 17 switches. Turning the switcher into a virtual 15 efx + tuner + tap tempo pedal board. In my set-up I have it laid out so I have for the IA switches...in no particular order: Tremolo, Chorus, Rotary, Overdrive 1, Overdrive 2, Ring Mod, Delay, Verb, EQ1, EQ2, Phaser, 4 dB boost before amp sim, 4 dB boost at the end of chain for a solo boost, Gate, Pitch, plus wah and volume via external continuous controller. I used to run a T-Rex controller and it 6 IA switches, where I had to basically switch programs mid song if I needed more than 5 on/off functions since one was always use for tap tempo. Going to 17 switches made life so much easier. Plus it pulls the information for your preset off he Axe-Fx no cumbersome naming on the floor controller. Especially when you use the Axe-Edit to edit the presets in the Axe-Fx, and then just have the newly named stuff pulled into the floor controller.

I play mostly classic rock and metal and I could finally dial in a decent distortion. It has great effects too and it's become the only piece of guitar gear I've needed once I got it. I still currently use it to this date and most of my recordings have been on this of late. I formerly used a Lexicon Lambda budget interface prior with Line6 products but after the AXE FX II XL I wouldn't go back :) Here's one my latest tracks recorded with the AXE FX using it as a USB interface. https://youtu.be/BobQ5c7EARI