I'm going to paste Part 2 here from another thread so this can be in one place...



...Continued



But then after Epicloud, I decided that I needed a break. Out of frustration or irritation maybe, I convinced myself that I needed to go back to amps and pedals as it was ‘much simpler’. So for the next cycle I brought back out my Rectifier, with a big pedalboard, cabs, an RJM midi switcher and ran the Mesa into a Radial JDI for direct to the board sounds (I had gotten used to that) I made a fancy head rack that also housed the Axe Fx, and thankfully by this point, I had established enough of an open relationship with Fractal that I could tell them : 'Its close, but not right yet’ …however, during this time, Matt Picone at Fractal had been reverse engineering my Gp100 sound, and again, although not perfect yet, it was shockingly good, so I retired my GP100s and went out of tour with this.



As fate would have it, my pedalboard developed crazy problems three shows in, to the point where I abandoned it and had a very rudimentary and inefficient system, and then because it was a freezing winter tour, my amp went down. I had a replacement, and THAT went down. Tubes etc were going… I had a Recto and then a 6165, but for whatever reason, they both sounded terrible to me on that tour. I had become so used to controlling the minutia of my sounds that the romance of this rig was halted by the practical roadblocks. Little things like: the knobs kept getting bumped and if there was no soundcheck, my levels would be all over the shop. (I did realize though that I liked having a cab again onstage…) I found after the tour that my Recto had taken a fall and had significant damage which explained its problems, but in the heat of battle, no one seemed to be able to diagnose that.



So I came home and started working on sounds again. The mess of that tour made me realize that touring is a much different consideration of an ‘ultimate rig’ than the garage. And airlines began tightening down on weight restrictions. (It is currently 23kg), and anything over that started becoming crazy expensive.



Once home, I updated my firmware yet again and found that the clean sounds were becoming truly great. The effects and the cabs were of a depth that I was getting really satisfied with, and at this point, it began turning to the point where I could achieve things in the Axe I could not with my normal amps. I began working with Framus and Fishman on signature instruments that would solve the ‘two things in one instrument’ I needed, and began committing to the idea of digital in general.



However, the crunch sounds still left me cold.



Several friends of mine started to tell me about Kemper, how the crunch sounds were great, I could profile my own amps, and it had a power amp for stage. So I invested in one, got some profiles from some buddies, ran the direct out into the axe fx, and used a pedal board, and truthfully…this sounded really good. I thought this combination was a keeper. In fact, I then removed my pedals from the equation, set up each patch with an expression pedal as either a wah or whammy, and had our stage computer do midi cc and pc commands to switch my pedals for me. The pros were:



-low noise

-good clean sound from the Fractal, good heavy sound from the Kemper,

-minimal fuss.

-Same sound out front and in recording as in my ears.

-onstage cab



The problems were:



-Although the heavy sound was good, I couldn’t seem to dial in a low end presence that I missed. It wasn’t an eq thing, it was a depth thing. The sounds in the Kemper were really satisfying to me, but still…it was not the Mesa and the problems were in the low and low mid areas. The Soundpeople we were working with said the same. (I received some new profiles from Kemper that then kicked *** again, but at this point I was starting to feel like running two systems was more inefficient than I wanted). If the Kemper had more effects I could consider that, or if the Axe had a different algorithm for the crunch I wanted, it would be ideal. (I have later learned that the deficiencies were in my ability to understand my own needs).

-To have a redundant system to fly with, it was 12 rackspaces in total with power and wireless. Too much to ship efficiently still.

-Sounds were better on their own than in a band situation.



But I liked it. I toured with this for several years and I have a Kemper now in my home studio. Profiling amps is a killer feature and its a satisfying unit to play.



…but it still wasn’t the Mesa.



I began working with Torpedo and I went into the studio and made Cab IRs for the torpedo with my Mesa, and as well…made IRs of the whole chain for the Kemper, but both things fell a little flat. The Torpedo was killer, but it was again, bringing the unpredictability of an amp back into the equation, not to mention the cabling, direct sounds, and portability factor.



So this leads me to basically 2 months ago. I have begun writing again for my next works, and everything in my sonic world has taken a massive step forward. My whole recording chain is much more advanced, my understanding of recording has taken a quantum leap, and after getting results from this touring rig that felt a little underwhelming, I updated the firmware again in the fractal and started from where I left off. Fractal had been doing a ton of work with Metallica and their firmware updates reflected this tremendously.



A guy online was making patches for the Axe Fx by the name of ‘ChopTones' and I got some, and with the new firmware, and after minimal tweaking, I came up with sounds in the Axe Fx for not only clean (with the Transcendence pickups I designed with Fishman) but also crushing and everywhere in between that blew both me and our soundguy away. The X Y function solved my channel switching woes, and I could carry two of them, with my patches changed by midi or with the MFC in a 4 rack space carrier and get my entire system wherever I go, with a redundancy.



For onstage sound, after trying cabs and power amps, I settled on three high quality powered wedges and a Radial auto switcher to go between the two units in case of emergency. Cabs were cool, but ultimately not an accurate representation of the sounds I was spending so much time working with. I purchased 2 QSC monitors for effects and am currently borrowing a Meyer wedge for the dry sound (which I can't afford yet, but in the meantime...holy crap!!)



My studio rig, my practice rig, my live rig are all the same units. I update my sounds, send myself the Sysx files by email and download them at rehearsal with an old laptop on top of my rack that runs only Axe Edit. Its a perfect system for me, and it keeps getting better.



In recordings now, I run a single Axe FX with an AES connection for very low noise, with Axe edit on my screen to manipulate everything real time. I record bass through it, special effects, all amps, and its absurd how good it sounds to me…not to mention they are hell bent on improving it further… future Proof.



I was working with many amp companies, but I have made my choice and have settled on a single Axe Fx 2XL+ for my ENTIRE chain. Out of respect, I will return the gear I have accumulated from other companies so there is hopefully no bad feelings. This tone quest of mine has only ever been rooted in what works best for me and my needs, and obviously may not work for you. It has also not included what may be wise for me business wise, as I have been offered 2 signature amps from companies recently that I have turned down as well in lieu of simply using the Axe Fx.



The best possible description I was given as to why I may prefer the feel of Fractal over other digital options is this: When recreating an analog signal, you are basically trying to form a circle out of sticks. With most other technology, we have maybe 1-200 sticks to make the circle, the axe gives you 1000 with its processing power. The result is a smoother circle and the ability to also include my massive use of effects in a single unit. The learning curve has been great for me, but it has resulted in a more complete sense of control.



Hopefully this clears up what I am using now, as through all this experimentation I have used a lot.



Relationships are challenging at the best of times, let alone when you experiment and confuse people. My needs are very specific and may not apply to you, and I will take nothing away from either Kemper or Mesa, both of whom I believe are world class companies and products that anyone should be proud to use, but this is where I've come and I am proud to commit to this decision. I needed to go down this road as I don't feel I need to accept compromise in my quest for sound. Its a huge part of my world.



I use



Framus Guitars

Fishman Pickups

D'Addario strings

Fractal Axe Fx



One Rig to rule them all =)



Dev