Grateful Dead Music Forum

Vic,

Why the change? Just to downsize your rig?

ace

Carry it in with one hand, sets up in (literally) two minutes, sounds the same every night. Win-win. Especially when you are as old as I am ... I can't carry that 100-lb. cabinet around no more.

Clean and overdrive sounds ...



It's not the same as having the JBLs and the whole rack, etc., but I hear myself better and can concentrate on the playing.

Well, got my new AX8 just before the snow storm so Im stuck here in the basement messing with for a few days looks like. I have been in love with my little Swart combo and 76' Fender vibrolux for the past few years... two very nice amps that I wont be letting go of anytime soon... but I am really blown away by this thing. Running stereo through a pair of qsc K10s it sounds very nice and am just getting started with tweaking. Im with vic on the ease of set-up. Believe it or not I have been interested in minimizing the amount of pieces I have, carry and use so here is one box that takes the place of all my pedals, amps and a whole mess of cables and power supply nonsense. I love it!

Plus its great through head phones hooked up to my interface. Endless options... the amp models sound and feel great... other nice feature is the amplifier style knobs for quick control of typical tone shaping stuff like gain and eq.

Lots to learn before I can get everything I want out of it ... I want to create separate rigs/presets for each different guitar I use (start, tele, arch top and acoustic) of course... Im definitely in love with this thing...

thanks for the info as always guys.

I have to do a gig where I fly out west so I am tempted to look into the axe fx world but am so intimidated by it

seniorpesca wrote:I have to do a gig where I fly out west so I am tempted to look into the axe fx world but am so intimidated by it

Take a look at the Kemper and Helix. Between the three, you should be able to find a good fit.

I"m not sure if anyone has seen this as it looks just recently posted but here are clips from 11/12/72 of Jerry's isolated guitar tracks if you're looking to model his 72 tone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDOnEqU7BpA

Who's got them JBL impulse response files? Syx or wav- i have a helix and convert axe files to work with helix.

On the purchasing them note- has anyone tried the RedWirez cabs? They have a few JBL options- a fender 2x12 with d120's, a 2x15 with d130's and a marshall 4x12 with k120's.

Before I spend $9 I'd like to know what yall think on em. I can get a pretty good jerry sound out of the helix (mutron included) with the stock cabs of the helix but i'm definitely missing something there. If anyone wants to check out my jerry helix patch let me know- and if anyone has any other helix patches I'm always game to try em!

Thanks jkstraw for helping me find the links that playingdead (thanks!) shared a while back!

Glad I ran across this thread. The Fractal's look pretty damn amazing and with the FX III's recent release, I suspect there will be plenty of used II's and 8's available by the time I've saved enough to get one.

I'm a newb, so I won't be playing live anytime soon. For bedroom playing, are you guys using powered studio monitors or do you still use FRFR monitors to get that "live" sound at home?

Other than the Fractal, speaker/monitor and foot controller, would I need anything else?

Jumped down the Fractal rabbit hole a couple months ago, doubt I'll ever look back. It really is amazing and as I do Bob and Jerry parts, as well as Floyd, Cream, Airplane, Phish, Beatles, etc in my current band, it's awesome to play Fender, Boogie, Marshall, Vox, and Komet amps all in the same night.

I have a couple FRFR powered speakers and prefer to play through them, even in my studio (rather than connecting to my audio interface). Less things to turn on to get playing and since I'm playing through them live, I like to work on my presets through the speakers I'll be playing through. Now I have one in my studio and one in my rehearsal space so all have to carry is my Guitar, a cable, the AX8, and my expression pedal.

That's all I need! To a gig I bring the AX8 and expression pedal (in a RIGID case), 2 XLRS (one AX8>Powered Speaker and one Powered Speaker>FOH), a guitar cable, and my guitar. Ok, I typically bring my mic, cable, stand, iPad, guitar stand, and a couple extra guitar and XLR cables too.

I got a Kemper and have so far not run into a situation where I wished I had my SMS/Mac rig (other than the profile of one). It may be that big, outdoor gigs may make sense to bring it out but it's really cool to be able to use a pretty unlimited number of killer amps the way we use pedal effects. I play a lot of non-Dead stuff so having other amps is nice but St Stephen sounds pretty killer through a '69 Marshall, I've bee using a '65 AC30 for Cumberland Blues and it's also pretty badass.

For bedroom play, I have mine plugged in to an old Sony receiver and some old Bose 301s I got in college, they are at least 30 years old. Sounds amazing!

Gr8fulPickr wrote: ↑Thu Sep 06, 2018 2:46 pm Glad I ran across this thread. The Fractal's look pretty damn amazing and with the FX III's recent release, I suspect there will be plenty of used II's and 8's available by the time I've saved enough to get one.

I'm a newb, so I won't be playing live anytime soon. For bedroom playing, are you guys using powered studio monitors or do you still use FRFR monitors to get that "live" sound at home?

Other than the Fractal, speaker/monitor and foot controller, would I need anything else?

I have been using the AX8 for a few years now and love it for the versatility. Its great in the studio, I have a home studio space that pretty tight but with this I don't need to pile a bunch of bulky shit in there or even worry about miking a cab. I spend most of my practice time play through the studio monitors at a very reasonable volume and have all the tools of my DAW and the internet right in from of me.

On stage I stated missing the real guitar cab ("amp in the room" sound and feel) behind me so I have been trying out the Positive Grid Bias Mini head which does amp models really nicely and has its own power amp to drive a traditional passive cab. It works really nicely, I did a side by side with a nice Fender Deluxe and I preferred the Bias Mini's tone and feel... plus it does amp matching and is super flexible like the Fractal you can send a direct out with speaker simulations to FOH. Doesn't do effects other than some really, really nice reverb models. .. so you can use your pedal board in from of it.

Is the setup Vic has with his OBEL and the Axe8 achievable with, say, the Helix or Kemper?

Not sure if the OBEL will work with the Kemper of Helix, but if the key is having two independent sets of inputs/outputs on the unit, the ability to manage the levels on each independently (so you can balance the effected/non-effected levels), and being able to choose where the signals leave and return to the unit on the other set of in/outs ... so you can make that happen before the amp/cab/reverb blocks. That way, when the OBEL is engaged on the guitar, your signal is going to all the effects then to the amp/cab/reverb, when the OBEL is disengaged on the guitar you signal goes straight to the amp/cab/reverb.

Not sure why that old video link doesn't work, but here's a recent Terrapin rehearsal which shows the basic tone I'm getting and a lot of the effects at the end.

https://soundcloud.com/vicderobertis/terrapin-rehearsal