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Axe FX II XL with Cooper Carter

Lesson 5 from: Summer Gear Guide

Gear Gods Team

Axe FX II XL with Cooper Carter

Lesson 5 from: Summer Gear Guide

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Lesson Info

5. Axe FX II XL with Cooper Carter

Lesson Info

Axe FX II XL with Cooper Carter

I'm gonna talk about the newest and best product from fractal audio systems. As you all know, the expects to has kind of redefined the digital guitar world on. A lot of people have replaced their AMP rigs wholesale with one fractal unit. So this is a summer year guy, and it's kind of talking about this year's best products. The thing about fractal that's really kind of exciting is that years for fractal are kind of like dog years. Now they happen very quickly. So while this is the best product right now, very quickly there will be another product that's a little bit better. And the reason for that is because at fractal, the hardware is really just kind of a platform for the continual firmware updates that were always releasing. So while right now, this is running version 14 very soon, meaning in a week or two, maybe a version 15 will be on there, and so it'll kind of be a whole new product s. So with that said, what's different about the Excel vs the expects to mark two, which has been...

out for a good while now, um, come around to this front panel here. Really? The first main difference is that the encoder wheel that you use to turn and change presets has been replaced with an optical encoder wheel, which is gonna last about 10 times longer. So any problems you might have had with, you know, skipping numbers or the wheel running out its optical now, which is gonna last millions of turns. That's really never gonna die unless you just sit there for five years twirling it around, which no one is going to dio. Well, maybe somebody might do a little crazy. It sounds nice when he turned around like the sound. So what expects owners really love a lot of them is how low the noise floor is on the unit because a lot of guys might be running this for the effects on Lee running at four cable method where you're running it into the front of the amps. So as if you had pedals pedal board on the floor on then you're actually running it back out into the expects them back into the and through the effects loop to get those post sounds like delays. Reverb is a lot of guys like to run choruses Flanders in the effects loop. So with the four cable method, you can introduce a lot of noise. There's on the Excel. The kind of secret sauce we like to call it has been improved on the inputs so that the noise floors even lower than it was before, which was already kind of an industry standard low noise floor. So I think a lot of people are going appreciate that about the unit. It's also just lower noise when you're using it as a direct in, you know, through the front panel, straight into P A or speakers. So that's very cool. Um, the next thing, if we can come around to the back, the main difference, cosmetically you're going to see on the Excel is that the back panel has gotten a couple new inputs. So whereas before you had one pedal Jack, now we actually have two of them. So the thing about the pedal Jax is that for using expression pedals like Woz and that sort of thing, Midi can become a very crowded stream. So if you're running a bunch of things in the Midi Sayer on stage in a big live environment, you've got you know your floorboard, you've got your keyboard patches, got all these different things running. Midi can become crowded and become a little slow, and it's still a great format. But with this with a pedal jack, you get a dedicated A D converter just for your pedal inputs. So let's say you're in the studio. You wanna wah pedal, you want an expression pedal to control your reverb mix. With this, you have to dedicated inputs just for that. And you have that in the studio, which is really where it really counting very, very accurate. So I think a lot of people are gonna appreciate having that second jackets something. We got a lot of requests for the other big thing. And one of my favorite features about the Excel is the fast link connection, which we have right here. It looks like a regular XLR connection, but what fractals actually done is taken all of the information that runs over Cat five Ethernet cable for the MFC foot controller and put it into a standard XLR cable. So what that means is ether con? You know it's a secure fitting, and cat five is a great connection it works very well. The problem with that is that if the cable breaks, if you don't have another one, you can't pick one up at your gig. You're gonna be running out to Radio Shack or Comp USA or Staples or wherever you get Ethernet cables pretty much anywhere except a gig. What is there Mork Comment. In a gig than XLR cable, you always have more of that than you know what to do with. So if you step on your Ethernet cable, it's probably gonna break your kind of be screwed if you step on an XLR cable. First off that's a robust connection is probably not gonna break in the first place. But if it does, go to the sound guy. Get any standard XLR cable right into the fast link, and that'll link up to the fast lane connection on the new mark. Three. MFC foot controller. If you don't have a mark three foot controller, we do have a connector. It'll convert the standard Ethernet to the XLR for the fast lane connection. So that's kind of my favorite thing about the Excel. It's a very cool, very cool new technology, and I think it's pretty exciting. So other than that, there are a couple more outputs. There's a S, a couple other things that air new. But the big ones for me are the fast link on the pedal outputs, which I think a lot of people are really going to enjoy having. So we go back around front here. We can kind of get into more of what's inside the single most exciting thing about the Excel eyes, the introduction of ultra rez cabinet technology and with ultra rez. What has happened is that the standard IR, which is the impulse response on a Cabinet simulation in the expects, was already very accurate on industry standard that a lot of people have turned Teoh. A lot of people have shot their own I. R's of their favorite cabinets. A lot of people have really enjoyed some of the cab packs that have come out. There are some great third party ones. Fractals released some of their own, but with Ultra says, I think we have a graph we're gonna put up on screen here. Ultras is just way more accurate, so if you take a look at this graph, you've got three lines. The green one is the standard I are that you're going to find in other products, and the blue kind of purplish line is an actual speakers. That's not a simulation that's the real deal. And with that, you're seeing that there's a lot of variation of low end. When it gets toward the top, the I arm or accurately simulates the speaker. It's getting a little closer, but you lose a lot of information as you drop down into the lower register. If you switch up to this red line, which is the ultra rez IR, you can see that it's way more accurate. And in fact, the only reason that there is much of a discrepancy at all between the two lines is that these are actually shifted along the Y axis so that you can even tell the difference between the lines. They're separated really only for visual purposes. If you put them on top each other, they're pretty accurate. As you can see, as I mentioned before, the top end has historically always been more accurately simulated. But with the new ultra rez with low end just completely comes in that bell curve very kind of smooth curve, as you can see, is not at all an accurate representation. So the ultra, as I are pretty much takes it to a scarily accurate level. What does this mean in in practical terms, you know, So I can see that there's a little more detail on the peaks here. How like Well, let's sound like my ears. Well, a lot of times you get guys dialing in tones, Uh, and they're kind of cranking it up, you know? And they aren't feeling the bottom, not feeling the chunk. Sometimes that's the classic complaint. And in the digital realm, a lot of people say, Okay, well, this sounds really good, but I'm not feeling it. You know, I'm not feeling the air move. I'm not feeling that chugga chugga that that I'm getting from I am. And I think a lot of that. First off, a lot of that, I think sometimes people make the mistake in the digital world because digital unit sound so good at low volumes, and they really open up a whole new world of home recording on enabling people to practice that low volumes, not piss off their neighbors and all of that they make a mistake of tweaking at a low volume, which then when you translate to the stage due to the Fletcher months and curves, which we all have to deal with, it doesn't translate so great. So I think that's one part of it. The other part is that until now the lower end just hasn't been that accurate as much so as the upper registers are. And you can see that very clearly in the graph How much of a difference there is between, you know, as you go down the spectrum. So I think when you're gonna hear it is in the low end and the chunk. But really, it's not so much what you've got here is what you're gonna feel, because that's kind of what people one out of an I R. Is that big cab feel. You know you're playing through your studio monitors. You're playing on headphones, but you want to feel like you're standing in front of a 4 12 What is that feeling, really, it's It's the low end shaking your bones, so I don't see units on there, but I'm guessing that's like the range. There um, you know, I actually something like that have to defer to your guesswork on that. I'm not sure as it's not a labeled, but but I'm assuming so. It's but that's the ultras. And I actually have several ultras cabs in here that we can listen to weaken, just kind of go through a couple. The thing about these that's also really exciting is that fractals put a lot of time going into studios and taking some really great, super accurate ultras I. R's of some awesome cabs with dozens and dozens of Mike's. I was actually in one of the recording sessions in New Hampshire, and we went through and put probably five different Mike's on 10 different cabs and then move the mikes into four or five different positions each and ended up with hundreds and hundreds of these I ours we would go through it to say, OK, which one which one will arrive? It really good one on Those are some of the ones that we put into this as factory cabs. So those came. The factory cab came from a kind of live studio environment. We were running into very high quality pre amps great board. We had a great engineer working with us. We were able to capture some really killer sounds s o right here. Just do a couple complaining fancy, but this is a for 12 on. This is one of the way way can run up, go through a couple more here, and this is kind of a completely different sound. We got a to 10 as a bit of a room. You're mixed. Mike's for a little farther away way one interesting I can do is hold out accord for a while and will switch between a couple of the IRS. You can hear kind of what an impact changing the I'll have on the actual sound. A lot of people are going to go on tweet there am Flyer. They're not really think about how much of a difference running into a different cab is gonna make you know, because in real life, not a lot of people have 300 calves sitting in the rooms. They're certainly not taking time to unplug employees in an unplugged again. And here we go. Finally you like, And I'm not sure if in a streaming environment the difference between an ultra rez and a kind of normal resolution cab is really gonna translate, So it's not necessarily a test worth doing. And a lot of it, like I said, has to do with feel as well. But over. You know, if you have a patch to the all the expects users out there, you have a patch that you have played with for a long time. You're very familiar with how it feels, how it works for you, how it sounds. If you go in with standard cab and you play on that for a little while and you switch up to an ultra ResCap that you like, I guarantee you you're gonna feel a little bit of a difference. You're gonna hear a little bit of the difference. But as with anything, the technology in the expects is so advanced that these are improvements of degrees. And a lot of times they're one of those improvements that you've been really waiting for and it hits you. It might be a small thing that somebody else, but, you know, for certain players like, wow, that's what I've been waiting for on for a lot of people. I think old Torres has been that. And so that's one of the huge things the Excel is gonna bring. The table is having the ultimate scabs in there. Um, go down. Got a couple more things I do want to mention quickly gotten some questions about the differences between the Mark two and the Excel. I've pointed out some of the the more obvious ones, as faras features. But the really big difference eyes that this has a lot more memory inside of it has the exact same DSP signalling crosses and capabilities as the mark to their identical. In regards to the memory, though, there is a lot more storage. So we've added an entire new bank. There's a bank T, which brings the existing number of presets available up to 512 and Bank D is actually empty so that you can populate it with your own presets. For me, this is a big feature because I'm a bit neurotic about having the factory presets there. When I first got my axe effects to several years ago, the first thing I did was I forced myself to play through every factory preset and actually filmed the video of that which I put on YouTube, and it's me playing in different riff on every preset. And what came out of that was actually ah, lot of songs. It was a really nice creative avenue. So I don't ever like to discount the power of the factory presets, which has led to me very being very, very loath to delete any. So I've tried to keep the number of over written to a minimum. With the Excel, I can keep all the factory presets and have my own bank to do whatever I want with. That's really great, I think, because it allows for experimentation. And also you can save a lot of different versions of presets in the unit. You can audition different things, turn between them slight differences. Which one do I like that size tohave? The other thing. A lot of people like shooting their own. I ours. A lot of people like using third party I arts with the new fractal ultra rez cab packs that we're releasing. A lot of people are gonna want to audition a lot of I ours because there are hundreds and hundreds of these things there now. 512 user cab slots as well without overriding the factories, you can have a lot of users has. I mean, I don't have 512 user cabs I want to put in there, but I know guys who dio and now you can with the Excel. So that's another enormously powerful memory section. Also the presets having increased memory, which is allowing more blocks to have X Y states, which just gives you more options as far as what you could have a new presets, So a lot of great things with the expanded memory. As far as the mark two goes, however, I did mention that the memory capabilities are bigger in this. The DSP processing is the same as I mentioned, so the Mark two is still a great product. It's still supported, were not letting that go by the wayside. There are going to be improvements in the Excel. They're going to improvements in the mark two. But if you're like me, the updates in the Excel, I think, are worth be very small cost over the mark to that there is to actually get your hands on an excel, And the main thing about the Excel is that in the history of fractal as a company that really only been five revisions of the expects has been the standard has been the ultra. There's been the expects to Disney expects to mark two, and now there's been the Excel. So in the entire history, there's really only been five revisions, and this is the result of dozens of world renowned, time tested. Battle hardened musicians were out there asking for these improvements and thousands and thousands of dedicated home players and fractal fans who have written in and requested a lot of the features that are now in the Excel. So this is the result of years of people saying We want these things and now they're in here. And so I really think it's kind of the pinnacle of what has been achieved thus far with the expects. And there's so much room to grow in the Excel with the new memory capabilities that if you want to be on kind of the cutting edge of what is gonna become available to you as an expects user, I think the excels really the way to go with you guys. Any questions? One thing I want to clarify. So you know, the ultra rez? I ours are those exclusive to the excel, or they are the technology in the old Perez relies on some of the things in the excel to run. Yeah. So you do have to have the eso. You know, there's been, you know, the expects to the X effects to mark two. And then the excel, you know, is, you know, in the methodology for named those is that, you know, because they still have, you know, it's the same DSP. It's still the same product, like, you know. What do you think it would, you know, What do you think it would be that would cause it to be okay? This is three. Instead of just, you know, a new model of the two. You know, um, personally, I'm not really in a position to comment on that. I would say that what you said actually has a lot of merit. Yes, For all intents and purposes, these are very similar units that everything with two behind the axe effects is essentially of the same family. You know, I could say they're kind of fraternal triplets, you know, in a way. I don't know exactly what a good term for it would be, but yes, they have the same DSP processing. They obviously look very similar. The updates have been while incremental, I think very worthwhile and very valuable. But they have been incremental the mark to I mean the biggest to me visual difference between the first and the second was the addition of vent holes on the side. You know, they're very small liberations on improvements, but also worthwhile ones. I think with the Excel especially. It's a very big leap within the same kind of family. So, yeah, but I think that as far as the nomenclature goes, it would take a very large change in the actual system. Hardware to Merit expects three on I think it's it's safe to say in the end, fractal other factor. People would agree that we're still a ways away from that, given the immense power not only in the mark two, but also in the Excel. There is a lot of room to grow, which which kind of leaves me Teoh my final point here, which is that with the Excel. One of my associates and I were joking yesterday that there really has never been a better time for the company to be called fractal because, as you know, fractal being a visual representation. The deeper you go, the deeper there is to go. So with fractal what's really exciting? Not only about using it as a player in the studio and on tour, but also in working with them as a company. Is it really the farther down, the exploration of this box that we go there really is just more we want to explore. So you know, whereas a lot of products you get very deep, you kind of hit a wall with this. What you find deep inside of it actually reignites your curiosity and leads you to doing more things with it, not only because more is available to you, but also because MAWR is inspiring to you. I think that's really the benefit of these kind of incremental advances in the software and the hardware. And like I said, with firm where it's constantly being updated, there's new firmware so frequently that it's kind of like getting a new product. Every couple of weeks has been announced. What's in the upcoming from where inversion 15. Yeah, I would say the major difference. Inversion 15. As always, Cliff has put some new amplifiers in there that are really sweet. He's always putting aside. They are. I'm sorry. You know which ones there? I don't have a specific list. I know they're several new ones, though, but as far as the biggest change for 15 the power section simulation has been completely rewritten. Um, it's been completely rethought. There was an epiphany, and the differences it makes are pretty, pretty sweet. It's very, very responsive. It was responsive enough already. I know there's always some kind of joking about more realer on the online forums, but you know, if you're at 99% and you can get to 99.3, that's 0. you didn't have before. So that somebody who says does that difference really matter? I would say, Yeah, you know, here's $99,000 or you know So I think that with 15 people are going to really appreciate the tweaking of the power section and how it responds and is always there some extra stuff sprinkled in there that people will have to figure out when it drops, and that'll be pretty soon. All right, Well, before we move on, you are actually coming back in August. Eso to teach a class specifically about how to use the expects of people are interested in what you're saying here, going back for a lot more. Do you want to give him a little bit of a sneak preview about what you're covering their and absolutely and kind of share? Some of the conversations we've had about using the expects is a a tool toe, you know, as a creative tool for sure. Yeah, for anybody who's seen the presentations, I've given it Fractals accessed in Los Angeles every October, I approached the axe effects as an immensely technologically advanced and available creative tool. And it's my feeling that a lot of people get caught up in just how deep the unit can go and see that Maura as a means to woo tweaking thin they do to creativity. At the end of the day what this is as technologically advanced as it is, and as many features as it has at the end of the day, for me at least, and I think for a lot of people that this unit is so important to is a creative tool and one that is very specifically and appropriately positioned to open up a lot of creative avenues. So whereas some guys may spend eight hours tweaking a tone, I want to spend one hour tweaking a tone and seven hours writing or practicing or thinking about guitar based off where the expects has taken me as faras. That tone goes, So what I want to talk about in the extended class in August that I'll be doing is about how, yes, technically, we can get to these points in the axe effects, using the immense power that it has. But where in that journey we step off of the technical train and we get onto the train. That is unique because the accents brought us here but is separated from the technical side and is more about what creatively can we dio. Given this technology, yes, it's technical. Yes, it requires tweaking and knowledge of the you know, all of the signal routing and the effects and the amps and mixes and the levels and all of that stuff, and it's all important, but not doing it for the sake of tweaking doing it for the sake of arriving at a place that Onley the expects Kenbrell us to, but one that's exciting and creative and is about music because of the end of the day where musicians were guitar players. And in my opinion, there is no better product than the expects to enable creative guitar music. You just have to step back and realize you can't spend all of your time inside the box turning knobs. You've got at some point realized that it is uniquely positioned to put you in a place to create, and that's what you're here to do anyway. So that's we're gonna be talking about with that. We're talking about setting up patches, doing it in studio, using it live. We'll show you guys So the patches I've made and I've used on recordings how I got there. There's gonna be plenty of tech talk, but at the end of the day, it's gonna be focused around. What can we create with this? Because it is so good, it enabling us as creative artists and musicians and guitarists. So Cooper, just to clarify fractal Matt and one of our chat rooms, is wondering, says basically, ultra rez is available on any expects to running that I misspoke. I okay, I will correct that. Matt, I'm sorry that I want I want to ask you, but that's practical matter. That's Matt. Definitely knows. So I apologize for that. I was aware that it was on Lee on the Excel, but I believe that I guess in the new firmware has been corrected. See, my better. I'm sorry about that on, and that's even better. So there you go. Yeah. Um, up until one point, it was in the Excel, but I guess that has been changed. So there you go. I'll take a Mulligan on that one and different.

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