Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to wish you all a heavy christmas and a hard rocking new year! :-)

Almost there!

I've started to get really comfortable with the feel and sounds of the Axe-fx now. I have made some disappointing discoveries, but almost all of them was because I did not understand the unit good enough. As an example I did not get the delay spillover to work at first. I enabled it but it did not work. After some reading I found out that it was not enough to enable delay spillover, you also need to set spillover behaviour on the actual effect in order to get it to work. 

The only disturbing thing left now is that I still get a short delay when changing between some scenes. I don't like that at all. I would really like this switching to be instant without the short volume drop. I actually had the same problem in the "real" world with my ENGL-rig due to relay switching. But the volume drop during scene switching in Axe-fx is much longer, when it happens. When it does not happen the Axe-fx switching is seamless. 

I don't fully understand what couses the slow switching between certain scenes, but I think one candidate can be switching between A-B Amp when changing scenes. A new firmware was released just recently so I upgraded the unit, but unfortunate the problem was not solved. The struggle goes on...

I have to go to bed now, so happy trails and see you later!!

Rock on!

Not dead!

Hi!
I just wanted to say that I'm still alive! I have been fully occupied with normal life stuff like home improvement, sickness etc. I've been rehearsing normally with my bands, but there has been no additional time for practice at home and improving my Axe-fx setup. Actually I have been using my old rig for rehearsals for a while. The idea was to improve the Axe-fx settings at home during this time. I have drastically improved the settings, but I need some more time to finish off the fine printed stuff. But now I have ran out of time...  I will put out my old rig for sale shortly, so then I have to start using the Axe-fx actively again. You can fiddle around with this unit forever, so maybe it's time to say good enough and start to use it :-)

Please feel free to comment my posts! I still feel that I'm sending out messages into the void. Some feedback would be nice :-)

Rock on!

Axe-Fx II rig to the test

Hi there!
Long time no hear...
Now I have finally tested the new rig with our PA in rehersal a couple of times. I've spent the summer playing around with the unit and I set up the sounds using head phones at home. I can only say that the sound was totally different in the PA then in the head phones. The sound in the PA where much harscher and brighter. I also bought a fairly inexpensive active wedge monitor just to be on the safe side when it comes to hearing my own sound on stage and to be able to get my sounds with controlled feedback :-). It's a Laney CXP-112.

The Axe-Fx II sounded really good in this monitor. After just playing around with the Axe-Fx for a couple of hours I got a much better sound in the PA. I will continue to fiddle around with the settings to get an even better sound and search the Fractal Audio forum online for some insight.

Rock on!

Fractal status

Hi!

Here's a little update on my process of changing rigs. Unfortunately I have still not been able to rehearse or gig with my new rig, I'm still using the old one. So why? Well, time has been the problem. I have not had enough time to setup the Axe-Fx the way I want it. There has been too much at work and I also had another gig that needed a little preparation on the musical side. Not much, but the time I had available for it was not much. I needed to learn some new songs and to brush up on the old ones as well and as you know, time flies when you are having fun. But now I have no gig with any of my bands planned for the near future, so I can take some time to fix my sound on the Axe-Fx. One thing I'm planning to do as quickly as possible is to cell my old rig. With the old rig gone I must put some time in finishing the sounds for my new one. Otherwise I will not be able to rehearse...

Rock on!

New rig decision

Hi!

I left out to tell you that I made the choice to replace my current ENGL-rig with a Fractal Audio Axe-Fx II and a MFC-101! After fiddling around with the Axe-Fx for some time I found it to really sound good and have almost no limitations with respect to my needs for effects. Really complex, but still easy to operate and configure. The MFC-101 was also very versatile and went hand in hand with the Axe-Fx in a really nice way. 

So, now it's time to engineer my set of sounds I use and then try it out at rehearsals and live.

Rock on!

Renewing a guitar

Hi!

For a long time now I have been unsatisfied with my red Charvel guitar. It plays well, but I don't like the looks of it.

The old look

I have for a year or so thought about having it repainted. But I just recently stumbled on a post somewhere on the internet about someone who had changed his guitar's look using something called a guitar skin. I have never heard about it before, but I found out that there are several web shops that sells guitar skins, or wraps. You can select from a number of templates or design one of your own. Nice!

I found one company in Europe that sells guitar skins, Guitarskins.eu, so I placed an order there. Unfortunately Guitarskins.eu had gone out of business so I had to look further for a web shop with a nice guitar skin design. I found one called Wrap Edge. They make all sorts of wraps, not just guitar wraps. The problem, I thought, with ordering from an American company was the delivery time. But I got my wrap just eight days after placing the order! Really quick considering that they print out the skin after the order is placed. Good job Wrap Edge!!

Since I was eager to get my "new" guitar ready for the gig this weekend, I started with the application the same day I got the skin, i.e. yesterday. First I removed all the hardware. Unfortunately the EMGs in this guitar are old ones without the quick connector. Since I did not want to bother about soldering them loose, I left them "hanging" in their sockets.

First I removed the hardware

I then positioned the wrap symmetrical on the body of the guitar, cut open small holes for the pickups in the wrap, placed the wrap on the guitar and pulled the pickups through the holes so that the wrap could rest on the body of the guitar. After that I removed the protection paper on the bridge side, cut it off with a pair of scissors and gently positioned the wrap on the body to anchor it. The rest of the protection paper was a little difficult to remove, but I managed to get it all off by removing and cutting it off section by section.

Fitting the wrap on the body without getting wrinkles or bubbles was a lengthy process. I was a little nervous that the wrap somehow would get destroyed by the constant putting on and taking off that was required, but nothing happened with it. Quality :-). I think the whole process would have been a lot easier if I had removed the pickups before applying the wrap. I also tried to get as much of the wrap to go over the edges of the guitar as possible, but I had to give up that idea. It was impossible. With that in mind I could have bought a smaller size. Never mind, I'm totally happy with the end result!!

The wrap in place with the pickups on top 

The final result!

The final result a little closer. Can you see the wrinkles?

 The surface does not look good if you are really up close, but at a normal distance from the guitar it looks killer!!! I had to do a couple of small wrinkles on purpose between the pickups so that the rest of the guitar would be wrinkle free. In the end at a normal distance they are impossible to spot so that trick worked out fine. The small dots on the surface here and there must be because of my lengthy putting-on-and-off routine. So if you plan to do this and you are really fastidious, take your time and remove the pickups!

This was a really nice way to refresh an ugly guitar. Cheap and rather easy. I recommend!

Rock on!