Review: Axe-FX III
TL;DR — The Axe-FX III is virtually flawless. It’s way more intuitive to use than previous versions, but has nearly bottomless depths if you choose to go off-road. The question is whether it’s twice as good as the Kemper or Helix.
Rating — 9/10
RRP — $3499
Compared to the BOSS GT-1000 or the Line 6 modellers, I feel like there’s less preamble required before discussing the Axe-FX. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you know what it is, what its reputation is, and broadly what it can do.
So what does the III bring to the table that’s new? Well, there are two areas that you’ll feel straight away — increased processing power, and a better user interface. To my mind, as I’ve said before, Line 6 laid down the gauntlet with the Helix series in terms of modern, intuitive UIs, and every other manufacturer has to catch up.
Fractal Audio seem to have got the message, and the UI of the III is crisp and clear, well laid-out in terms of physical affordances and better than ever thanks to a larger, higher-resolution colour screen. Each knob and button has a specific purpose, and wherever possible the mapping between screen and control is made explicit and easy to understand.
Of course, a new version also comes with a plethora of new amps, IRs and effects, with space for a truly head-spinning number of user presets and additional impulses. The stats and specs are impressive, but since there weren’t — to my knowledge at least — hordes of punters demanding thousands of additional slots on the Axe III, that’s again probably beside the point in terms of choosing the III over the II.
In the amp-modelling stakes, I’ve said many times that clean amp modelling has been ‘good enough’ to my ears for about a decade, so there’s no surprises in store on the Axe III. The Fenders sound great, particularly the smaller tweed mini combos, and the various boutique alternatives on offer are similarly brilliant. Marshalls are bright and hairy, and lower-wattage amps feel the push of a lower headroom as you hit them with a boosted signal.
As you’d expect, there’s tonnes of heavier amps to pick from too, from the vintage growl of JTM45s and Orange heads to jumpered Marshalls and more modern tonalities. Most require a bit of tweaking in order to dial it in for your guitar and pickups — I tried a seven-string in A, hot Dimarzio evolutions in Drop-C, and vintage output pickups in Drop-D and standard — but the Axe noise gate is always on hand to get a grip on things if you’ve gone a bit over-the-top.
The Rectifier-style amps are basically indistinguishable from the real thing, and there’s also a Diezel VH4, a couple of Hughes and Kettners and an ace selection of various amps in the Peavey 5150 family, should you want to mix things up. The shining star of the heavier models is the FAS Modern — available in three different versions — which is Fractal’s take on a perfect, impossible-to-make-in-real-life metal amp. It’s djent central, should you desire, but also boasts enough articulation to do more straight-up alt metal sounds, maybe more in the ballpark of something like A Perfect Circle.
Editing an amplifier block is simple, and the parameters available to edit will be familiar to anybody that’s used a previous version of the Axe, or software like BIAS. The new control layout with parameter knobs directly below the display means it’s easy to keep track of what’s under edit at any given time, and the flow of switching visible edit screens makes nothing but sense. Like previous units, you can insert a drive pedal in front of the amp, but still within the amp block, as well as changing the input boost of the block. This can give a kick to the model and deliver some extra saturation, while options for tubes, EQ and other biasing options are present and correct, as you’d expect.
Perhaps most interesting at the dusty end of the menu system are the EQ and Gate options, which give you a granular multi-band EQ for your amp block and then a really effective noise-gate. If you’re going to be playing metal, then these two are invaluable, allowing you to conjure up amp tones that would be hard to exactly recreate, if not impossible, using real equipment.
In terms of effects there’s also a number of cool things. One of my favourite patches on my Lexicon MPX-1 rack delay is a stereo delay that pans hard left, hard right, centre in triplet patterns, and if that’s the kind of precise, rhythmic delay that you like, then you’re going to have a great time menu-diving in the Axe to set up sounds like that. For a taste of those sort of effects, there’s also a John Petrucci preset that means you can peer into some example signal chains and think about how you’d want to construct your own.
Obviously there’s also tonnes of great-sounding stereo modulations and spacier effects. The Black Hole preset in particular is a great block to look at in terms of how you can construct a more ambient signal chain out of the building blocks available to you.
In conclusion, there’s not a huge amount to be surprised by here. I think a lot of people would look at the Axe, and based on cost alone say, “it had better be good for that price,” and, well, it is. Even if it wasn’t already demonstrably successful for artists world-over in replicating and even replacing analogue gear, it would still be a notably excellent unit. As a development of such a successful formula, then, it can only be said to be another success.
