Fractal Axe-Fx III €2,799
CONTACT G66 GMBH Phone +49 461 1828 066 Web www.fractalaudio.com
Since its launch in 2006, Fractal’s Axe-FX has been the rack-mount amp modelling processor of choice for many professionals, new hardware iterations appearing on a regular basis with a company policy of constant firmware updates. However, there’s a limit to how many updates can be implemented before DSP limitations necessitate a major hardware revision. That time has come with the release of the Axe-FX III.
Firstly, it comes in a 3U rack size, rather than 2U, and sports more power under the hood: 2.8 times the power of the Axe-FX II, in fact, courtesy of two 1-GHz Texas Instruments ‘Keystone’ DSPs. There’s also a separate dedicated processor for USB functions and the unit sports a 24-bit/48kHz audio interface with eight input channels and eight outs. Another major leap forward from the previous version is a 800 x 480 full-colour display, again with its own dedicated processor, and with resolution increased 30-fold over previous models. This display works in tandem with five knobs/push encoders directly below to edit what’s on the screen. Other changes have been to add more I/O connectivity, including four independent stereo outputs instead of two, to make routing more flexible, and to introduce a large array of front panel metering.
In Use
With 512 rewritable factory-programmed presets onboard, you can just plug in and play for hours on end. Scrolling through them you’re struck by just how good they sound and how dynamically playable they are: Fractal says that they have updated and improved every amp simulation and effect to take advantage of the increased DSP. Presets range from those that offer just a single amp to those that pile on the effects such as a ‘Petrucci Rig’ preset, created by John Petrucci, that has eight different scenes.
To explain the hiercharchy, each preset is built from component blocks placed in a 14×6 grid and joined by virtual cables – you can split or merge signal paths or have multiple parallel paths so there are large rigs available featuring up to two amp blocks and multiple effects and cabinets. Each block now has up to four ‘Channels’ – rather than an X/Y option – so a Drive block could have, for example, four different overdrive pedals or the same pedal with four settings.
A Scene is like a preset within a preset and stores whether each block is engaged or bypassed and which is its active channel. The advantage of working with Scenes is that you can have instantly switchable alternative versions of your rig, maybe clean, crunch and lead versions of an amp with switching more seamless than reloading an entire preset, especially as you can have the reverb and delay effects spilling over.
While there is expansive MIDI capability for remote control, onstage use will be
facilitated by Fractal’s forthcoming FC-6 and FC-12 foot controllers which can actually be daisy-chained to make a massive pedalboard. Besides these, the Axe-FX III also has two onboard jacks for expression pedals and flexible I/O that can be set up to include a couple of send and return loops to integrate favourite stompboxes into the signal chain.
For editing there’s obviously truckloads of stuff that can be tweaked and enormous potential for sound creation but the size and clarity of the new display and the functionality of linked encoders makes editing from the front panel an easy enough task, although we imagine most users in a home or studio environment would take advantage of the free Axe-Edit III software editor for Mac or PC. This was in Beta form at the time of writing but still extremely practical even though new features, including a Quickbuild mode and a Scene Manager, were not yet onstream.
The Axe-FX III has introduced several new block types and expanded the number of instances of certain blocks that can be used in a preset, so you can now have up to four blocks each of compressor, drive and delay. To fill the blocks there are over 260 amp models, loads of effects including 37 drives, 44 reverbs, 32 delays, and 2,237 impulse response-based cabinets, with the cabinet block featuring its own multichannel mixer that can load up to four IRs.
The amp models are some of the best we’ve heard and coupled with the variations offered by the cab block yield a tonal range of conventional guitar sound largely unparallelled in a single unit. Add in the classy modulation (including a new extremely lush Tri-stereo Chorus type) and pitch effects, plus spacious delay and reverb, and the opportunity is here to recreate just about any recorded guitar sound or carve out your own sonic landscape.
Verdict
Fractal’s vision for this Axe-FX III was to exceed anything done previously: specifically to sound better, do more and be easier to use than ever before. We think they’ve succeeded on all fronts. Our review of the Axe-FX II said that it provided a complete signal chain that came closest to the sort of recorded sound an experienced engineer with access to great gear and mics and a good recording room would achieve and exhibited an outstanding degree of flexibility in sound creation, routing and control. This unit evolves that further and it can only get better as Fractal regularly upgrades the firmware.
Any studio would be glad of one of these but there’s also huge potential for onstage use once those floor controllers are ready.