Tony Done
2008-05-09 05:36:48 UTC
I'm posting this in the beginners group because this multieffects unit, the
Toneworks AX3G, is cheap and cheerful, and because I am a relative beginner
myself at what I'm trying to achieve. I've been mucking with it fairly
steadily for about three weeks now, and have just made up a spreadsheet for
my user presets
With the band I play three different instruments, acoustic, reso and
electric, the latter two for slide. I've been trying to get some wildly
overdrive/distortion sounds, a la Sonny Landreth, from the electric, and
some good acoustic sounds from the other two. All this through a single amp,
either the Fender Blues Deluxe or the Hughes and Kettner Statesman Dual
EL84. Both have reasonable clean channels, and I've developed a preference
for using the amp clean and putting pedals in front of it. However, the
whole thing was getting out of hand with pedals, so I decided to try cutting
back to a simple multieffects unit. This one cost less than a decent OD
pedal like the Boss BD-2, and to my ear it was clearly much better than the
comparable Digitech RP50, which sound OK the headphones but lousy (being
kind here) through the amp.
All this was done using the clean channel of the H&K with a Gibson LP
Special having two P90s of moderate output:
Cons:
The AX3G is pretty flimsy looking, but that is OK because I play seated and
it sits on top of my amp, this is the reason I didn't want a unit with an
incorporated expression pedal. - I wanted a separate pedal that would sit on
the floor.
I was unable to find any detailed info on the internet about individual
effects. I read somewhere that the AX3000G use the same basic sound engine
as the AX3G, so I have assumed that most of what can be found about the
AX3000G applies where the effects have the same name.
The controls are OK once you get used to them, but I thought the Digitech
style was more intuitive.
No separate EQ controls, and the EQs presumably (ie based on the AX3000G
parameter settings) attached to the individual effects don't behave very
logically.
There are no headphone or USB sockets, so it isn't a convenient headphone
amp or recording unit.
The effects chain is fixed, and only one of each type (PreFX, Drive/amp,
modulation, time-based) can be used at once. There is also a level
adjustment also includes settings for noise reduction and cab type (inc line
out), and the three can be set independently. I haven't discovered yet what
the cab types are supposed to be, but I like A1, whatever it is.
The expression pedal only works for volume except when the wah effect is
switched on, when it only works for wah. This is in contrast to the AX3000G
where the pedal can be used for many different functions.
The factory presets sound like caricatures of real world tones to me, mostly
way over the top and varying wildly in output. Why don't they standardise
those things?
There is nothing approaching a true bypass, but a bypass that sounds clean
can be constructed as a user preset.
Pros
The Pre FX , modulations and time-based effects (delay, echo, reverb) all
seem to work adequately with a wide range of settings. Plenty of choice, and
I couldn't find anything to criticise in them.
The 16 drive and amp FX are excellent IMO, and this is what sold me on it. A
bit of internet research revealed what they are supposed to emulate:
Drives - TS808, Klon Centaur, Pro Co Rat, Boss DS-1, Boss MT-2?, Marshall
Shred Master?, Gibson Fuzz Tone, Tycobrahe Octavia. Amps - Dumble ODS clean,
Fender Twin, AC15 channel 2, AC30TB top boost channel, Marshall 50w Plexi,
Marshall JCM-800, Marshall JCM-2000, Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier.
Whoever did the modeling of the OD/distortion harmonics did a very good job
of it IMO. They really have tube-like tones, though I have no idea how close
to the originals they are. The TS808 has that edgy brightness that you
associate with SRV, but that is about all I can tell being relatively new to
electrics.
I have nine user presets set up for a range of clean tones using the Dumble,
Fender twin and AC15 effects. For overdrive and distortion, I got some
fantastic sounds from the Klon and Mesa Boogie effects, plus a few others
from the TS808, Pro Co Rat, MT-2, and JCM 2000. I also did a couple of
autowah effects, plus octave up and octave down. I'm just about to tackle
wah (of which the choice and range of settings seems fine to me) with the
expression pedal*, .
* The recommended Korg expression pedal is expensive, so I decided to go
with a very cheap option at least for a tryout period. I got a cheap plastic
no-name passive volume pedal for about $30, whose resistance read in the
range 2K to 18K ohms between input and output over the pedal sweep. This
gave enough effect range on both wah and volume, but the 2K toe-down value
cut the maximum volume, and resetting the sweep to 0K to 16K didn't have
enough effect in the heel down (16K) position. So I replaced the pot with a
100K audio taper, and set this to read 0 to about 70K ohm over the pedal
range. This was wired like a pickup volume control, input across the pot,
output to wiper. It seems to work very well, giving a smooth change from
maximum to minimum volume and a big range on the wah. I could increase the
minimum at heal down by putting a trimpot across volume pot, to reduce the
minimum to perhaps 30K, but this would alter the response curve, and I
haven't felt the need to try it yet.
Summary - cheap as chips, very good amp and drive effects.
Tony D
Toneworks AX3G, is cheap and cheerful, and because I am a relative beginner
myself at what I'm trying to achieve. I've been mucking with it fairly
steadily for about three weeks now, and have just made up a spreadsheet for
my user presets
With the band I play three different instruments, acoustic, reso and
electric, the latter two for slide. I've been trying to get some wildly
overdrive/distortion sounds, a la Sonny Landreth, from the electric, and
some good acoustic sounds from the other two. All this through a single amp,
either the Fender Blues Deluxe or the Hughes and Kettner Statesman Dual
EL84. Both have reasonable clean channels, and I've developed a preference
for using the amp clean and putting pedals in front of it. However, the
whole thing was getting out of hand with pedals, so I decided to try cutting
back to a simple multieffects unit. This one cost less than a decent OD
pedal like the Boss BD-2, and to my ear it was clearly much better than the
comparable Digitech RP50, which sound OK the headphones but lousy (being
kind here) through the amp.
All this was done using the clean channel of the H&K with a Gibson LP
Special having two P90s of moderate output:
Cons:
The AX3G is pretty flimsy looking, but that is OK because I play seated and
it sits on top of my amp, this is the reason I didn't want a unit with an
incorporated expression pedal. - I wanted a separate pedal that would sit on
the floor.
I was unable to find any detailed info on the internet about individual
effects. I read somewhere that the AX3000G use the same basic sound engine
as the AX3G, so I have assumed that most of what can be found about the
AX3000G applies where the effects have the same name.
The controls are OK once you get used to them, but I thought the Digitech
style was more intuitive.
No separate EQ controls, and the EQs presumably (ie based on the AX3000G
parameter settings) attached to the individual effects don't behave very
logically.
There are no headphone or USB sockets, so it isn't a convenient headphone
amp or recording unit.
The effects chain is fixed, and only one of each type (PreFX, Drive/amp,
modulation, time-based) can be used at once. There is also a level
adjustment also includes settings for noise reduction and cab type (inc line
out), and the three can be set independently. I haven't discovered yet what
the cab types are supposed to be, but I like A1, whatever it is.
The expression pedal only works for volume except when the wah effect is
switched on, when it only works for wah. This is in contrast to the AX3000G
where the pedal can be used for many different functions.
The factory presets sound like caricatures of real world tones to me, mostly
way over the top and varying wildly in output. Why don't they standardise
those things?
There is nothing approaching a true bypass, but a bypass that sounds clean
can be constructed as a user preset.
Pros
The Pre FX , modulations and time-based effects (delay, echo, reverb) all
seem to work adequately with a wide range of settings. Plenty of choice, and
I couldn't find anything to criticise in them.
The 16 drive and amp FX are excellent IMO, and this is what sold me on it. A
bit of internet research revealed what they are supposed to emulate:
Drives - TS808, Klon Centaur, Pro Co Rat, Boss DS-1, Boss MT-2?, Marshall
Shred Master?, Gibson Fuzz Tone, Tycobrahe Octavia. Amps - Dumble ODS clean,
Fender Twin, AC15 channel 2, AC30TB top boost channel, Marshall 50w Plexi,
Marshall JCM-800, Marshall JCM-2000, Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier.
Whoever did the modeling of the OD/distortion harmonics did a very good job
of it IMO. They really have tube-like tones, though I have no idea how close
to the originals they are. The TS808 has that edgy brightness that you
associate with SRV, but that is about all I can tell being relatively new to
electrics.
I have nine user presets set up for a range of clean tones using the Dumble,
Fender twin and AC15 effects. For overdrive and distortion, I got some
fantastic sounds from the Klon and Mesa Boogie effects, plus a few others
from the TS808, Pro Co Rat, MT-2, and JCM 2000. I also did a couple of
autowah effects, plus octave up and octave down. I'm just about to tackle
wah (of which the choice and range of settings seems fine to me) with the
expression pedal*, .
* The recommended Korg expression pedal is expensive, so I decided to go
with a very cheap option at least for a tryout period. I got a cheap plastic
no-name passive volume pedal for about $30, whose resistance read in the
range 2K to 18K ohms between input and output over the pedal sweep. This
gave enough effect range on both wah and volume, but the 2K toe-down value
cut the maximum volume, and resetting the sweep to 0K to 16K didn't have
enough effect in the heel down (16K) position. So I replaced the pot with a
100K audio taper, and set this to read 0 to about 70K ohm over the pedal
range. This was wired like a pickup volume control, input across the pot,
output to wiper. It seems to work very well, giving a smooth change from
maximum to minimum volume and a big range on the wah. I could increase the
minimum at heal down by putting a trimpot across volume pot, to reduce the
minimum to perhaps 30K, but this would alter the response curve, and I
haven't felt the need to try it yet.
Summary - cheap as chips, very good amp and drive effects.
Tony D