Fractal Axe Fx 3

  • The old 'more horsepower' game.
    Waiting to see all the Axe-FX XL+'s hit Ebay...


    My first free association was:
    2012: Axe-Fx II ---------Kemper Profiler
    Axe-FX II XL ----- Kemper Profiler
    Axe-FX II XL+---- Kemper Profiler
    2018 Axe-FX III---------Kemper Profiler


    4th iteration of Axe-Fx within 6 years.
    Talk about value and longevity (although second hand prices of Axe-Fx's are great). ;)

  • I noticed it looks like 3u now, I wonder if it is still that old super deep server sized 17” or more? I hate when boxes are deeper than my rack. One thing I liked about tc electronics and Kemper is they are light and shallow. It will be interesting to see how Axe fx has improved on their sounds.

  • Looks great, very sleek....but.... and here i start getting all the hate!...they are all starting to look the same??!! This unit will no doubt be £2000 plus, probably 2.5k... looks like a helix and I'm sure that headrush are working on a rack version...probably boss will too...


    All this does is make the Kemper look better value for money and more individual...I've had an AXE FXii + fantastic unit...but again like Nemo13 wouldn't fit into a shallow rack easily and quite frankly in the value for money stakes the Kemper beats it hands down.


    Just my opinion!!! Which ain't worth a thing in reality....go Kemper thats what I say... (they're probably working on a gloss black, led touch screen version as I speak....Doh!) ha ha! :D

  • My buddy who got the FXII XL was a tad worried. But it's not like I didn't appraise him of this feature from Fractal.


    I wonder if it's a German vs American cultural business minded thing?
    The German company is building a brand that it's customers can rely on.
    The American company is looking to hook and cash in. Planned obsolescence over and over.
    Sort of like Toyota and Ford.


    The thing isn't that Fractal comes out with new units. It's that it eventually stops supporting older ones.
    Which is OK if they don't die on you. But it says something about long-term support and customer satisfaction.


    Is there any new feature besides a nice display that is revolutionary?

  • You can’t make a comparison until someone actually hears it. Hell, it might be a game changer! Kemper physically hasn’t changed but had a lot of updates and these units basically are software, the hardware quality does help the tone, but a huge factor in all gear is connectivity. That is the one thing so many in the past never got right. In the old days, you always had the one effect you couldn’t figure out how to incorporate or some special idea you had to get all this other stuff to make work.

  • You can’t make a comparison until someone actually hears it.

    It won't sound any different than the current units... of course, there will be 7-10 firmware updates between now and when the AxeFX3 is actually released.


    It just has more features.

  • Looks great.
    I have owned the Ultra and the II years ago - great boxes at that time.
    Lets see how it sounds - if the amp feeling is improved.


    ... wonder if it still has a loud china fan.

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    Edited once, last by Armin ().

  • „Our celebrated Tone Matching block is also improved, now with the impressive ability to clone the tone of an amp or recording in UltraRes™.„


    Some kind of profiling?

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    Great Profiles --> soundside.de

  • Simple logic, the Profiling process hasn't been updated or changed since 2011 (slight optimization and refinements maybe); and why should it if it's capturing the sound of the miked tube amp! As Kemper himself said early own, he wanted to capture the sound of the tube amp as heard by Microphones, not better not worse, just as close as possible and he by most standards he has succeeded. That's it, the solution to the problem of capturing miked tube amps has been solved by profiling.


    Possibly a Kemper two, can be in the works and it would also capture or profile all the knobs of the amps but if you think about it, most guitar players have their tube amps set on one setting (the sweet spot) and don't change any knob even though they might change presets of effect processors and additional EQ, so Kemper One as it currently stands will always be viable.


    AXE FX III or Helix II will never sound better scientifically looking at it, how can you sound better than the actual real sound ?( For a long time since AXE FX I and II, Fractal advocated the notion that the AXE FX sounds better than the real thing because the EQ knobs have more range than the real amps etc. That's completely the opposite of the Kemper that focuses on accurately capturing the sound, not claiming to be better than the real thing, for that you might as well get a synth and arbitrarily argue that it sounds better than a tube amp YMMV.

  • „Our celebrated Tone Matching block is also improved, now with the impressive ability to clone the tone of an amp or recording in UltraRes™.„


    Some kind of profiling?

    Wow, neat. Depends how good this feature is, I might have to switch over. The lack of an editor and other features are really getting to me, especially after going to NAMM this year and experiencing other manufacturers booths. I messed with the Helix (tone/feel is still lacking vs the Kemper). I'll wait for reviews and for the first batch of people to get theirs.


    If anything I can always resell it or return it during its grace period if it doesn't compare to the Kemper.

  • Fuck it, I'm buying one. And the fancy new 12 Button footswitch. I will gladly 4cm that with my Kemper. Probably even do some amp modeling as distortion pedals or some other kinda goofy thing. It's not like its gonna suck. C'mon, yall don't be haters, just look at this thing. It's a thing that thingy's stuff with things and it stuffs the hell out of those things with stuffs. :whistling:

  • Fuck it, I'm buying one. And the fancy new 12 Button footswitch. I will gladly 4cm that with my Kemper. Probably even do some amp modeling as distortion pedals or some other kinda goofy thing. It's not like its gonna suck. C'mon, yall don't be haters, just look at this thing. It's a thing that thingy's stuff with things and it stuffs the hell out of those things with stuffs. :whistling:

    LOL