FRACTAL AUDIO AXE FX III REVIEW | Tom Quayle | Guitar Interactive Magazine

[@steveymoon]

...and yet not a single store sells these in the UK. What a wonderful system they've got going.

[@rileyioacura]

I love my valve amps but axe fx 3 will always be a dream for me, it sounds glorious

[@donnieleach3180]

Where can I get an actual album by this Tom?? I love his playing but I only ever see it in YT clips. This guy needs a serious guitar release.

[@LeonTodd]

One of the world's finest players on one of the world's finest pieces of guitar gear - all class!

[@ernestobenschop6087]

I love seeing your comments on other peoples vids!!!

[@jennojentsch8090]

@@ernestobenschop6087 dito! 😚

[@brianjenkins5973]

E

[@jettsom]

Love his playing. His legato skills are unreal!

[@BigPhi84]

Tom, be honest... how many times have you accidentally bumped into that hanging light bulb? 💡 😂😂😂

[@steveozone4910]

A little bit of hair disappears each time he does 😂

[@shanewallace4294]

Phi Nguyen dude that is not real it graphics, 😂

[@mrburns366]

@@shanewallace4294 Sarcasm? :)

[@stepitupandgo67]

I didn't even notice that light til you said something...

[@trollstjerne]

Fantastic review! I like how you go into detail and explain things properly. The Axe FX III sounds amazing!

[@viewoftheaskew]

What a fantastic review, and your playing is stellar as well - so clean!

[@creatingacomposer3838]

4k! Honestly don't know why anyone else bothers reviewing the axe fx. You're the only one with the geek chops to deep dive and explain the features properly. Still in love with me Etch-a-Sketch controlled AX8, I'm sure it was by your recommendation. -Simmons-

[@constantinez551]

great review and awesome playing as usual Tom .. ! missed you (and your legatos) lately ! keep up inspiring all of us ;)

[@thebarcodestv]

You are one hell of a guitar players. Love your vocabulary.

[@gpg6745]

man, Tom's phrasing is so incredible

[@elianejoly5352]

Belle vidéo explicative et musicale .Merci Tom Quayle de ton expérience. ❤

[@Matt-zg8os]

yea but how do you operate this thing in a live setting? Pedals?

[@greghaislip]

Great guitarist! Great review!

[@stepitupandgo67]

Dude could sell an igloo (that has an ax fx3 in it) to an Eskimo....it's a great demo of the product...I do wish they could make a single rack version of it...just cuz I know they could cram the electronics into it...I don't care about the big screen cuz I prefer to edit patches through my computer, even with the big gorgeous screen...but...I still want one....not dropping the cash yet...very curious about the fm3....

[@theaustralianhulk]

I just returned the Axe 3 and got a Boss Katana and a Friedman BE-OD pedal and am just as happy. :) Reverb and delay built in and I can still buy several pedals if my heart desires.

[@taxsupport2422]

OK, we can see you are running stereo.. but what is the driving amp between the FX III and the cabs? A power amp? A stereo head? 2 heads?

[@metallica3604]

The best review of this on the internet

[@Ryan-kw7gj]

Have you tried to replicate your Dual Fusion pedal on the Axe Fx using the drive blocks?

[@glennnmurphy]

Thanks so much for this amazing video and your God given talent !

[@koonsickgreen6272]

before the review even started I punched LIKE because of your chops!

[@freezatron]

Choice Paralysis is the phrase that springs to mind !!! But what an awesome unit !!

[@pauldavis3904]

Its literally the A-Z of electric guitar tone history in one unit.

[@pauldavis3904]

@@bearres glad someone got the hidden bonus reference lol

[@johnbuell8035]

Paul Davis it’s not, literally, though, is it...

[@pauldavis3904]

@@johnbuell8035 depends how far off the mark you are to the point i was making lol

[@pauldavis3904]

@@johnbuell8035 well the primary use of language is to transmit ideas and thoughts. Most people reading my use of the word 'literally' however misused it was... would've understood it as i intended. Language doesn't have to fit in your box to still be effective.

[@pauldavis3904]

Also, for £3,000 plus it better had emulate "every single tone that has ever been used throughout history" lol!

[@Peter_Stoops]

Man I love my AX8!!! I would love to get my hands on an AXIII tho, I probably wouldnt come out my studio for weeks......

[@JustMe-999a]

Eventide H9000....Four quad core ARM processors: 16 DSP engines

[@julp8728]

JustMe9 10 000$

[@willyvanilly]

Great, now I NEED a TQM1. Thanks A LOT man.... ;)

[@berndkiltz]

Have it. I think it maybe the best Guitar I ever owned (and that were many after 20 years). It is definately the most versatile. That serial switching of the SCs sounds REALLY like a neck humbucker. Love it!

[@manny75586]

Guitar modelers are so amazing. I wish I had them when I was in high school.

[@sacredgeometry]

How old are you? They have existed since the mid 90s.

[@tykouns10197]

So do you have this hooked up to an actual cabinet? Where is the sound coming from? Your computer?

[@lefujyou]

One of the only guys I watch for info and great guitarist.....cool...le

[@chrisdaviesguitar]

what an absolute superb musician.

[@deluxairhead]

Sounds nice, I want one, how does it perform with an acoustic, is there patches that are suitable or not really ???

[@Benadon]

While not having a unit to tell you, tosin abasi uses his acoustic on certain songs, he always tells that he uses the axe fx 3 specifically for it.

[@Mam_2854]

I could watch you play for hours !

[@LouisonLabeaume]

Awesome review Tom. Awesome product Fractal. Thank you.

[@wheresallthezombies]

Those guitars sound so sick

[@Cluless02]

Of course much of the tone is really coming from TQ's playing!! Wondering if there are any Hiwatt/Fane (Townshed) IR's.

[@ExtremeBogom]

Now that's a bloody review! Fractal take my money!!

[@drill2.087]

Great playing and tone.

[@BrunoCarvalhoadv]

Fantastic review, thanks Tom (from Brazil).

[@Megamare1]

Gotta luv that super 👉🏽clean distortion‼️🧼♨️🎸

[@Gilyslas]

Dang, I want one of these. On sale now at Fractal.

[@SLAMSTERDAMN]

Ditto!

[@elianejoly5352]

Merci Tom Quayle !Très belle vidéo,et superbe démonstration musicale.❤👌

[@donnieleach3180]

How was that guitar intro recorded?

[@YMESYDT]

Hey Tom, any plans to review the FM3 soon?

[@tomquayleguitar]

Yes!

[@theaustralianhulk]

@@tomquayleguitar any idea on the release date for the public?

[@dillonpudge6881]

@@theaustralianhulk I enquired the other day and they're saying they don't know yet sadly

[@MrRafaelMatiazoguita]

Tom you’re awesome!! Let me kow the chain signal. Guitar - Axe fx 3 - what else ?

[@WarrenPostma]

This thing has the same disease as I have with in the box DAW production work. Preset overload. I need a random Shuffle mode. Can I get a random walk through cabs and blocks mode added please Fractal Audio, thanks?

[@mrburns366]

Fractal does make top quality stuff but as someone who works for the government the term "military grade" makes me chuckle.. because sometimes that's utter shit. lol :-P

[@johnwaters3974]

Right? I read that as "low bid".

[@5urg3x]

Here's the question -- the Kemper Stage just came out. And it's priced right. How much functionality would I be losing if I got this? The thing that kills me is it's so large and then I'd also have to spend another 1000USD on the foot controller. Maybe I should wait until the AX82 comes out. I don't really think I need all of those outputs and inputs. It's cool though that it functions as a USB audio device, IDK if the Kemper does that.

[@Returnality]

Just go with what sounds better to you, assuming price isn't an issue. You definitely wouldn't "need" one over the other, they're both fantastic.

[@njmetfan]

That TONE at 18:46. Holy shit.

[@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE]

You'd think that the more separate processors you have, the more latency you are also introducing. I know DSP chips function faster than say a desktop PC processor, but it would seem logical that a high core count high clockspeed single processor would have the best performance and low latency. Still love my Axe FX II but am itching for a III haha...

[@QuantumSphereBand]

CPUs are good at crunching though sequential tasks and conform to a set processing architecture. DSPs (probably a field programmable gate array (FPGA)) are basically a matrix of logic gates where you can program bespoke functionality, you're essentially programming a circuit rather than coding a sequence of processing instructions, hence you get a significantly faster response from an FPGA, but get all the subsequent firmware updates that come with it!

[@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE]

@@QuantumSphereBand And for the layman? Haha.... Basically what you are saying is that like a circuit it's more a case of once the connection is complete (the unit is switched on and the audio/effects paths established) it pretty much just runs through instantaneously without having to process every node along the route? I guess there must still be more latency on a ns or ms scale than an analogue signal path?

[@QuantumSphereBand]

@@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE very basically yeah you got it. There's still latency but much less than a CPU.

[@FlaxeMusic]

A general purpose cpu isn't meant for the job architecturally.

[@bryanlettow4389]

So you would need to buy a power amp for this as well?

[@tomquayleguitar]

You would indeed. Think of this as an incredibly powerful preamp for live purposes. You need to plug it into a poweramp of somekind - either a power amp FX return of a tube amp, a dedicated power amp to a cab, or direct into the PA.

[@bryanlettow4389]

@@tomquayleguitar Thanks T.Q.!

[@darfahy]

Amazing bit of kit.

[@jamieztar]

Great playing and great review. Thank you.

[@OfirOrlinsky]

Any idea when they will have a new floor unit? After the ax8 discontinued I didn’t see anything except the rack version.

[@frq9293]

FM3, gonna be out soon, nobody knows when exactly.. Fractal has a waiting list I believe

[@OfirOrlinsky]

Fr Qd right, but it doesn’t seems to be the same as ax8. It is small and has only 3 Footswitches and doesn’t have the same screen as the rack.

[@matthewmp111]

I only wish the Axe III was made in a floorboard setup like the Helix and others.

[@coopercarter]

FM3, coming soon!

[@GitarovoSK]

Amazing guitar player

[@domagojzagorac6186]

Tom Quayle is some serious playing dude!

[@rickrudd]

Funny - he and Rick Graham have very different sounding voices, but it must be a British thing, because their cadence and speech mannerisms are identical.

[@pauloalexandre-dd4nl]

Rick is Australian

[@bryanlettow4389]

Yeah same here I might think differently if I was from the U.K. and knew the different dialects but being an American they sound the same.

[@pauloalexandre-dd4nl]

@@bryanlettow4389 lol. And then we got Andy James. British too. In the end. They all great guitarists that I get surprised they not in big bands to be honest

[@Megamare1]

Would get me in soo much trouble (like the #LexiconG2 did) messin with sounds vs. playin & learning new🎶🤪🤙🏽🎸

[@SLAMSTERDAMN]

+TomQuayle just grooves & utterly wails. When’s that broomstick Demo gonna happen, dude?

[@unclejohn8520]

When is the next Dawsons Live Stream? Miss you so much,Tom.

[@dryvur]

Does it have a doubler?

[@stevenhernandez276]

If I could subscribe to you more than once Tom I would. You’re amazing!

[@drabbster]

Well now the question is: Sell my Kemper for this or wait till the release of the Neural DSP Quad Cortex?

[@Rippler666]

Just one question. Os this better or just as good as my zoom 505?

[@andyv4926]

😂😂😂

[@nethbt]

Zoom 505 = Cow Turd... There

[@vypyrr]

yeah love one. this is the one al the studios are using, why is that?

[@hermanlelieveld]

Amazing guitarplayer!

[@grahamjohnston8489]

Can I get one with that couch please?

[@AlexisGitarre]

the should have used another display for the metering when they already use a dedicated GPU.

[@coopercarter]

Nice one, Tom!

[@shredx81]

2:29 Tom pretty much drops the bombshell regarding modelling vs tube amps for me. These units are unable to stand the test of time to the point of redundancy, whereas a tube amp will always have intrinsic character & value until it is irreparably broken.

[@EverettDudgeon138]

Does this have an acoustic simulator at all for electric guitar?

[@tomquayleguitar]

It doesn't - but you can do a similar thing pretty convincingly using IR's of acoustic guitars.

[@EverettDudgeon138]

​@@tomquayleguitar Darn I was really trying to decide between this and a Hotone Ampro as an all in one solution for my guitar recording. Acoustics have always been a nightmare to record for me so I was really hoping this would have included an acoustic simulation like the Ampro does. Darn.

[@shemphoward999]

wow...looks like i'll be selling a couple of amps...i'm a bedroom player anyway, and look at the killer drive tones to be had at low volumes...digital has finally caught up with the tone of tubes...

[@deans.4705]

I love Tom Quayle. Great speaker and great player. I've had all of the major modelers, they still sound like modelers in the chunk low end. It just sounds like a fizzy mess. Single coil distortion really shows it. Maybe I'll try a PT15

[@TimBeauBennett]

Looks dope! Mind, I did just update by HX stomp to 2.8, so that'll have to do me for now 😆

[@agusg.t.8950]

Next: kemper please

[@martymeatball]

What's to review? All they've done is repackage the original model again. The same 10-year old hardware in a different box.

[@johnmiller9219]

What model ibanez is this?, i've never seen it

[@rbdrbd]

His new sig

[@Barefoot67]

the tones don't blow me away

[@Barefoot67]

@ No problem. It was never meant to

[@watchthisitsgood]

did you record the audio directly or through the marshall cabs?

[@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE]

There might be a bit of room/lapel mic mixed in too.

[@tomquayleguitar]

100% direct. The lapel mic is muted when the axefx is sending signal.

[@LouisonLabeaume]

Tom, what's the highest CPU% reached in that demo?

[@tomquayleguitar]

Around 58% I believe.

[@LouisonLabeaume]

@@tomquayleguitar It's actually more than I expected. Thank you.

[@MrDavemiley]

I just tried the AXE III a few weeks ago, I loved everything about it except the clean sounds. If Fractal could get the clean sounds as good as the drive sounds , that would be all one would ever need. I just could not get a couple of those "Must have" clean sounds for my playing style. (Any clean amp just on the verge of break up /pushed, then hit with a compressor to achieve and punchy clean with a bit of singing sustain) I just could not get that out of the AXE III . The Ovedrive ( Marshall , Diezel, Engle, Friedman ) sounds were amazingly good ! The cleans. . . not so amazing . :(

[@corybolton7462]

if you mess around with input gain, speaker compression and drive you can dial in breakup/on the verge of tones. Its all there its just the matter of if you can squeeze it out or not.

[@rcruz262]

He can talk about all the pedals he uses but, this is how he get's his sound!

[@jasong546]

Man I am so out of the loop on this tech, even though I am totally in favor of modeling stuff. That’s amazing really.

[@lushkordz6643]

Tom i guess would be able to sell sand to a guy living in the desert ...BUT i guess too if i would buy this unit i could stop playing guitar 4 @ least 6 months COZ the possibilities are so staggering N so endless that it will require so much time to explore just a fraction of what it is offered ...so I will keep using my good old Gt100 (really cool indeed) with a Blackbird preamp pedal inserted in the S/R ...N all my already setup patches (in Dual/Single Processing) /// BTW probably the best review on the FX III ((as usual))

[@RickDanner]

I wish I knew this tech stuff

[@rickyjones7282]

Let's be fair here!The Fractal Axe FX 3 is one hell of a piece of apparatus & is worth every penny!! But bear in mind that Tom Quayle could plug into a crap Gorilla transistor piece of rubbish amplifier from the 1980's & a pair of equally rubbish Arion pedals from the same period & still sound F#&king INCREDIBLE!!!!

[@randomguitarnote8887]

I learned to play on a Gorilla small amp that my uncle had around the house 🤣

[@rickyjones7282]

@@randomguitarnote8887 Honestly I wasn't having a dig at Gorilla amplifiers,I was just commenting on how incredible Tom Quayle is & make anything sound incredible!!!! But we all have to start somewhere!!My first amplifier was a 1963 Vox AC15 which I still have & it sounds incredible!!!!!!!

[@randomguitarnote8887]

Ricky Jones i know man, i just thought it was funny that you mentioned it.

[@giurgiuovi9312]

If i knew how to play the guitar and had 2300 euros i would buy this now!

[@JustinP.]

+tom quayle, Please share your presets...:)

[@spacefx1340]

gsp1101 still king for price vs sound.

[@elec123]

There he goes again.. Smoking articulation

[@5urg3x]

"Military grade" lol -- what does that even mean? No offense I love ya but sounds like you're reading off of a marketing sheet. What's the difference between "Military grade" DSPs and non "military grade" ? :O

[@SLAMSTERDAMN]

Hi, I’ve done mil-spec PCBs; it’s qualities of all components & materials involved, tested to given tolerances, performance attributes > DSPs, you get what you pay for. But the military grade reference could be a sales thing.

[@cmath8577]

This Axe III is quite frighting in it's realism and this a 2 year old video.I'm sure the updates have only improved every aspect.

[@gr8guitarplayer]

Ok, one-third of the way into the video, and he's already made 3 mistakes: He said there's 4 stereo inputs; there's only 3. In1 is mono. Called the foot controllers FS6/12; They're called FC. Said the Value wheel doesn't push; Yes it does. Have someone proofread the video, as it's important to get the details correct on a >$2k unit.

[@JazzzRockFuzion]

Bill Burr converters, eh? 🤘🏻

[@jeffreymaeatro2]

You caught that, too!

[@andriebayuajie6503]

Nice video. I'm waiting for fm3 tho..

[@johnnypatterson77]

If I didn't know any better it's almost like your promoting this Axe FX III, ........ha

[@AlexVonCrank]

Who better to do it?

[@midnightwind8067]

$5977,99 foot controller not included ,,,,,,, whatever for? lol

[@philknight5879]

I have used this unit and thought it was OK. I have now designed my own unit that blows the axe fx 3 out the water. I will never sell this for mass production because it took 7 years dedication

[@corybolton7462]

cool bro

[@vaughanmacegan4012]

4 DSP chips?!? The main processor is a singular Texas Instruments Keystone DSP chip made in 2012, costing a massive $61 to $50 depending on volume. Where in hell did you get the 4 DSP chips from? Or are you confusing cores with the actual number of chips? And as it costs $4,100 AUD, for a product made in China, without a foot controller, it bloody well better have a GPU built-in.

[@kevinraabe457]

One thing know one divulged: very difficult to learn/ figure out... steep learning curve

[@KX5Kat]

I have one and I'm not a tech nerd, by any means. How difficult it use is really up to how deep you want to get into it. If you simply want to dial in one of the hundreds of patches, it's as easy as browsing through a restaurant menu and select what you want. Even editing is really simple. The learning curve relates to tweaking every aspect of the sound you could possibly imagine, you don't have to, but the options are there; this really isn't the AXE-FX understanding, it's sound engineering in general. Furthermore, what makes things absolutely idiot proof is dedicated PC/Mac controller. Plug your unit into a computer and if you understand how a pedalchain works, there's really nothing else to know.

[@kevinraabe457]

Thanks chief

[@sacredgeometry]

It took me about 10 minutes to get comfortable with using my axe fx 3. Now after a week its second nature and I am getting amazing tones out of it every time I try to (its very hard not to). Im going to read through their audio block guide to clear up the specifics about each parameter and then I should mostly know how it all functions from an end user perspective. It's not hard. It's not rocket science. It's really not complicated.