Comparing the Axe-Fx III to the Axe-Fx II

The information on this page supplements the official manuals.

Migrating from the Axe-Fx II

For more information, read the Owner's Manual.

What's new

• Inputs and Outputs must be placed on the grid as blocks.

What's changed

• Hardware
  • The unit is taller, at 3U instead of 2U, but shallower, at 11.5” deep instead of 12.9”.
  • There are four independent stereo outputs instead of two, plus auto-switching front/rear instrument input and three stereo inputs. INs and OUTs can be used in the usual ways, or paired to insert outboard gear in up to three stereo loops.
  • * The red LEDs in the front panel meter bridge now light at -1 dBFS.
• Cab block:
  • It mixes up to four different IRs at once.
  • Mic modeling has been removed, but PROXIMITY remains.
  • There are now Factory 1, Factory 2, User 1 and User 2 banks, each with 1,024 IRs, and a Legacy bank containing all 189 IRs from the Axe-Fx II, and 16 Scratchpads.
• User interface
  • Instead of a RECAll screen, the Axe-Fx III has a Home button. The new Home menu provides access to preset and Meters pages, with soft-button access to the tuner, layout, controllers, and setup menu.
  • Instead of a LAYOUT button, the Grid is accessed from a soft-button in the Home menu, or by pressing Enter or Value while on the Home page. The Grid has new features like Zoom, CPU meter, and a mini tuner.
  • You can use old familiar workflows with the NAV buttons and VALUE wheel, but you’ll move much faster through editing if you try to use the five Push-knobs under the display.

What's more

• All of Axe-Fx II's amp models and factory cabs appear in the Axe-Fx III.
• All of the effects have been either ported directly or improved upon.
• All existing Cab-Packs and user cabs are 100% compatible.

1. Instead of X/Y, the Axe-Fx III features up to four Channels per block. Like X/Y, Channels give you multiple sound settings from a single block, but they change much more quickly. Change a block’s channel with dedicated buttons revealed when you press the MORE button (Push-knob E) from any Edit menu.
2. Each scene now has its own name. Scenes allow you to select Channel as well as Bypass state. The number of Scene Controllers has been doubled to 4. Presets no longer default to Scene 1 but now load whichever scene was selected when you saved them.
3. A new architecture allows multiple clients such as foot controllers or editor software to share control, updating each other seamlessly without re-sync issues or paused communications.
4. To control the bypass state of a block using a modifier, you no longer modify the Bypass Mode parameter, but a dedicated Bypass parameter.

Also:

• AE III
• tuner works on any input
• Ares modeling, parameter changes, input EQ
• more CPU
• 512 preset slots
• 6x14
• 4x Drive, 4x Delay
• new: Plex, Ten-Tap, Multiplexer, RTA
• Tri-chorus
• 4-voice Pitch
• improved Reverb
• more Looper time
• UR TMA
• improved Tuner
• 8x8 USB Audio
• faster MIDI-over-USB
• Scene MIDI
• Preset MIDI
• FASLINK II, FC
• Comms between editor, FC and III
• high-impedance inputs
• no Recall Effect
• no global blocks
• no swapping
• Windows: driver, Mac: not
• easier reamping
• Damping
• 4 controllers
• 4 scene controllers
• nominal +4/-10
• no Send realtime SysEx
• I/O: Send MIDI PC

Comparing the blocks

Comparison of available effects in each device.

The Axe-Fx II and Axe-Fx III cannot share presets electronically, but you can transfer sounds by re-creating them on the grid and entering parameter values, which match up identically or very closely.

Comparing sound quality

”Everything sounds better. I think a big part of it is the quality of the I/O. The I/O measures flatter and less distortion than my $2000 interface.” source

"It actually does sound a little better. The extra DSP horsepower means that we didn't have to make compromises in some of the algorithms. The amp modeling algorithm is very similar but there's a few places on the II where we had to make compromises to get the algorithm to run within the allotted time. Also the III has a higher internal oversampling rate and a higher bit depth on some calculations (64-bit vs. 40-bit)." source

"Better algorithms, higher upsampling, better analog I/O design."

More ...

(about heat) "Less than an Axe-Fx II." source