Axe-Fx
More info
- Creator
- Fractal Audio Systems
- Released
- 2006
- Type
- Amp modeler
Fractal Audio's rack processor, which took digital amp simulation from the bedroom to the arena stage.
Cliff Chase, who came from defence-industry signal processing, founded Fractal Audio Systems in New Hampshire and shipped the first Axe-Fx in 2006. Where rivals tried to capture an amp's sound, Fractal tried to compute its circuit: tubes, transformers and tone stack modelled separately, so that a knob behaved like the original knob. The speaker cabinet is handled with impulse responses.
The Axe-Fx II arrived in 2011 and the III in 2018, each with heavier DSP. The box became standard in the racks of bands that would otherwise have freighted half a ton of tube amps, and its firmware updates are debated on forums with an intensity usually reserved for operating systems.