New guy with some basic questions

[The Magic Hoof]

Hi all.

I'm definitely not new to guitar, but the one thing I am new to is gear in general. I'll try and make this as short as possible.


Nowww.... It's almost time to get a new amp, so I have some really dumb questions about a Triaxis since I know basically nothing about it and I don't know how it works.


The Triaxis is a preamp, correct? Ok, well it also requires a power amp to go along with it.. What power amp goes along with it, and why do you even need it? I mean, I have a mic preamp that a friend built me that I run into the line ins on a Presonus Firebox, so I took it that a preamp gave it the 'power' that it needed.


My assumption is that the Triaxis rack unit is just like an amp head, but it needs the separate power amp to actually power it up, or something like that... And another assumption is that perhaps the separate power amp can also power other rack unit FX that you may happen to have running through your rig -- anything at all.


Now that this is out of the way, the Triaxis is basically a conglomeration of Boogie amps, right? From what I read, I understood it to be that the Triaxis is basically just a combination of a few different Boogie amps all into one single unit/head.


I'm thinking the only things that I'd need to have an actual amplifier using the Triaxis would be the Triaxis rack, the power amp to go along with it, and some kind of cab, right? I'm not sure which cab to get, but that will be figured out once I know all of the above.



I apologize for the noobie questions, but I seriously need to brush up on my gear info and get with the program. I'll take it from you folks first since I know you guys can explain things much better.



And by the way -- I think I've decided that a Boogie would be best for me, because why buy just a dual rectifier halfstack when I could buy a Triaxis? It definitely costs more, but if I'm going to get the tone of a dual rectifier and then some from other Boogie amps, it'd be much cheaper than buying every single one of them separately. I think this is what made my decision.

 

[The Magic Hoof]

One other thing -- the only things I have now are a small 10-year-old Peavey Envoy 110 amp, and I have a Line 6 Spider II halfstack.. *waits for laughing to stop*


When I do eventually upgrade to a Triaxis, how big of a difference do you think I'd see? I mean this in terms of... well, kind of like going from a 1GHZ PC with 500MB of ram to a 3GHZ dual core PC with 2GB of ram. I'm hoping the difference will be like night and day with the computer upgrade analogy, but going from what I have to the Triaxis

 

[msi]

Some of your assumptions are correct, some are not. A rack based on a triaxis at minimum requires the triaxis and a power amp. The power amp doesn't provide power to the triaxis, but rather powers the speakers. You could go with any power amp you wanted. The triaxis was designed with the simul 2:90 in mind, but really any power amp will work.

As for plugging it direct into you mic pre, you won't want to do that. You'll want to go from the speaker sim out of the triaxis into the line in's on the firebox. I hate the sound of the triaxis's speaker sim. But some people seem to like it.

The triaxis doesn't "nail" any of the other amps tones exactly. There are lots of reasons for this, but the basic truth is it has it's own sound, that is with-in the mark series family. The design is similar to the amps mentioned in the manual, but compromises were required to get what they were searching for. Such as the Graphic EQ's curve not being adjustable. Also it's not going to get a dual rectifier sound like your probably expecting.

As for is it going to be an upgrade from what you have now, I can't make that decision for you. The spider amp is a decent amp for what it does. Not as nice a a vetta or a flextone, but better than a J-station I think. It has it's pro's and con's verses the triaxis. The spider is designed to give you an ok sound regardless of what you do to it, the triaxis doesn't care. If you don't take the time to tweak it, it'll make you want to kill yourself.

The spider is the slightly homely but still doable girl from down the street. The triaxis is the attractive nuclear science major that is sick of all the guys hitting on her. They'll both hate you if you treat them badly, but the spider is going to put up with it because hey, where else is she gonna go?

 

[The Magic Hoof]

I understand now.

I always took it that a 'preamp' was the thing that gave it power/volume (because that's what the mic pre that I have does). As for the firebox thing, I was simply mentioning it because using a firebox and a separate preamp is the setup that I use to record little things myself. The mic pres on the Firebox aren't so great, so I had a friend build me a separate mic preamp to run into the line ins on the Firebox just to get more of a crispy sound to them. I'd probably never use the Firebox for recording with a DI/running it directly because my Spider II does that and it sounds terrible. I'll stick with micing my amps =)


I couldn't really spot any kind of Boogie amp just by hearing it, but I've heard so many good things about Boogie amps in general that I think a Boogie would suit me best since I'm more of a lead player. Petrucci and Romeo are great, great guitarists, and I love the tone that they get. I think Petrucci used a Triaxis way back when on the Images And Words album, and Romeo uses a Dual Rectifier (I think he's using Engl now though..). If anything, I'm shooting for that ultra-thick lead tone like Romeo has.


If the Graphic EQ thing isn't in a Triaxis, this means that the versatility of it isn't near what it should be? I guess this means it's more a plug-n-play kind of a thing than sitting around adjusting the bass/mid/treble/etc on it... Or maybe you mean that it changes with each different patch/setting that's selected. Either way, I'm not sure exactly what to think about the EQ thing not being there and how it would either be a predicament or a benefit.


In any case, fooling around with the Triaxis is going to be no problem. I won't deny that I'd most likely get frustrated fooling with it trying to get a good tone, but once it's found, I think that it'd be worth waiting it out. I'm sick of the digital Spider II tone. It's basically just a giant practice amp and nothing more.


Hmm.. I seriously don't know what to do. It's either between Boogie or an Engl, and while I'm leading towards Boogie, I do have other options like going with a dual rectifier instead of the Triaxis.... With Engl, I'd probably get a Powerball.


I'm thinking the Boogie tone would suit my lead playing more, but Engl definitely does have that great crunch for rhythm. I don't know what to do.

 

[msi]

The triaxis does have a TMB tone stack. What I was talking about when I said adjustable EQ is the graphic eq found on the mark series amps. The Triaxis uses the same graphic eq after the preamp but before the fx send. But rather than making it adjustable, they set it up to scoop out specific frequencies they saw players removing on average. Then you control the amount of effect the Graphic eq has by turning the Dynamic Voice up or down.

And don't think I was saying don't get a triaxis. I have one. I really like it. Between my Dual Rectifier, 5150, and podxt I use the triaxis the most. Unless it's after 5pm, then its the podxt through headphones. But if you were thinking you'd plug it in, and have that perfect tone you year on an album, you'll be disappointed.

 

[reo73]

All good questions and msi did a good job of explaing it all. The "rack" thing is merely separating out the components of what you traditionally know a guitar amp to be: The Preamp, Poweramp, & Speakers. The reason for this is typically more versatility in your tone options as you can use different preamps in combinations with poweramps and you can also insert rack effects in the signal chain between the two.

The Triaxis is a great preamp and will give you a certain flavor of Boogie tone that is along the lines of Petrucci's tone. But, something to consider is the triaxis takes some getting used to being digital controls and multi channels and if you are more of a plug & play guy and want that same tone you might want to look into some other Boogie preamps such as the Studio Pre or Quad.(discontinued but easily available on ebay).

Speaking of Petrucci...this is what can be done with a Studio Pre

http://www.mp3lizard.com/download.cfm?id=24165