disassembled
Well-known member
Hey all,
This is my first post here so I'd like to say howdy, introduce myself, and ask some questions. My name is Greg and I am in the US Army so I am moving around every couple of years. Currently, I am in Japan around the Tokyo area. I have been here since January 06' and may or may not leave in January 09'.
Ok, enough about me. On to the questions! I have owned tons of stuff, mostly Peavey, since I was 17 or so, I am 23 now, and of late have been looking at a Triaxis. I just purchased a used Mesa 20/20 from Ebay in place of a Triple XXX head that I sold on Ebay. I have a few rack pieces including: Peavey Tubefex pre, Peavey Rockmaster pre, and Peavey Midipro; see I told you I owned mostly Peavey! Now, before I get burned at the stake I have few operational questions regarding the Triaxis.
Are there any gaps between patch switching? The cleanest example of switching patches I can think of is a Boss GT-3 I had when I was a youngin' that didn't have any sort of delay when switch presets; instant sound. Although, I thought the preamps sucked and it was more of annoyance than anything else; it always switched patches nicely
When comparing the Triaxis to other units how does it compare? I have a Rockmaster Pre that sounds good to me. The Rockmaster pre is a simple 3 channel tube pre that has decent tones on board comparable to a Peavey Ultra Plus head. The tubefex pre is midi driven, has a great user interface, but has a few milliseconds where the sound is cutoff when switching presets. The length of the cutoff sound is dependent upon how many effects you are using. In programming the Tubefex it is harder to dial in some sounds because the tube pre section is very dry. It requires you to tweak with the tube pre settings and the effects. Here is an example: say you want a tight lead but can't dial it in with just the tube pre; so you have to think what makes the tone I am looking for sound the way it does? Is it compression? EQ? This is where you start adding effects like Compression (either before or after the preamp) and EQ to get the full feel and tone desired. While this is great I am wondering how the Triaxis compares? I will give credit where credit is due and I don't believe in discounting a product that can do a good job because the company does not have a great long term rep with the majority of players(IE Peavey). To me tubefex is great since it has the Preamp and decent effects built in but the RAW tube preamp section is lacking by itself. I have run the Rockmaster in the effects loop of the Tubefex with good results but since I have never tried a Mesa product I figured it's time to dabble. Especially while I am single!!
My cab is a vertical stereo 212 with a celestion gk85 and an eminence red coat Governor. The guitar I am using for now is an old Ibanez 550 with a Tonezone at the bridge, stock on the neck, and noname middle HB. Also, I am using an Art X-15 midi board with the dual CC pedals.
The musical styles I prefer are harder rock with an emphasis on the late 80's early 90's shred (Paul Gilbert, Greg Howe, Tony MaCalpine, Vai, Jason Becker, Vinnie Moore, Petrucci, etc.). Most of these guys used a Marshall or one of the million boutique Marshall variants. I like TONE not necessarily gain. If I wanted gain I would have just gone with a solid state Randall or Line 6 Spyder. Make sense?
I do not gig or tour so this will just be for my personal enjoyment (please do not recommend any high powered power amps as my little Epi Valve Junior head is too loud to crank at my living quarters) with mostly low volume jamming attempting to learn how to play well. I want to downsize, that's why I got rid of the Triple XXX head even though with the tube setup I had made it sound much better than stock, so it looks like the 20/20 is here to stay. The plan is to run two attenuators with the 20/20 so I can get some power tube saturation and better dynamics(yep I know it wears the tubes and other parts faster, not really a top concern of mine as I perform maintenance on my stuff pretty regularly).
Budget: Ok this has to be mentioned otherwise I can expect to see some crazy responses. I am in the position to buy a used Triaxis for around $900USD and that's about the most it's worth to me since I don't gig and will just be fulfilling my urge to collect more gear and have more tones. I do not plan to sell my other items but if the Triaxis will blow them away then i might consider it. I am handy with tube amps as I have been using them since I was 15 or so (started with a Peavey Classic 30) and don't mind repairing slightly abused units.
Upon reflection of reading through my post I can see it is asking a lot. So, ANY help would be greatly appreciated. BTW I am fully aware of what a good tube compliment does to the tone of a good preamp so I'd prefer to leave that out of the equation for now.
Sorry for such a long post!
This is my first post here so I'd like to say howdy, introduce myself, and ask some questions. My name is Greg and I am in the US Army so I am moving around every couple of years. Currently, I am in Japan around the Tokyo area. I have been here since January 06' and may or may not leave in January 09'.
Ok, enough about me. On to the questions! I have owned tons of stuff, mostly Peavey, since I was 17 or so, I am 23 now, and of late have been looking at a Triaxis. I just purchased a used Mesa 20/20 from Ebay in place of a Triple XXX head that I sold on Ebay. I have a few rack pieces including: Peavey Tubefex pre, Peavey Rockmaster pre, and Peavey Midipro; see I told you I owned mostly Peavey! Now, before I get burned at the stake I have few operational questions regarding the Triaxis.
Are there any gaps between patch switching? The cleanest example of switching patches I can think of is a Boss GT-3 I had when I was a youngin' that didn't have any sort of delay when switch presets; instant sound. Although, I thought the preamps sucked and it was more of annoyance than anything else; it always switched patches nicely
When comparing the Triaxis to other units how does it compare? I have a Rockmaster Pre that sounds good to me. The Rockmaster pre is a simple 3 channel tube pre that has decent tones on board comparable to a Peavey Ultra Plus head. The tubefex pre is midi driven, has a great user interface, but has a few milliseconds where the sound is cutoff when switching presets. The length of the cutoff sound is dependent upon how many effects you are using. In programming the Tubefex it is harder to dial in some sounds because the tube pre section is very dry. It requires you to tweak with the tube pre settings and the effects. Here is an example: say you want a tight lead but can't dial it in with just the tube pre; so you have to think what makes the tone I am looking for sound the way it does? Is it compression? EQ? This is where you start adding effects like Compression (either before or after the preamp) and EQ to get the full feel and tone desired. While this is great I am wondering how the Triaxis compares? I will give credit where credit is due and I don't believe in discounting a product that can do a good job because the company does not have a great long term rep with the majority of players(IE Peavey). To me tubefex is great since it has the Preamp and decent effects built in but the RAW tube preamp section is lacking by itself. I have run the Rockmaster in the effects loop of the Tubefex with good results but since I have never tried a Mesa product I figured it's time to dabble. Especially while I am single!!
My cab is a vertical stereo 212 with a celestion gk85 and an eminence red coat Governor. The guitar I am using for now is an old Ibanez 550 with a Tonezone at the bridge, stock on the neck, and noname middle HB. Also, I am using an Art X-15 midi board with the dual CC pedals.
The musical styles I prefer are harder rock with an emphasis on the late 80's early 90's shred (Paul Gilbert, Greg Howe, Tony MaCalpine, Vai, Jason Becker, Vinnie Moore, Petrucci, etc.). Most of these guys used a Marshall or one of the million boutique Marshall variants. I like TONE not necessarily gain. If I wanted gain I would have just gone with a solid state Randall or Line 6 Spyder. Make sense?
I do not gig or tour so this will just be for my personal enjoyment (please do not recommend any high powered power amps as my little Epi Valve Junior head is too loud to crank at my living quarters) with mostly low volume jamming attempting to learn how to play well. I want to downsize, that's why I got rid of the Triple XXX head even though with the tube setup I had made it sound much better than stock, so it looks like the 20/20 is here to stay. The plan is to run two attenuators with the 20/20 so I can get some power tube saturation and better dynamics(yep I know it wears the tubes and other parts faster, not really a top concern of mine as I perform maintenance on my stuff pretty regularly).
Budget: Ok this has to be mentioned otherwise I can expect to see some crazy responses. I am in the position to buy a used Triaxis for around $900USD and that's about the most it's worth to me since I don't gig and will just be fulfilling my urge to collect more gear and have more tones. I do not plan to sell my other items but if the Triaxis will blow them away then i might consider it. I am handy with tube amps as I have been using them since I was 15 or so (started with a Peavey Classic 30) and don't mind repairing slightly abused units.
Upon reflection of reading through my post I can see it is asking a lot. So, ANY help would be greatly appreciated. BTW I am fully aware of what a good tube compliment does to the tone of a good preamp so I'd prefer to leave that out of the equation for now.
Sorry for such a long post!
