Farewell 11R...my honest opinion about our short relationship

[shasha]

Well it's officially over for me and AVID. Anyone who's bothered to read any of my posts concerning them knows just how much I hate them so it's been a real hate/love/some more hate/some indifference with the 11R. By this time tomorrow it should be sold on e-Bay and while that's a good thing I'm almost wondering if I'll miss it a little bit.

So I just wanted to go ahead and set the record straight and try to be honest and useful and not be fanboyish or hateful for no reason. I've got no agenda here. So this is my take on the 11R after about 6 months with it.

It's a pretty damn good piece of gear. It's not the best thing I've ever used and it's not even close to the worst. It's dead simple to use and it actually takes a concerted effort to make it sound bad....seriously.

Now if I was buying a new one or was to give a piece of advice to anyone looking to buy one I'd have to say that you MUST buy the EXRP. Without it there are only a handful of toys at your disposal and without the EXRP I was set to send it back. It's not so much that it makes it sound a lot better, but things like parametric EQ and that white boost pedal come in handy. The new delay is also something that should have made it to the original product. It's worth the $99, but it's kind of crappy that you have to pay an extra premium to get a few things that I consider to be absolutely necessary.

If you are starting out with nothing but a computer and need a DAW it's really hard to argue against the bundle deal with ProTools. As much as I hate AVID I never had an issue with it. The integration is pretty much perfect and there are some real advantages to having hardware and software interact like that. The disadvantage of course is that if you want to save, export or import a file you have to open up Pro Tools which is a pain. A standalone app would be great. It's also never going to happen because that is in direct voilation of the first rule of AVID....you will be assimilated.

Soundwise it's really pretty good. I hated it for a while, but like everything else it grows on you and then you really start to get into it and learn how to use it. The real drawback for me though is that I never got to where I wanted to go completely. I suppose a lot of things could have been done in post or in the mix, but I don't record that much and the little things like adding a reverb to just one channel or in parallel and adjusting the wet/dry mix were things that I just couldn't live with after owning an Ultra. I could never get a good Brian May delay patch created. That may have been me being stupid, but I couldn't figure out how to get the panning right.

But getting back to the actual sound of the amps I thought that some of them were really good. I liked the JCM, Soldano, Lux and AC30 an awful lot. I thought that the higher gain amps kind of sucked to be honest, but then again I've never been one to brag about being able to dial those in well. I've always struggled with anything in that realm. In reality it took me a while to get those types of tones on the Ultra and for some reason those techniques just didn't translate to the 11R. Plenty of people said they were great, but I didn't ever feel it.

Speaking of feel I thought that it was pretty good at feeling like an amp. If I rolled the voliume back it cleaned up pretty well, but other times it just felt like I was adjusting the overall volume which is a problem with most modellers in my experience. It was better than a lot of the stuff out there by a long margin. The Tru-Z thing was noticeable, but I never thought that it did a whole lot more than change the overall tone which I suppose is part of what it's supposed to do. I just never got the appeal or buzz surrounding it. It worked though.

The effects were pretty lean compared to things like the Ultra, but to be honest about 90% of anything I'd ever need was in there and then some. To me they sounded right more often than not as well. Could have definitely used some more adjustments as I ran into roadblocks from time to time, but if you are used to a pedalboard then you're going to get around easily. I honestly thought that the reverb was fantastic and the delays didn't sound sterile. The phase pedal was a real hit or miss thing for some reason. Most of the other stuff just didn't fill a need; I've never been good at dialing in chorus and love hearing it, hate playing with it.

The cabinets were decent. This is where I want to be careful because this is where the AxeFX is the only choice for me and I don't want to come off as just bashing the 11R. Without third party IR's though there are so many options and flavors that you just can't get with the handful of amps and mics they include here. If I had never owned an Ultra and never loaded an impulse it probably wouldn't matter to me, but after delving into IR's (even before the AxeFX) I can't not use them. I got frustrated more than a few times because I knew that if I could just change the mic location or mix two cabs that I'd be so close to being where I was trying to go. But with all that said its a fair amount of cabs and mics and stuff. The SM57 sounded like butt though. I couldn't ever get that one to sound good and it's one of my favorites in real life. Whatever.

MIDI control sucked. Perhaps a bit harsh, but I consider myself to be pretty adept at programming foot controllers and stuff and there are little things over the years that I have done to either make something work better or work around things to make them do what I want. Having everything hardcoded basically limits you too much. But the one thing that is absolutely unforgivable to me is not being able to get the wah pedal to be motion activated. It's so easy to do, but they never bothered to do it and I doubt they ever will. I finally got a usable setup, but I was never satisfied with it. This was a real dissappointment to me.

Integration with other external gear was really good. I was able to plug into my soundcard via SPDIF with no issues (perfect clock sync all the time which was a shock), was able to monitor through my soundcard into my monitors or headphones and even have a set of floor montiors as a mini FRFR type deal if I wanted to piss off the neighbors. I could have all of this connected all the time and never had to swap cables. I just jam along with songs on the computer or backing tracks and it was just a matter of turning on the 11R and throwing on the headphones. Great for ignoring the wife for hours at a time. All in all I never had an issue connecting to other stuff which kind of surprised me.

Re-amping was something that I never took advantage of as much as I had thought I would going into it. I can't comment on the usefulness because of that, but I can say that I did try it out a few times and it worked perfectly. I just like playing more than recording. Maybe that's part of the problem with it for me; if I was trying to record something and make a song I think that I'd appreciate things like having a working DAW a lot more. Being able to save your exact patch with the project is a great idea as well. Once again neat stuff that I just didn't need.

So if I had to sum it all up in the end I'd have to say that it was about as good as I could have hoped for given the situation. I bought it to fill the gap between the Ultra and the AxeFXII and it did everything that it was supposed to do and did it pretty well. But I knew going in that this was going to be a passing fling and I was always looking at other modellers out of the corner of my eye. I'd never be 100% faithful to the 11R.

It wasn't you 11R, it was me. You'll find someone on e-Bay one of these days (ok, in a few hours) and you'll make each other happy.

AxeFXII will be in the house tomorrow sometime. Don't expect to hear from me after I open the box until sometime next week.

[guitarnet70]

Have FUN with the new toy!!!

[Willowdale]

Graduating to the big leagues!! From buses to private jets, from small town parks to big city stadiums!!

You'll be crouching like Tebow when you hear the sounds you get!! lol

[forum_crawler]

Wow, that was long winded and not really needed.

If you wanted to try the axe instead there was no reason to attempt to explain yourself

[randombastage]

That was pretty darn positive sounding dismissal of a piece of gear!
I've owned the Eleven Rack (pre expansion pack) and at the same time had the AxeFx Ultra...sold them both to get the AxeFxII...sold it too.

And I agree with you, the Eleven Rack is quite good.

[Jim Soloway]

Avid don't exactly make themselves endearing, do they?

[jrockbridge]

I knew this day was coming when you got on the Axe II waiting list. I appreciate you sharing your honest feedback regarding the 11R, both good and bad.

You may recall that I own an 11R. But, I've also played through an Axe II via a pair of QSC K12's. While the 11R has realistic feel, I noticed that the Axe II is even more touch sensitive. For me, the Axe II touch sensitivity was one of the most impressive aspects. But, I expect you're going to appreciate all the extra tonal landscape of the Axe II, as well as the ability to do deep editing to achieve your sound. Another thing that stood out to me was what I'd describe as a 'raw' quality to some of the patches. I don't know if the raw sound is a function of the amp modeling or the cab sims, but I really liked that aspect as well. It was the most organic experience I've had with a digital modeler so far, so I expect you're in for quite a ride. Congrats!

[powermatt99]

If it weren't for AVID's reputation I would have bought an 11R several years ago. For products with such a steep learning curve, they sure take customer service to new lows. But, alas, I now have an 11R anyway and I'm loving it.

[lspaulsp]

Originally Posted by forum_crawler

Wow, that was long winded and not really needed.

If you wanted to try the axe instead there was no reason to attempt to explain yourself

Yes there was!.............................................. ..........

The truth.

Nice post.

[shasha]

I should probably clarify one thing here about my issues with AVID. I've been working with them in the video world for over 20 years now and hate just about everything about them in terms of marketing strategy and the overall arrogance they seem to carry. But the stuff does work. I just don't like it, but it's helped me to earn a living so I suppose I can't complain too much. But what I want to set straight is that the Dgidesign/ProTools tech support was outstanding. I had issues with the installation disc being corrupt and even my serial number not working and they got everything resolved in less than 24 hours time. Best AVID based tech support I've ever had. So I think that if I'm going to go out of my way to bash someone for doing me wrong then it's only fair that I praise them when they do me right.

I'm just shocked that the thing didn't sell last night (and I'm not asking much at all for it). I did have to cancel a bid on it; some guy sent me a message about being on a 6 month gig in China and needed it and wanted to pay me by some method other than PayPal. From the tone of his message I got the impression that he was Nigerian Royalty so I nicely asked him to take a hike.

[X-Mann]

Originally Posted by shasha

From the tone of his message I got the impression that he was Nigerian Royalty so I nicely asked him to take a hike.

I just wet myself! THAT was funny!

[DRS]

Nigerian Royals get all the best gigs.

[Black Squirrel]

I 100% agree with you on the quality of the 11R effects I found it really hard to get them to sound Bad.

You will be impressed with The Axe II for sure.