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AXL SRO Clean
By KenBJammen on Mar 3, 2010 | In Reviews
A guitar can only be as good as its weakest part. A solidly built guitar with poor pickups will not sound well, nor will the top of the line pickups on a guitar that is out of tune
I did a recording of the AXL SRO Marquee series guitar with the EMG designed pickups. There is very little on the AXL site to discuss what other than the EMG design is meant by the pickups or what pickups they were trying to do with the pickups.
I challenged the members of Burlap and blues to see if they could correctly identify the guitar based on some quick clips. As of 9 PM last night, no one had identified the AXL and Strat correctly. That is VERY interesting. . . . .
The first track is the AXL SRO in 4 parts. Neck pickup, Neck and Middle, Middle and Bridge and then Bridge. It is clear that the bridge pickup is different than the rest. Overall the tone is very much like a strat.
Source http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-1.mp3
As you can see, until the humbucker is selected, the tone sounds fairly good. Compare that to the Fender Deluxe Stratocaster in the same pattern. Neck pickup, Neck and Middle, Middle and Bridge and then Bridge.
Source http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/axl-2.mp3
There is a clear difference between the selection of 2 guitars. The Fender has a street value about 10 times the AXL, but the AXL guitar still has many useful sounds. My opinion is that the single coil pickups in combination (position 2 and position 4) are very usefull strat style sounds for this guitar. You listen, you decide.
Tomorrow, how does the AXL handle a hot over-driven amp.
Both clips were done using a fender 1950's bassman virtual amp software with no noise reduction software.
