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Tosin Abasi, frontman and lead guitarist of genre-blurring progressive metallers Animals As Leaders, kindly took time out of his busy schedule of melting faces to talk us through his Axe-FX II rig.

Tosin's one of the most interesting guitarists we've heard in a long time and you can read our full interview with him in Total Guitar issue 223 (on sale 28 December to 22 January).

However, Tosin's not just innovating with his playing – he's also one of an ever-growing group of players championing Fractal's Axe-FX II simulator, which seems to be rapidly becoming an industry standard.

If you're a fan of detailed, considered explanations of pro-level gear set-ups then strap-in – it's your lucky day.

Everyone else should probably go and look at these pictures of Boo, the world's cutest dog. LOOK AT HIS TINY FACE!

You used Fractal's Axe-FX unit to record the new album 'Weightless' and now live. How did you discover it?

"I have an Axe-FX II and Javier has an Axe-FX Ultra. Misha [Mansoor of Periphery] introduced me to Axe-FX. I had a pretty extravagant rig – an Engl head, Orange cab and at the other end I had a VHT power amp, Line 6 PODX3 and that was going through a Genz Benz cab. And then there was the pedalboard. He has an Axe-FX and let me play through it and eventually I realised, 'I have too much gear – is this really necessary?' So I asked him, 'Do you think I can still pull off what I'm doing with all this gear with just the Axe-FX?' He said, 'Absolutely.'" It's the most streamlined setup I've ever had but it's actually the most capable too."

Do you miss having cabs behind you onstage?

"In a way, yes. But the Mackies actually have quite a range of frequency and I learned that by using the Axe-FX full range, then trying to emulate the sound of a cab. It's pretty hard to beat. I miss it in some ways. The experience of playing through a cab is almost like being directly connected to your guitar. And there are so many combinations of speakers, enclosures and woods. But I found that in a live setting it might be nice to play up against your cab but there's so many factors that dictate what it sounds like front of house; what kind of mic are you putting against the cab, is it on or off axis, how many inches away from the cone is it, what kind of grill is on the cab. Then there's stage volume. One day we made the decision to have a lot of control over our tone and then to have that tone not change at all front of house. And that's basically what the Axe-FX allows you to do."

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