Just tried out my friends new Axe FX II over the weekend. As most of you know, I'm not usually a fan of sampling/modeling/sims etc. But, I'm going to come out and say that I thought this one was really good. I think the biggest limitation was that we were running it through an amp and speaker cabinet that colored the sound a bit. Had it been run through the studio monitors I think I would have been even more impressed. Yes, it has a full compliment of effects built in, too. Many of which are designed to sound cool on the showroom floor but things you'd never use otherwise. But I guess that also shows of it's capabilities. It also has models of many common and boutique pedals that sound great too. But what really surprised me were the amp models. You can choose from dozens of classic and modern amps. Fender, Marshall, Boogie, Vox, Soldano, Trainwreck. Sorry, there's not a Bugera model (must have been too complex). Plenty of complimentary cabs and even configurable custom cabs. I actually thought that the Axe FX II did a good job of capturing the sound of many of those amps. Pretty amazing! If you do lot of recording and have some coin to drop on a nice processor, you should definitely consider this one. I'd love to give more details but I only played trhough it for an hour or so. I do hope to be using it in the near future to do some recording, though - so stay tuned.