Another new Ultra thread!

gendefect

gendefect

Inspired
Ok, probably no one wants to read these anymore, but I had the first chance to play through my new Ultra today. I have to say, I feel like my experience was about the opposite of a lot of other people's.

Playing through the various presets I was repeatedly blown away by how great a lot of them (though certainly not all of them) sounded. Now, I bought mine used, so maybe the guy who had it before me had done some tweaking, but it didn't really look like it. Either way I really felt like, on the whole, the presets sounded great.

Then I tried to build some sounds myself and I couldn't make anything sound good! Everything sounds shrill and nasally. Now, I've just been using headphones to monitor until my FBT speaker arrives (another few weeks), so that's probably part of the issue. But I think the rest of it is my complete inability to utilize the axe properly. I'm definitely in WAY over my head.

That said, I'm a patient guy and happy to keep messing around with it until I can start making it work. I'm hoping it won't be too long. But I'm confident the various sounds I'm after are in there, I just have to go through the long process of figuring out how to get them out!
 
Best advice I can give - and it's not much.

1. Read the wiki - you are not first to travel this path. Many have different tastes. expectations and uses for the Axe. SOme have a lot of trouble tweaking.

2. Scan the forum of others experiences - like I said, you are not the first.

3. Understand the basics - if you can't get a good tone from a combo amp or head/cab setup, you will not have any more success with the Axe.

4. Read the wiki - again. Yek's HOW-TO's are wonderful!

5. Start simple - amp and cab. Then add in your effects. You can get stellar sound with the right combination of amp, cab and some simple reverb.

6. Understand amp basics - only this time do it for the amp model you have picked. Know what impact presence, gain, drive and the tone controls do for that model. And this is without ever needing to get into the "advanced" settings.

Hope this gives you some direction.
PS: I have found the Axe FAR easier to tweak (even with all the available parameters) than other modelers I have owned, such as Boss, Line6 and Roland.
 
s0c9 is spot on.

Also peruse later Axechange for presets that work good right off. There are some gems in there.

Java's stuff - his dumble is great. ScottL's stuff / Scott Petersons too for straight-up fender. Also check out the TimmyM bank of sorted amp/cab config's with a touch of reverb - great starting point to build from. Yek's stuff. List goes on....

Some of the above are in the forum. Do a '.syx' search and file all the presets. Load them all up and save what works for ya.

Be prepared to vary the input level to at least approximate the 'intended' amount on presets that may be contenders. Balance the volume of the patches with the output knob as you go - they will be all over the place.

Now take a few of your favorites and play with the parameters. It's easier to learn when starting with a good tone than from a bad tone or from scratch (IMO).

There is no compare button so when tweaking leave the starting preset alone, copy it next door and start at it. Save different versions all in a local group and scan thru all of them when your 'done'. When your work sounds better to you, your getting somewhere as your patches are dialed in to your rig and playing style. Be sure to balance the perceived levels as you can be fooled by volume.
 
widrace said:
Also peruse later Axechange for presets that work good right off. There are some gems in there.
Click to expand...

Where is the Axechange? Can someone provide a link? I've hunted around the forum and the Wiki and it seems like every link I try doesn't work anymore. Did it get shut down or something?
 
To get to Axe-Change, load Axe-Edit and start the preset manager. On the right side click on the Axe-Change tab and then on Source.
 
LMO said:
To get to Axe-Change, load Axe-Edit and start the preset manager. On the right side click on the Axe-Change tab and then on Source.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I didn't realize it was built into the Axe-Edit. Very cool.

I'm still not getting it working though. I can see all the various presets that exist in the exchange through the preset manager, but how do I load/hear any of them? Nothing I do seems to work. Sorry for the dumb questions, but I can't see to figure it out!
 
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