Are you considering an Axe-FX ? Here is what I learned.

Hatata

Hatata

Member
I got an FM3 in 2022 .. I approached it with the completely wrong mentality. First I relied on the built in presets and other peoples presets to create a tone. Nothing sounded good.. not on any of my
Guitars. I found some presets that sounded ok so I stuck with those and found myself feeling blah about the unit and feeling overwhelmed with all the options and feeling sad I don’t have all the processing power of the Axe-FX3 because hey bigger is always better right ?. Sold it within a couple of months.

Enter 2023… I started feeling quite bored with using Neural Plugins. I also started feeling that if someone else can build great sounding presets why can’t I? The positive about the neural stuff is it made me feel ready to really tinker.

Purchased an Axe-FX 3 Turbo. This time I went at it with the mentality of I will not use presets at all. I will create my own. Within 48 hours I had learned how to dial in a Cab and Amp to within 80% of what I wanted to hear. I started getting excited .. I started loving the tweaking aspect and finding my tone. Wanted to give back to the new folks here.

So here is my advice on how to start tackling the device if you’re a new user.

- Approach the device with the mentality of creating your own sound. Presets made by someone else are not tailored to your guitar, ears or equipment. It will only discourage you and make you feel that the device will never sound good.

- Before the device lands on your door step determine what cables you need and how you will monitor your sound. Get familiar with that portion of your signal chain so you understand how to set your levels and avoid clipping. Also the more familiar you are with the output chain you will understand if what you’re hearing is normal or there is an issue with the input or output signal gain.

- Take a giant world of possibilities and break it down into 2 or 3 small problems. Creating a basic clean sound, crunch and lead.

- Focus on getting a useable Amp and Cab sound before adding anything else. Watch YouTube especially Jedi Master Leon Todd on how to EQ your amp and cab to get rid of any boomy, fizzy or ice pick like tones. Remember you are a guitar player and music producer now. This isn’t an amp you’re mastering your own guitar sound.

- Move on to how to boost your signal and understand the effect that has on your tone stack. Again YouTube is your friend. Do you have a sound you like ? Time to add some effects

- Pick a single effect to add. Is it delay ? Well that’s going to add a whole bunch of eq colour that you will need to fix. Watch some videos to understand how to tweak the parameters and compensate for any undesirable change in tone

- At this point you should feel comfortable enough knowing that yes you can make this piece of hardware sound as good or better than your legacy amp, modeller and you will start to get so excited to be a musician, producer and IT person all in one.

Save your money on presets and IRs until you actually start to understand what’s missing in your tone and what you’re looking to achieve by purchasing an IR.

Great resources on YouTube: Leon Todd, Cooper Carter, Doug B and Mathew Dale.

Most importantly remember if anyone else can do it you can. I’m an IT Architect and honestly the options overwhelmed me at first because I had no idea what they all did. I felt really stupid and not up to the task on my first go around. The great thing is the impact of any option is easily discoverable just by listening to your tone and the definition is an internet search away.

And of course a big thank you to this forum and members. Lots of amazing information. @GlennO guide is one of the most valuable things I refer to often with my complicated setup.
 
Hi @Hatata
If you think the factory presets don’t sound good (at least some of them), I’d also be having a look at your monitoring setup. It’s possible your monitoring has some flaws that need to be overcome by customizing. In my experience and humble opinion, some of the factory presets are very good.

Thanks
Pauly
 
I agree there are a lot of really good presets .. what I was struggling with was a really good high gain rhythm sound.. Metallica kind of vibe. I wasn’t really appreciating the rest of the presets in my first go around to be honest. I was just hyper focused on making myself sound like I’m playing through an ENGL or Mesa in a room like I was used to in the past.
 
The amplifiers/tools are there in the box … I believe the prior post by @pauly is correct about your monitoring solution being a large variable here.

if you want it to sound like your rig in the room …you’ll want to fire up a traditional cabinet with some clean uncolored watts.

Quickest and likely most satisfying for you - or some well-amped, full range (with wider dispersion) 8”-12” “frfr” monitors and you’re willing to do the DynaCab/IR thing to dial it in; possible hi/low cuts etc. etc.

Play with it a bit. Get the monitoring right for yourself.
 
Not surprised as packaged presets are someone elses idea of what sounds good using their hands/guitar, so there's an element of luck in the ones that happen to sound good in the hands if another player using a different guitar. I would not discount however, the ability of packaged presets to showcase / teach interesting techniques for dialing in various tone / fx flavours.
 
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Firstly, glad you're back with us.

I've been with Headrush, Line 6, and on sound alone Fractal blows headrush out of the water making it look like a Childs toy to be blunt, and Line 6 makes a decent product but to me Fractal is in a league of it's own.

I'm with the others who've stated enjoyment of the factory presets...I can't encourage others to just dismiss them because in my opinion they are like a "showcase" for lack of better words, of what fractal has to offer, whether that be the whole package preset, or amp/cab pairings, or effects/od/eq/compression. And damn do most sound great to me using headphones or studio monitors. Although I will say most of the high gain options required some tweaking to please my ears. My FM3 still impresses me a year in.

I've found great use out of the presets, maybe not for all of them as a whole but maybe the delay sounded killer on one, I'll save that to my library for use on my own presets. Maybe I like a certain IR, instantly marked as favorite, etc. This can be done for all the blocks and quite a time saving tool for building your own presets. Also just looking at the grid and seeing how things are laid out in what order, and what pairings has taught me quite a bit to improve my own presets and get better tones out of the device.

I'm not a touring artist or someone with a unique sound, my gigging days are long over...just a home player who enjoys jamming to songs and jam tracks on YouTube. There's always a preset that matches my vibe on the unit and even if it's not all there fractal provides almost infinite possibilities to tweak to your hearts desire.
 
I deleted all of the factory presets as I've never used them past the first day or two. No real problem with them, but they seem neutral and generic and they don't really grab me the way starting from scratch and dialing in what works for me. I've been using Fractal since the Ultra on a variety of different studio monitors and PA speakers, as well as various power amps and guitar cabs over the years and my experience had been consistent in this regard.

OPs recommendations are great. Keep it simple and learn the unit. Not everyone likes tonestacks on 5 for every amp. I don't understand why so many guitarists are afraid to turn the knobs very much.
 
Some of the factory presets are really, really good. Possibly time to update them since we have had a few major firmware updates since they were last tweaked.

What you monitor with is a major thing like @pauly said. You, your guitar, the Axe-Fx and then your monitoring system are the main ingredients and with the right adjustments there are very few tones that are not achievable.
 
gibsonash said:
15 years with fractal stuff , never used a factory preset . I always made my own
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This!
I’m a Axe user since the Axe Standard.
It’s not that I don’t like factory presets, or presets from other users, they do inspire me effect wise, routing etc. but I do sound best, when I use my own presets.
Which makes absolutely sense. Imagine you have to play a gig through a completely unknown setup.
Yes you can do that and you maybe surprised nut it’s not fun at all.
 
I received my Axe FXIII Turbo in Dec '21. I had never worked with a modeler and knew nothing about pedals, amps, cabs, pickups, etc. I am a singer songwriter and have never explored any of that stuff. So I bought this Ferrari to learn how to drive ;~)) Here is what I did/learned.

I spent the first two months or so, going through all the factory presets, including each scene in each preset, to find what I liked. I was after nothing specific, just sounds I like when I hear them and that will fit with the music I will be playing. I built a spreadsheet of what I liked and where it was. First round, I found about 30 presets that had at least 1 scene I liked. Most had just that, only one scene I liked. A couple had two or three scenes I liked, but none had more than that. From there, I narrowed it down to about half a dozen presets that were the best of those original 30.

From there, I studied these presets to find out how they got the sounds I liked. Figured out which blocks/settings I needed to build my own kitchen sink. I ultimately used the "Ruby Rocket" factory preset (#105) to build my kitchen sink around. It gave me a good base of what I wanted in a preset. I then took blocks from other preset scenes that I liked and worked them into scenes in RR to modify them to my liking. I have it to a point now that I can use all three of my main guitars (PRS CU24, PRS CU24 PS, PRS McCarty 594 HBII) with minor EQ tweaks to my kitchen sink and they sound good IMO.

For bass guitar (EBMM Stingray), I never found a good basic preset to build around, so I built that from scratch. This was after I had already learned so much in building my kitchen sink for the 6 string guitars.

After I had this stuff figured out, I took Cooper Carter's master class and that took my kitchen sink and bass presets to another level. I have not read the manual except when I needed to read the manual to solve a problem. Much of what is in the manual is over my head, and I refuse to spend the time to try and learn it from page to page. I did not buy this unit to become an expert on it, I bought it to make cool sounds with my guitars and have been able to do so IMO ;~))

Recently I downloaded Yek's treasure trove of presets he recently posted. Of those, I found I think 4 that I am going to pilfer some stuff from, but have not had a chance to implement those modifications quite yet, but very much appreciate his and other peoples efforts in sharing these presets with us. Things like this help me learn a lot and also allow me to hear things I did not even know I wanted, until I heard them ;~))

I very much second the motion of the OP of "start simple". In block, out block and an amp in between. Play with it and see what kind of sounds you can get with that alone. Then add a block to implement some effect. Or play with some cabs. In the amp block, I have spent as much time auditioning different tubes as I have done anything else in that block. Blows me away how many different sounds are generated just from changing the tubes. And I have not burned my fingers once in doing so!

These units are truly a rabbit hole, but once you get comfortable navigating that rabbit hole, it can be a truly "through the looking glass" like journey that never has to end and can forever provide new visions of audio extravaganza! Feed your head!!!
 
One more thing I would add is I personally am not interested in duplicating the past and other players (YMMV). I use my unit to discover what I like and push the envelope to places that physical products could not have taken me in the physical product world. I have zero interest in sounding like any previous player (even when i am covering their music) or having my Axe sound exactly like some amp of yesteryear. I want new and better which this unit can deliver in spades ;~)) This is not for everyone, but that is what I want to do with my unit! Point is, don't think "Well if it can't sound exactly like that amp Hendrix used, then it is worthless to me", it can sound better than Hendrix's amp(s) so go and get it ;~))
 
Having used Fractal since the Axe-Fx Standard, the blocks I spend the most time tweaking are the amp and cab. Those have such a wide variety of personal preference involved compared to any effects. Don't sleep on the block library feature, when you find a great sound, save it.

Most of the effect models have a pretty good starting point, where just adjusting mix a bit would make it right.

I recommend keeping it simple. While you might feel like you need to make good use of all the capabilities of your Axe-Fx 3, building do-it-all kitchen sink presets or super complex dual amp, multiple route shenanigans is often going to make things more complicated than you actually need without actually sounding better. Majority of my presets are something simple like:

IN -> Comp -> Drive -> (modulation) -> Amp -> Cab -> (modulation) -> Delay / Reverb in parallel -> OUT

Also output systems matter. Just like you don't buy a cheap "Craigslist special" guitar cab for your boutique tube amp, don't buy some cheap fullrange speakers for your Axe-Fx 3. Good output systems will last you decades. If it's a budget question, I'd rather buy a FM3/FM9 + good speakers than Axe-Fx 3 + cheap speakers.
 
Ah, I sounded like garbage for a goooood year with the AFX 😎 until from watching Leon Todd and doing the @Cooper Carter course I finally figured out how to dial in amps.

Good to remember it’s not really consumer gear, it’s a professional amp modelling platform, so it has options that seem overwhelming, and you have to know how the real amp would behave, since for all intents and purposes they ARE real amps.

And yes monitoring is the key. I was very disappointed my first few weeks until I turned it up 😁
 
I also have never thought the factory presets sounded right to me either. They're a few that i dig but 90% are a big no for me. Always to much lowend and either super harsh highend or dull. I've checked them in many different enviorments at up to 100db. Every modeler across multiple brands i rarely enjoy the factory sounds. I also make my own since the Axe 2 days. The effects and routing are 100% good to learn from however.
 
Same here with many of the factory presets. I find that a lot of them sound dark and muddied. But there are a few that just jump out at me for my style of playing. Take "Ma the Meatloaf" - just wonderful. Also, I use them to learn about various sounds and recently started scavenging settings or blocks for my own presets. Agree with a previous poster on spending time with the Amp and Cab blocks as thats where the vast majority of the sound is coming from. Especially the Cab block. Find yourself a couple of go to cabs and use them as you learn how to dial in the sounds with different amp models.

Also, consider getting some third party IRs to experiment with. Try anything from Ownhammer or ML Sounds - these are really good.

Lastly, DynaCabs. This is where it really is, as the majority of your sound comes from the cab/speaker. Learn to dial in the right mic/mic placement/cabinet/speaker and this will solve most of your tone chasing itches or dilemmas. Mix the cabs/mics up a bit. Use the preamp page in the cab block and try to recreate your favorite stock or third party IR. Do this and your knowledge of cabs/IRs will expand and you will be able to port that knowledge into future presets.

Lastly, to quote one of the greats - "Never stop playing"
 
Moondog Wily said:
One more thing I would add is I personally am not interested in duplicating the past and other players (YMMV). I use my unit to discover what I like and push the envelope to places that physical products could not have taken me in the physical product world. I have zero interest in sounding like any previous player (even when i am covering their music) or having my Axe sound exactly like some amp of yesteryear. I want new and better which this unit can deliver in spades ;~)) This is not for everyone, but that is what I want to do with my unit! Point is, don't think "Well if it can't sound exactly like that amp Hendrix used, then it is worthless to me", it can sound better than Hendrix's amp(s) so go and get it ;~))
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Pretty much the way I like to use it as well. I have no desire to sound like anyone but me.
 
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