Why some amps initially sound bad?

mr_fender said:
Don't forget about the block library in Axe Edit. You can save all the dialed in versions of the amps you want as .blk files and use the block library to audition amps when making or editing presets instead of selecting from the regular model list. You can also name them whatever you want too.

I've been going through the models and roughly dialing in a starting point that works for me and naming them after the real amps instead of Fractal's suggestive names.

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+1 - I totally did this for years on the Factory presets with good amp sounds -- saved the amp and the cab paired with it into my block library.

One amp I do still struggle with is the Two Rock J-35 I think channel 1. I just can't get it to sound very appealing to me. But I have no issues with any of the others!
 
I totally agree with the OP. I think the issue is easy to see by reading posts like this:

FractalAudio said:
From time to time I hear customers complaining they can't get the sound they want and they look at their preset and all the tone knobs are at noon or only slightly deviated from noon. I ask why and they say something like "well, I don't want to stray too far from the defaults".

Amps have controls for a reason. Don't be afraid to get radical with them, especially older amps. Those old amps were crude and not intended to deliver the more modern type tones players today want. For example, if I were to use a Fender model for a lead tone I would turn the bass way down and midrange way up as they get too flubby otherwise.

As an excellent illustration consider Joe Bonamassa's settings:

JoeBonamassa2015AmpSettings-e1428100742672.jpg


Bass is all the way down, midrange is almost all the way up. Pretty much how I would dial in that amp (59 Twin or 58 Bassman which are very similar topologies).

As you turn the volume up on these old amps the distortion is coming from the power amp and you need to boost the mids and cut the bass to flatten the response since the power amp's response follows the speaker impedance which is scooped in the mids. Otherwise the bass clips before the mids which causes flubbiness.

That's also similar to how I dial in a Plexi. I crank the mids and lower the bass.
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Cliff is obviously a genius. What he's created with the Axe Fx family is to me truly staggering and I'm grateful for having a product like the Axe Fx 2 and more recently the Ax8 to play with. But when I see posts like the quoted one I am also totally baffled at basically blaming customers for not knowing how to use the product.

Defaults are incredibly powerful and by having decent default values, the ease of use would be massively enhanced, with more happy customers as a result and less need for posts like the quoted one. And for those that argue that "not everyone will like the same thing" – that's always going to be true regardless of setting. And by having a base tone that will appeal to as many people as possible it would be a much better starting point than having everything at noon. Also, how much more useful and productive would it be if we instead argued about what the default value should be on a Fender Twin to appeal to as many people as possible rather than just throw out the old "use your ears man" and having lots of amp model be much worse than they could (should) be as a default.

Nothing is ever going to be perfect and it seems that the argument against different default values than noon really comes down to since it's not going to be perfect for everyone, its a complete waste of effort trying to make it better for many.
 
Johan Allard said:
But when I see posts like the quoted one I am also totally baffled at basically blaming customers for not knowing how to use the product.
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If a user is complaining about not being able to obtain a tone they like yet practically all of the tone knobs in their preset are set to noon with little deviation, that does tend to strike me as user error / ignorance.
 
Jason Scott said:
That's precisely the problem. How would you go about determining such a base tone?
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When Cliff posts a screenshot of a much better setting than "noon", as per the post I quoted, I'd say that would be a much better default value.

Jason Scott said:
If a user is complaining about not being able to obtain a tone they like yet practically all of the tone knobs in their preset are set to noon with little deviation, that does strike me as user error.
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Yes, everyone likes to blame the user.
 
Johan Allard said:
You know that it isn't?
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I'm not the one claiming a base tone that appeals to most people is possible. The question is, what reason would I have to believe the settings in the image Cliff posted would appeal to most people more so than any other setting?
 
Jason Scott said:
I'm not the one claiming a base tone that appeals to most people is possible. The question is, what reason would I have to believe the settings in the image Cliff posted would appeal to most people more so than any other setting?
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It's called product development. You start by taking a reasonable stab at what you believe would be good default values. Listen to customer feedback. Tweak. Listen to customer feedback. Tweak. ...

There's basically two options as I see it. You either try to make it better for more people, which is the premise of the OP. Or you throw your hands in the air saying, it's not possible so it's no use even trying. I like to think that it's possible so I think it would be better to try. That's obviously also why people like AustinBuddy has been spending all that time he must have spent creating his pack of presets, and why Yek created his series with amps and preset packs.
 
Johan Allard said:
It's called product development. You start by taking a reasonable stab at what you believe would be good default values. Listen to customer feedback. Tweak. Listen to customer feedback. Tweak. ...
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There's been plenty of customer feedback regarding the stock cabs with very little consensus.

The challenge is, cab selection can make or break your amp settings. Once you start factoring in cab selection, all bets are off.

Johan Allard said:
That's obviously also why people like AustinBuddy has been spending all that time he must have spent creating his pack of presets, and why Yek created his series with amps and preset packs.
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However, AustinBuddy's amp settings are paired with a specific cab.
 
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Johan Allard said:
When Cliff posts a screenshot of a much better setting than "noon", as per the post I quoted, I'd say that would be a much better default value.



Yes, everyone likes to blame the user.
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Why shouldn't we blame the user ?

Why should the user have a great tone just handed to them ?

Why shouldn't the user have to put in a little effort tweaking and actually LEARNING how to dial in a amp and then be rewarded with a subjectively great tone ?

Used to be when you were going in to do an album you took some (or all lol) of your advance money, bought a bunch of cool gear, if not rented some higher end amps, then spent a week or so figuring out how to hook everything up in the right order, dialing in patches, keeping a notebook of settings, playing with different mics etc, and then after you've crafted something great, you laid down tracks. That was the process...

You used to take your new guitar out of the box, and you had to spend a little time setting it up (or take it to tech to do it). These days I read so many reviews on retailers sites that says so and so bought a guitar, pulled it from the case and it didnt' play perfectly so they sent it back. Like what.... of course its not going to come perfectly set up, I've never had a guitar that did.

Ever buy a Mesa amp ? I remember I pulled my Mini V head from the box and horror of horrors, they didn't have each and every knob perfectly dialed in. I actually had to hook it up and send time setting each knob. There wasn't even an all knobs at noon settings to start with. Nobody got time for turning a bunch of knobs.....

What do people expect now ? Just to flip a switch and have their subjectively ideal tone handed to them.

I honestly don't get it, and maybe it really is a generational thing, but there is a serious sense of entitlement that is becoming pervasive across everything people do and consume these days...


I think all future Axe updates should consist of nothing but blank patches, and every amp model should load with all knobs at a noon. Leave it up to the user to set the amp, place effects where they want them, select a cab etc. Actually make people think for themselves...

If some want to pay others, such as Austin for their services, more power to them, or heck, for the right price, I'm sure M will fly to your place, spend 2 days personally dialing in every tone you could want, but if I was Cliff, I'd say "enough is enough". "I gave you an amazing tool, the rest is up to you"

Honestly one of the main reasons (IMO) most music is garbage these days is because 'musicians' want things to be easy. Everyone wants to press a few buttons and be a producer, want to be a DJ but have no talent for beat matching records, and don't want to put in the effort to learn, just press the "auto sync" button and spend the rest of your time pretending to tweak the EQ knobs...

Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of cool technology these days, and it can be used for good, but whatever happened to the willingness of people to really put the effort into learning an instrument, learning to read music, practicing playing together with others etc ?

When I worked at a music store the sheer number of people that returned guitars or keyboards after 3 weeks because the parents said their kid lost interest in it, or that it was "too hard" was staggering. Not saying it wasn't like that before to some extent, but just not like it is now....

Oh well, off to pay my $99 to watch two millionaires throw some jabs at one another while trying not to laugh all the way to the bank that they actually pulled off the deal of the century....I mean the fight of the century lol
 
So basically we have three different viewpoints so far:
  • If we make things easier, more people will get better tone and generally be happier (OP).
  • It's impossible to agree anyway so it's better to leave things as is.
  • We should make things harder so that people have to struggle because when they eventually get there they will be happier.
 
The guitar can really make all the difference.

ALL the presets sound like shit on my Ibanez until I tweak them heavily.
80% of them sounded absolutely perfect at gig volume with my PRS custom 22, or my stratocaster.

You've got to consider what the presets where made with/designed for.
 
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Oddly enough I had this type of situation in the analog world. Way back when, when I bought my first boogie amp. I went into the dealer and tried out a few different models. Settled on the DC-10. Bought it, brought it home and un boxed it and started trying to dial it in. Well as most of you probably know, boogies are much different to dial in than most amps. Needless to say, I spent a couple of weeks trying to dial it in to hear what I heard in the store and just couldn't get it there, but I knew that sound was in there, because I heard it in the store when I fell in love with the amp. So I did the equivalent to going onto a forum and asking stupid questions, (back then forums didn't exist). I called the store and spoke to the sales rep that helped me. This was not guitar center, the rep actually knew her shit. I asked if she could give me some tips on dialing it in for the type of tone I was looking for. She said come in, we'll set everything up and I'll help you. Needless to say after that I knew how boogies were intended to be used and how the controls interacted with each other.

Point is even with real amps you have to know what you are doing with them before you get them to sound good. There is no quick fix answer, you have to put in the work.

I agree with the post above, today people just expect instant gratification. Learn the amps you are trying to use, watch YouTube videos of rig rundowns to see how people tend to set the amps. Not saying to mimic other people's settings, but this will help you learn how the amp responds to enable you to dial in that tone you want, then the great thing about the axe is, you can just hit save and recall those settings every time.
 
If there was a builtin function to create new preset with just amp and cab, with some predetermined by FAS "good" settings, I can't see how it would be worse than the tone stack at noon and the 1x6 oval IR.

It's just another starting point, but one that was given some consideration.

How would that be worse than the "noon" settings?
 
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