Experienced users! Tips and tricks for new Axe user, please?

Steinmetzify

Steinmetzify

Inspired
As the title says...I'm going to be purchasing an XL end of the month, and I'd like you guys to bust out with the stuff that took you awhile to learn. Any kind of thing that was already in the Axe but you didn't know it until months later and it made everything you did easier or whatever...I have a good buddy that's been talking me through WHY I should go Axe instead of something else, and now that that's done, I'd like to know what you guys do to get the most out of it. I've been impressed with this forum since day one....there's a bunch of knowledgeable cats up on here, and I'd appreciate your advice.

What would you have like to known right off the bat when you got your Axe? Cab tricks, layout setups, looping FX, running parallel amps/cabs, which delays are great, doing things that simply aren't possible in real life with amps and FX chains, what presets rock right out of the box, etc...I'd like to have this all in one thread that I can easily peruse and go back to if I have questions.

For the record, I'd mostly use this for metal and occasional blues (95% - 5% respectively), recording at home via USB into Reaper as it's what I've used for years and am comfortable with...various guitars including Les Pauls with passives to ESPs with EMGs and a couple basses sitting here.

What do you know now and use daily that you wish someone would have told YOU day one?

Thanks guys.....and thanks for the forum. TON of info in here for guys thinking about going digital, and everyone seems really nice as well; haven't really seen any instances of people being rude to noobs, and for something this in depth that's huge for me as I'm sure I'll have more than one question about how to do this or that.

Appreciated,

Scott
 
I'd find these insights helpful too...my Axe arrives tomorrow. The wiki has lots of good info...LOTS. That makes it a bit hard to filter out the most useful tips or tricks or "hidden" things that you don't realize the significance of until much later sometimes. I'm reading through the wiki but there's so much info to go through that I think the OP is a good question.
 
Really just have to try as much as possible, with 200+ amps people are all going to love different stuff, and sometimes those amps you don't hear people talking about, because most love, lets say the HBE, are the ones that just nail that tone you've always heard in your head.

Exploration is half the fun really. With a turn of a dial you can try all these cool amps you might never have access to in the real world
 
iaresee said:
That there's a wiki: Axe-Fx II Wiki Home - Axe-Fx II Wiki -- full of useful, useful information.
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Yup....been reading, but as said below, was looking more for things that you've found that help you in your experience with the unit...thanks for the tip though!

mbrown3 said:
I'd find these insights helpful too...my Axe arrives tomorrow. The wiki has lots of good info...LOTS. That makes it a bit hard to filter out the most useful tips or tricks or "hidden" things that you don't realize the significance of until much later sometimes. I'm reading through the wiki but there's so much info to go through that I think the OP is a good question.
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Exactly....this is what I'm hoping for for us new guys. Congrats on your Axe, man....stoked for the end of the month, and I know I'd be freaking out with anticipation the day before. I'll be looking for your review...maybe we can start a club or something for new guys.

lqdsnddist said:
Really just have to try as much as possible, with 200+ amps people are all going to love different stuff, and sometimes those amps you don't hear people talking about, because most love, lets say the HBE, are the ones that just nail that tone you've always heard in your head.

Exploration is half the fun really. With a turn of a dial you can try all these cool amps you might never have access to in the real world
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Good point.....I watched some of the Cooper vids where he was talking about his fav presets right out of the box, and I'm going to give that a try, vs doing what I usually do with a new modeler, which is grab a Recto model and tweak the crap out of it and stick to it and use nothing else.

Chris@AxeFxTutorials said:
I'm working on articles specifically for new axe users on my site Axe-Fx & Fractal Audio Tutorials | AxeFxTutorials.com

Maybe I'll have some ready by the time you get your axe! There is content there already, but tailoring it to first timers has always been a goal of mine to help you through the process.
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I've been perusing your site and vids for some time now, and I gotta say it's been really helpful. Thanks for the reply and for all that you do with this stuff, man. It's helped a lot of people get their tones down from what I've seen. Appreciate ya, man.
 
Don't try to slavishly duplicate amp settings by copying knob positions… look away, and listen when changing values. That's how you actually get the sound; listening, not looking.
 
Watch all the YouTube instruction you can before it arrives.

What works for me : SDD preamp, blending two amps, stereo cab block with delay on one cab (.004-.006), multidelay in parallel, stereo tape in parallel, good reverb. Less gain goes a long way. More mids, less treble & bass. Don't assume you have to use a 4x12 IR to get the sound you're going for.

Use the hpf and LPf in the cab block. Bout 90hz and 8500 hz. Some are more aggressive than that. 150 & 6500

Cheers
 
Before going crazy with all the awesome effects, learn how to sculpt a good base amp/cab/reverb setup. Once you figure out which models and cabs work for you there then play with od/dist blocks and delays.
 
Some of the best advice I recived, was don't get hung up on making a amp model in the axe fx sound just like the real world version. So just for instance say your a recto guy. Well maybe the 5150 III in axe will be the sound you are looking for. I play amps in the axe now that I would have never even thought about playing. I just use my ears and try different amps and what sounds good is what sounds good and I do not worry about what the amps name is.
 
All good advice...bookmarked all this stuff. Keep em coming you guys, this stuff is good.

That's good advice about trying them all...I AM a Recto guy and I actually hated the 5153 I had...I would never even have thought about trying it. Thanks, and I'll give it a shot.
 
There's no such thing as magic setting numbers.
Other people's patches will often sound nothing like their sound clips due to your gear, guitars and playing style.
Excessive tweaking time is wasted practice time.

So, start with simple amp and cab patches to get some tones you like in the ballpark.
Make small advanced setting adjustments to refine settings over time.
Add the fancy effects last, one at a time.
 
In no particular order...
1. Read the tech notes subforum.
2. Stick to basic parameters at first.
3. Use great IRs and a good playback system.
4. Build your tones without effects at first, then add dynamic, modulation, and time based effects in that order.
5. The "output comp" in the amp block with a value around 1 or 2 is badass on just about everything.
6. Study up on the speaker tab in the amp block.
7. Pre EQ (GEQ, PEQ, or filter block before amp block) is powerful and great for shaping your overall response.
8. Some amps need their MVs pushed more/less than others.
9. Wiki, search bar, this forum (usually in that order).
10. Understand your signal chain. With just a few exceptions, the order of effects and type (series or parallel) matters.
 
GM Arts said:
There's no such thing as magic setting numbers.
Other people's patches will often sound nothing like their sound clips due to your gear, guitars and playing style.
Excessive tweaking time is wasted practice time.
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^^ this...only one out of every 10 or so patches I download sound even close to the clips when people post the patch due to differences in gear, etc.

Also, I have found for me that the easiest way to start making workable tones is to find a couple IRs that really work well with your gear. I have a Fender IR for cleans, a Mesa and a Marshal. Use those as a starting point and once you are dialed in, start experimenting to tweak and fine tune what you are trying to accomplish sonically. From there, especially with FW18, stick to the basic knobs (bass, mid treble, drive, master) at first. Hell, I still hardly use any advanced knobs and am having great results.
 
Invest in Chris's or Cooper Carter's videos. You've just put a couple of grand (at least) into something that could last you a lifetime. You might as well drop a bit of cash on learning to use it.

https://www.creativelive.com/courses/using-axefx-cooper-carter <- Cooper did two videos. Here is a link to one of them.

Axe-Fx & Fractal Audio Tutorials | AxeFxTutorials.com <- Chris's site is here.


P.S. There is no quick way to learning to be a power-user. Just start using it and then refer to the manual or videos when you run into questions or roadblocks.
 
Start presets from scratch and take the default settings on everything.

Use the front panel to recall a preset that you want to overwrite. Power off. Hold the recall button while you power on to clear the preset.

Now add AMP -> CAB -> REVERB blocks. Take all the defaults.

This will let you hear the amps and cabs in a very realistic neutral setting.

Repeat this when major firmware revisions come out too.

Study every preset uploaded by Yek or fremen. I've never had one of their presets not translate well.
 
Steinmetzify said:
What do you know now and use daily that you wish someone would have told YOU day one?
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Congrats Scott, here's a small list of things that may help:

1) Get a solid pair of studio monitors if you don't already have some. FRFR is something you'll hear a lot of (Full Range Flat Response) meaning that you want to monitor what your AFX really sounds like
2) Start simple. It doesn't take long to familiarize yourself with Axe-Edit and how the grid works [see manual] 1.2 and 4.2. Find a preset that you wont use, maybe the very first one 000 - 59 Bassguy and go to Preset > Clear Preset [Axe-Edit]. This wipes out the grid. Select an Amp in a center block, then a Cab in a block after that then shunt from input to output straight through.
3) Have fun, change parameters, get familiar.

That was really how it was for me at the beginning. It is extremely important to mention the FRFR ideology because the fuller the range and flatter the response, the more accurately you will be monitoring what your AFX will sound like.

Good luck man and welcome Scott!
 
Before I got my Axe FX, I read every blog post and helpful tip and watched every YouTube tutorial I came across so that I was prepared to start sculpting my tone right out of the box. I've been using digital FX processors and amp modelers for years so I was very confident. Even with all my preparation, the Axe FX just had so many goddamn options and parameters to choose from, which was uber exciting, but it was overwhelming. There was no way I was going to remember everything I learned when I had the unit in front of me.

As with anything you're learning for the first time, start with the simplest possible patch (amp + cab blocks only), get an awesome fundamental tone, and then embellish from there. You can honestly spend a whole afternoon just tweaking those 2 blocks by themselves.

I'm sure you'll figure it out, though. I think part of the experience is poking around in the settings and cranking knobs just to see what they do. Every block has a crazy amount of parameters so you'll NEVER run out of things to tinker with.


If I were to give specific advice, I would learn about and understand how to control internal clipping. Chris's Preset Gain-Staging and Preventing Internal Clipping - Axe-FX II video is probably one of the more important things an AXE FX user should learn from Day 1. When I first started using the Axe, I had a lot of trouble keeping track of which block's volume to control the clipping with and it was a little frustrating.
 
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My advice might be a little different than what others recommend, but the thing that really amazed me with the Axe right away is the realism of modeling. I tweaked lots of things by looking and not by ear and got amazing results. If you have an artist you like and want to get in the ballpark, don't hesitate to look up his gear and set the same up in the Axe, it works surprisingly well.
Also, I still consider IRs (user cabs) to be the biggest factor tonally - you can turn a mediocre tone into a fantastic, well-defined sound by just selecting another cab. I bought Cab Pack 7 + Cab Pack 8 and also Cab-Lab 3 and I have to say that these UltraRes IRs are the biggest improvement for my Axe tones. The factory UR (and some standard resolution) cabs are great, too, especially the Pre-Rola Greenback cab if you're into that classic Marshall sound.
 
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