Why not only Presets? (Please stay calm - and first read)

What does that buy? How would such a thing work? Scenes always exist and always contain all the blocks in the preset. What would a clear actually do?
turn off all blocks, reset all channels to A. it's just a clean starting point concept. i usually reserve my 8th Scene for this, and have it available to copy.
 
one less preset.

Yeah, here's where the number 512 comes up again.

I'm not saying make that number bigger and get rid of scenes. I prefer the coexistens and the ability to use both. Like I already said persanaly 512 limits me in some way, but I can cope with that. The "more-than-2000-UserCabs-Über-Freedom" for sure feels different.
 
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turn off all blocks, reset all channels to A. it's just a clean starting point concept. i usually reserve my 8th Scene for this, and have it available to copy.
Ok... Seems like it might be useful. Not for me, but I can see it for others.
 
What does that buy? How would such a thing work? Scenes always exist and always contain all the blocks in the preset. What would a clear actually do?

My bad. "reset" was a more appropriate word. A "reset", while possibly useful, isn't the workaround I was after. Axe-Edit has a copy current scene to all scenes and I think that's the more appropriate workaround.

Maybe add/remove scene would be useful to the OP but it wouldn't solve the 512 preset limit w/o a computer.
 
yeah, no, makes no sense to me to go backwards when you can refine your workflow to do what you need to do.

but how the world are 512 presets limiting?
 
The beauty of Axe FX is in its sound quality amp's cabinet's fx and the flexibility of how you would like to use it. Any way you can imagine your routing can be done. Preset's scene's channel's are all up to the user how you choose to manage them are completely up to you. Initial setup and mindset of how you want to use it are completely up to the user and a fair amount of time should be detected to figuring that out in the very the beginning, as with most one box does everything solution's. Seem's that a lot of people buy fractal products just wind up using it live like a 3 channel amp with 5 stomp pedal's.

First off find factory presets that best suit what amp cabinet combo's you think you'll use and delete all the fx blocks and save to a location.
Second back up those basic presets off the Axe FX so you can recall them from the backed up file at a later date.
Third it sounds like you need a laptop for AxeEdit or a tablet for FracPad at all times to transfer said presets, also learn the front panel well.
forth you'll need that computer to recall the saved presets if 512 slot's aren't enough.

I think AustinBuddy 700 naked amps would be a great starting point for someone looking to find awesome out of the box tone's if whats already in the III just isn't working for you or you just want more that 384 combinations to choose from.
 
One of the big advantages of scenes is the organization they provide.

Example: One song I play has a rhythm tone, a more aggressive rhythm tone, a lead tone, a clean riffing tone, and a weird, delay-ridden tone. That's five different sounds for that song.

I could use five different presets for that song. With three or four or five presets per song that I have to navigate through. It could take ten or twenty or thirty presets to get through a set. That means navigating through multiple banks, and making sure that the multiple presets in each song don't cross a bank boundary. That's a lot of stomping and remembering to do.

Instead, I devote just one preset to that song. I create a scene for each sound and give that scene a meaningful name. I can keep an entire set's worth of presets in a single bank. I can reach each preset with one or two stomps. And then, it's a single stomp to get to any of the scenes. The first scene that pops up when I load a preset is the first tone I need for that song. Depending on my foot controller and how I set it up, I can get to any song in the set with a single stomp. Withing the song, I can get to any tone I need — again, with a single stomp.

When I have a gig coming up that calls for a particular song, I copy one preset into the working area of my Axe-Fx and I'm done.

Because of the organization and rapid access they provide, scenes are a gigging guitarist's dream.
 
I have banks at 10 on my MFC. That's ten sounds at direct access. And when I change the bank on the MFC I get even more.
I can't see how scenes could improve that.
My primary need is the direct access. I don't want to call up a preset first, then change to a scene as 2nd step.

It would change everything if I could define the scene of the next preset first, then call it up and it has the right scene from the start and it's the one that I just selected, not anything saved before.
 
but how the world are 512 presets limiting?

After one week of having the Axe-FX III I had to delete all the factory presets because I loaded the Austin Buddy presets. Now, if I want to use the Factory Presets, I have to go back to the computer.

I love scenes, and now I could not live without them. But 512 is not a huge number for presets. It is even less than the Axe-FX II

A similar question could apply: Why 2048 + 2048 + 189 = 4285 CABs when you can have infinite CABs on your computer?

Anwser: because you can browse CABs faster, in a standalone situation.

Anwser to the presets question: because you can browse presets faster, in a standalone situation.
 
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I have banks at 10 on my MFC. That's ten sounds at direct access. And when I change the bank on the MFC I get even more.
My primary need is the direct access. I don't want to call up a preset first, then change to a scene as 2nd step.
If you set up your Axe to default to Scene 1, and make sure that every preset has Scene 1 as the first scene needed for the song, then it would only take you one stomp to get there, ready to play. If your controller has 15 footswitches, you could assign ten switches to preset and five switches to scene. That's direct access in the simplest possible way.


It would change everything if I could define the scene of the next preset first, then call it up and it has the right scene from the start and it's the one that I just selected, not anything saved before.
So you want to select the scene before you change to the next preset. That's still two stomps. I don't see the advantage.
 
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Scenes turn multiple blocks on and off, and change channels. that's really it. Steve Vai suggested the feature, if i remember correctly.

if you take away the XY or Channel switching part, then it's only turning on/off multiple things at once with one button press - this is a very common practice with analog pedals, using simple a/b or line switchers, or loop/rig pedals. nothing too groundbreaking there.
I remember I asked and discuss about this feature with Cliff in the old standard days.
I like to re-set amp in each different stage/room I am, with an analog pedalboard. I use one preset, I tune/check the different fx/level before sound check, and I know the different combination will sound just right (no more need to search/save a lot of presets). It's like a simplify global fx approach...
 
If you set up your Axe to default to Scene 1, and make sure that every oreset has Scene 1 as teh first oreset needed for the song, then it would only take you one stomp to get there, ready to play. If your controller has 15 footswitches, you could assign ten switches to preset and five switches to scene. That's direct access in the simplest possible way.

So I program 60 presets for 60 songs, all containing a handful of different scenes, just to have always the right scene to start with?
That's way more work than 10 presets in one bank and way more to remind when calling up a certain preset.

So you want to select the scene before you change to the next preset. That's still two stomps. I don't see the advantage.

Because it makes hickups when the preset starts with the wrong scene at first. I thought scenes were about avoiding hickups? If I could select the scene of the next preset before calling it up, it could start without any hickup and then the scene concept would make sense and open a new world. For now it's just not thougt to the end....to me at least, some seem to love it.
 
A preset change versus a scene/channel change appears somewhat analogous/ambiguous to the musician using the Axe FX.

Internally to the Axe unit there is a significant difference. When you change a preset, that preset has to be read from storage then loaded into executable memory. Once loaded the preset must be “configured” then the Axe can start using the preset.

With a channel or scene change, the preset is already loaded into executable memory so all the Axe has to do is “re-configure” the currently loaded preset then the Axe can use the new sound.

One consideration in this difference is efficiency. It makes sense to me that the lower efficiency of a preset change would play some role in the small sound gap when doing preset changes. The higher efficiency of scene/channel switching it seems would reduce that small gap... possibly to the point of making the transition imperceptible.

Another consideration is device management. Using presets only, the “textures” (lead, rhythm, clean, punch, etc) for a single song/tone reside across multiple stand alone presets. There is no context that explicitly conveys which presets go together for song/tone X. That context is in the mind of the person setting up the Axe FX. This creates greater reusability of textures, but adds considerable complexity. Organizationally this may make sense to you and there is nothing wrong with that.

Looking at it from the scene/channel perspective, a single preset represents a single song or tone with the scenes and channels providing the different “textures” (lead, rhythm, clean, punch, etc) within that preset. It adds explicit context and relationship to the data. It is a way of conveying to anyone who gets your preset(s) “these things belong together”. This coupled with a meaningful naming convention for your presets and scenes IMO, enhances the overall portability and usability of presets. It also makes your preset library less complex by making the purpose/role of each preset more clearly defined IMO. This approach reduces complexity, but reduces texture reusability.

A final consideration is navigability. The idea of changing to a preset at the start of a composition then navigating scenes while performing the composition is IMO a very natural way to navigate your tones and textures. With a device like the RJM MM GT, selecting a preset can automatically take you to a secondary “button page” explicitly for scene navigation and stomp box access. For me personally the navigability is the real win with scenes and channels. When coupled with a great MIDI controller it can simplify the navigation, thus reducing the decisions that you have to make and accurately execute on stage. This leads to a lower likelihood of making a mistake.

Live performance has always struck me as an exercise in controlled chaos. There are so many variables that are out of your control. Any place that complexity is reduced, I believe reduces risk during a performance. I believe that is a primary consideration.
 
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What Rex and the Captain said. It's all about ease of organization for me. For example, if I had 4 presets for one song I'd have to remember to keep them together if I ever want to re-order my presets. Or if I make a change to one of them (tweak the amp gain or eq for example, or any of a multitude of other things), I have to remember to make the same change to all of them. And even more, if I change the volume of any one of them I have to make sure the others are still balanced and at the right level. Using scenes and effects within one preset keeps that much more manageable for me. Last, you have almost no gap/spillover issues - if you want your delay or reverb to carry over, or at least the tails to keep ringing out, it's much easier and cleaner when you stay within one preset.

Of course, none of those may apply to you - you may never re-arrange your presets or re-tweak your sounds. One of the great things is that each user can set it up for the workflow that makes the most sense for them.
 
The beauty of Axe FX is in its sound quality amp's cabinet's fx and the flexibility of how you would like to use it. Any way you can imagine your routing can be done. Preset's scene's channel's are all up to the user how you choose to manage them are completely up to you. Initial setup and mindset of how you want to use it are completely up to the user and a fair amount of time should be detected to figuring that out in the very the beginning, as with most one box does everything solution's. Seem's that a lot of people buy fractal products just wind up using it live like a 3 channel amp with 5 stomp pedal's.

First off find factory presets that best suit what amp cabinet combo's you think you'll use and delete all the fx blocks and save to a location.
Second back up those basic presets off the Axe FX so you can recall them from the backed up file at a later date.
Third it sounds like you need a laptop for AxeEdit or a tablet for FracPad at all times to transfer said presets, also learn the front panel well.
forth you'll need that computer to recall the saved presets if 512 slot's aren't enough.

I think AustinBuddy 700 naked amps would be a great starting point for someone looking to find awesome out of the box tone's if whats already in the III just isn't working for you or you just want more that 384 combinations to choose from.

Thanks. You reminded me to focus again to basic presets / Templates. I have a Laptop and I use it very often, but there are also times (quick jams, rehearsals...) where I don't have (and also don't want) a Computer on my Axe.

I earlier wrote why I sometimes struggle with 512 slots. Everyone does it different. For example: by far I don't need all 2048 UserCab-slots. I don't know how someone might need more than 30 or let's say 50 of them.
 
Nice thing is that everyone can work however they think is “best”. No one is forced to use one given method.

If you like pressing one switch and having channels channels change, multiple blocks engage etc, you can do it.

If you want every effect to have its own switch and your turn them on/off one by one, pedal board style, you can do it.

If you want to change presets, with each present being slightly different, maybe just a delay engaged etc, you can do that too.

I personally like a preset having different variations made up of scenes and channels. I like having a Pink Floyd preset and under that I have 8 scenes with different effects, delay times, modulation etc. I like having everything in one spot, but it’s nice that those who don’t work that way don’t have to.

Axe is near limitless in its ability to serve lots of taste and needs
 
So I program 60 presets for 60 songs, all containing a handful of different scenes, just to have always the right scene to start with?
That's way more work than 10 presets in one bank and way more to remind when calling up a certain preset.
No. I might only need 10 presets for 60 songs. For those specialty songs, I set them up so the first scene that loads is the first scene I need.
 
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