I love the axe fx III but I hate tweaking

I don't venture too deep. But I know a few choice controls that get me where I need to be time and time again. My go-tos: authentic controls, input boost if needed, speaker impedance curve, roll off low-end on input if needed, a lil output compression if needed, a parametric EQ block after the amp to boost somewheres around 300-350hz for a little heft out of the ole FRFR... and somewheres around 1k-1.2k for a little more aggression. Sounds good
 
To each his own. Some folks are plug 'n play guys, others love adjusting things. Years ago, when all I owned was a decent boutique amp and cab, and an array of stompbox effects, I'd just find a good setting for mostly overdrive, reverb, and delay and forget it.

Because I moved with the times and followed the technology, my mindset and attitude changed with it. I found things that catered better to my personal tastes, and my audience. I found that adjustments were a necessary part of everything, because folks generally liked your tone when your turned up, but also liked your dynamics when you cleaned up and played more softly.

Instead of thinking of this as a simple push-this-button, life became a journey of discovery when you asked yourself, "How can I accomplish such and such?" or "Why does this do what it does?"

That in itself was part of the learning process, and being a student of life in general, my thirst for knowledge was never quite satisfied with simple "Yes, No, or Maybe" answers. One learns more about what one owns when you ask questions about how and why.

If the OP does not enjoy tweaking, perhaps he's got enough things on his mind that doesn't require study or learning. My elderly Mom is the same way. Doesn't bother with stuff that is not important. Sadly, what's important to me IS learning about the deeper things in life, though Mom prefers to focus on more important things. My tendency is to think in more well-balanced and rounded terms, whereas Mom sometimes goes through life with blinders on, tunnel-vision wise.
 
I do have a question though. I watched a video yesterday about easter eggs in the EVH 5150 III stealth, would these easter eggs be in the 5150 III axe fx?
 
That's a really cool father/son shared hobby. I'm guessing you have a background in sound production or another instrument?
When I was young, I really wanted to play drums or piano, but was never afforded the chance. When I had kids, I just wanted to "open doors" for them and help them do whatever they were passionate about. My son picked piano then guitar. That led to gigging, getting a PA, drums, running sound for gigs/church, etc.

I gave myself a goal of learning enough bass to play on-stage with him. I did accomplish that goal (a few simple songs), but I realized I was too hyper focused on myself that I wasn't enjoying watching him play. Back to the board I went. :)
 
When I was young, I really wanted to play drums or piano, but was never afforded the chance. When I had kids, I just wanted to "open doors" for them and help them do whatever they were passionate about. My son picked piano then guitar. That led to gigging, getting a PA, drums, running sound for gigs/church, etc.

I gave myself a goal of learning enough bass to play on-stage with him. I did accomplish that goal (a few simple songs), but I realized I was too hyper focused on myself that I wasn't enjoying watching him play. Back to the board I went. :)
Perhaps half the goal you were seeking was to help your kids see things from a variety of perspectives, instead of focusing on one thing. What I've discovered as I've aged is, older adults often think on multi-levels of thought process, and summarize their thoughts in simple words or phrases that describe their entire conversations. Kind of like how I might describe why I've never quite bonded with single coils pickups themselves; the 60 Hz noise. Yet, a set of hum buckers or noiseless single coils are my friends. Why? I am particular about how my guitar sounds when it is at rest with the volume on. The same reason why I think horses are majestic animals, but I detest the road apples. Yes?
 
Go figure. I hate tweaking, but I love my axe fx III. Really, I just look through presets from various places until I find something I like that sounds and feels good.

I never tweak, don't care too, wouldn't know how to start. I'm weird eh?
I don't think it's weird, it's just your choice.

One of the nice things about Fractal is that after major changes to the firmware the factory presets go through an update cycle to help them sound their best too. There's a lot of attention paid to making them sound good from the start when a user first powers up the modeler, to put them into a state where they can be used as-is because first impressions are really important. Of course, everyone has their own idea of the sound they want, but consistency is a goal.
 
For all the power and flexibility in the box, the majority of the time I'm only using three presets (with scenes) for acoustic guitar, bass, and electric guitar. There's tweaking to get what I want, but once I find a set of sounds I like I don't usually need to mess with it. I just play and don't tweak much at all unless I'm going for a specific sound outside of the normal or trying to match a sound from another player/record.
 
To each his own. Some folks are plug 'n play guys, others love adjusting things. Years ago, when all I owned was a decent boutique amp and cab, and an array of stompbox effects, I'd just find a good setting for mostly overdrive, reverb, and delay and forget it.

Because I moved with the times and followed the technology, my mindset and attitude changed with it. I found things that catered better to my personal tastes, and my audience. I found that adjustments were a necessary part of everything, because folks generally liked your tone when your turned up, but also liked your dynamics when you cleaned up and played more softly.

Instead of thinking of this as a simple push-this-button, life became a journey of discovery when you asked yourself, "How can I accomplish such and such?" or "Why does this do what it does?"

That in itself was part of the learning process, and being a student of life in general, my thirst for knowledge was never quite satisfied with simple "Yes, No, or Maybe" answers. One learns more about what one owns when you ask questions about how and why.

If the OP does not enjoy tweaking, perhaps he's got enough things on his mind that doesn't require study or learning. My elderly Mom is the same way. Doesn't bother with stuff that is not important. Sadly, what's important to me IS learning about the deeper things in life, though Mom prefers to focus on more important things. My tendency is to think in more well-balanced and rounded terms, whereas Mom sometimes goes through life with blinders on, tunnel-vision wise.

Aye! KISS Method

Hate is a strong word in that "I hate tweaking"
 
Aye! KISS Method

Hate is a strong word in that "I hate tweaking"
Yup. I just added tweaking to my daily routine. Just like the 3 S's folks do before they head out for work. In my instance, one thing I remember is the toothbrush. (A necessary part of everyday life.)
 
I love tweaking. I can tweak for hours.
Although it took me nearly two years to learn
how to tweak the axe3 I can say it was worth the time.
Because now when I know which knob to turn in this box
to make it do what I want the possibilities with this machine, now with 19.05, goes far beyond what I thought was possible.
But of course I had many dark and frustrating days in the rabbit hole :)
 
I sort of like doing it, but it eats up a LOT of time, or can anyway. I've had too many evenings where I might have two hours to play, and I spent half or most of that messing with presets, trying some different IRs, etc, and my playing time vanished. That sucks.

A lot of the playing time I have now, I don't even give a shit what the preset sounds like. Is it sort of hard/crunchy? I just go with it. I want to play some 70s stuff. Same preset. I don't care. I use a Boss Waza Air a lot for practice as well. Stock presets are just okay, but I've spent no time messing with them. Again, I'm just playing.
 
When I first got mine, I was tweaking quite a bit for the first 3 months. At that point I realized how little work I had gotten done on my own music so I started allowing myself to only tweak on days I was mixing music. That way it kept me focused on the task at hand instead of going down rabbit holes. I’d basically use AxeEdit like a plug-in and just tweak a DI as the song played.

Ultimately, this lead to giving me the best of both worlds; getting shit done and also exploring what it could do, specifically in the midst of a creative situation. There are a couple unusual tones I’ve come up with because I wasn’t playing, just listening.
 
I was kind of the same way for the first year, but lately I've been watching videos from Leon & Cooper on how to do specific things, and it's helping for when I have tones in which there's a certain characteristic that I don't like, so I can learn how to use some of the deeper parameters.
 
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