Im sure im kicking a dead horse here...

ToneRanger

ToneRanger

Experienced
I was messing around the other day, getting some presets dialed in for recording. I do like what i came up with. But, my issue is this. I own several different guitars so i know the differences between them. Standard tuning is a lot snappier than low tunings, i get that. But when i listen to demos of presets, then audition them myself, there's a huge difference between what im hearing online and what im getting at home.

I understand there will be differences between headphones and monitors. I actually like my phones more than my monitors.

Case in point, i was watching Cooper Carter demoing the Petrucci Rig 2025. It sounded huge and crunchy. Just what i expected a Petrucci rig to sound like. When i played my Ibanez Prestige with DiMarzio pickups, the tone was more like a midgain tone with really nasal mids. Im ticking the red at 10%.

The tone has no balls and very little sustain.

There shouldn't be THAT much of a difference. I loaded the new preset packs. But before that i recorded the old preset. There was little to no difference.

I don't get it. Why is it that nearly EVERY TIME i hear a demo of a tone, and download it, it's not even in the ballpark and that's using different guitars.


I love my fractal units but i just don't know if I'm doing something wrong.
 
Guitar / Hands - I'd bet if you re-amped CC's DI that matched his Petrucci preset + sample you heard, your Ax3 would reproduce its
sound exactly. Read my post here for full explanation + link to LT's zipped sample + preset + DI of you want to try the little experiment I've been suggesting in these scenarios.

Edit: Aside from guitar / hands one thing to check is that "input gain" is set to noon/1.0 (If it's not, it'll skew all your presets compared to those same presets played on another unit where Input Gain is set to 1.0).
 
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Two things to consider:

1. What you hear on these videos may have additional processing after the fact. Meaning, just like with recording in the studio, the recorded track has post-processing to fit it in the grand context of the mix. Especially when the presets you're being demo'd are in a mix with drums / bass / etc.

2. Your monitoring source is an unavoidably crucial piece of the chain for how you will hear your AxeFx. Meaning, your studio monitors, headphones, floor wedge, etc will ultimately make or break how you hear your Axe. I learned this the hard way with cheap monitors, headphones, and powered floor wedges. As I played through the same "budget" options, I began to learn that I was hearing the speaker and not hearing the source.

What headphones / monitors / wedge / etc are you using for monitoring?
 
If we are talking about the preset from that video from Cooper that is 2 years old.

Just went and listened for a second and honestly instantly heard, the gain is not very high, Cooper is hitting the strings quite hard, the "huge" tone comes entirely from the dual tracked guitars and being in a mix, you hear the isolated guitar and you can hear pretty easily he is not using a huge amount of gain, to keep the sound as tight as possible.

The tone also sounds pretty "nasal" to me, though he has it at a spot where it doesn't sound horrible when the guitar is isolated, then of course in the mix, the nasal mid is helping the guitars stand out and sounds better than isolated.
 
See it the other way round? When different guitars would make no difference and the final output was always the same, then what was the point of owning several different guitars. In that case I'd buy the ones that look best, don't care about what it's made of and how it's made. Any cheap crap would do.

In fact, cheap modelers exist out there, where the difference between guitars is less obvious and they tend to always sound similar, no matter the player, no matter the guitar.
Now ask yourself: is that a feature or an issue?
 
AmbientOwl said:
I'm never quite sure how it happens, but I've had an unintentional switch to this exact cab more than once in my Fractal life. Always sends me straight to "WHAT DID I BREAK?!" mode.
Click to expand...
Right. The stock preset defaulted to ML cabs. It got closer with the channel change
 
It has to be gear mismatch. There are some popular posters here ( I won't name names) whose presets always work for me and others whose presets never do, althought the demo's sound great.
 
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