Default AMP/CAB settings muddy compared to Youtube Video?

Note that some presets might be dialed in to sound good at band volumes so they won't sound right at low volumes.

If you hear the same presets in videos and they sound fine to you, then no, they are not muddy and your issues are what I detailed earlier in this thread.

But if you are having issues with stock presets, just build your own or tweak them to your liking. I've had good results out of multiple modelers and I largely ignore factory presets. I don't feel I do anything particularly fancy in my presets. My go to process is to pick an amp, find cab sims I like with it (usually just SM57+160 mixed together or panned) and then tweak the amp block settings, adjust cab block high/low cuts and add fx.

I do not have issues the stock presets, with my own presets, or with the presets from Austin Buddy, Fremen, Brett Kingman, Leon Todd, Marco Fanton, Moke, Camilo Velandia, etc.

It is just curiosity about why the default AMP and CAB blocks without any tweaking sound so muddy when combined together, but they sound good at that YouTube video (using the Axe-FX as audio interface for YouTube, through the same monitors, so it is not a question of high or low volume).

So far we have 3 persons saying it sounds muddy (one Tele, two non-Tele), and one saying that it sounds like the YouTube video (Tele).

edit: I thought it could be a unique magic of the Telecaster, but I've just seen that the OP also used a Tele
 
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It would be interesting to have the dry recording, for reamping, from someone who has a non-muddy tone (like the video). Then we would know if it is the guitar, or if it is other setting.
 
It would be interesting to have the dry recording, for reamping, from someone who has a non-muddy tone (like the video). Then we would know if it is the guitar, or if it is other setting.
Sorry I did not make any recording.
I usually don’t play Tele or other Guitars with a single coil pickup in the bridge.
But I can say I did get a nice crispy and chiming sound.
I do use the Axe s a Interface through the same monitors etc. for YouTube.
 
The Axe-Fx is a computer. It is no more or less “muddy” than the emulated amp model is dialed in to be.

Hey guys, unrelated question. I recently bought a new TV and when I keep it on the 24/7 World War II channel, it doesn’t show any colors but brown and green. Is my TV defective?
 
The Axe-Fx is a computer. It is no more or less “muddy” than the emulated amp model is dialed in to be.

Hey guys, unrelated question. I recently bought a new TV and when I keep it on the 24/7 World War II channel, it doesn’t show any colors but brown and green. Is my TV defective?

The OP title is wrong, but his question was legit. I reformulated it on post #37:

Are the Axe-FX III AMP/CAB default settings muddy? Why do these AMP/CAB default settings sound good at that YouTube video but not at our Axe-FX III?
 
The OP title is wrong, but his question was legit. I reformulated it on post #37:

Are the Axe-FX III AMP/CAB default settings muddy? Why do these AMP/CAB default settings sound good at that YouTube video but not at our Axe-FX III?

It's still not a legit question though, not really. Not trying to be rude, but the question itself displays a lack of understanding about how guitar tone works in general. There's nothing wrong with that btw, don't feel bad, we all learn somewhere. :)

Still though, people shouldn't think of any settings in the Axe-Fx's amps and cabs as "default settings." The thing is that the knobs have to be set somewhere so they're typically set in a generic "kinda somewhere in the middle maybe noonish" type place but that doesn't mean those settings are where anybody should necessarily start their tweaking. However some guitar players generally start tweaking some amps with the controls at noon so that's kind of a go-to, but that's about it. Default settings are irrelevant.

Also, the amp and cab, influential to tone as they may be, are just two ingredients in an entire rig. If you have the bassiest, muddiest guitar pickups in the world and you set your guitar's tone on 0 and only strike worn-out strings with the side of a non-calloused thumb, then even the "tightest" dialed rig is going to give you the woman tone, while a more "standard" setup guitar and player will sound more like what you'd expect a standard guitar to sound like. See what I mean?

If two Axe-Fx units are identically configured but things still sound different between different players, I'd say there are still plenty of variables to consider. Pickups, cable length, string newness, playing technique, etc. It's part of the reason I gave up on downloading anybody else's patches when I first got an Axe-Fx in 2009. Patches dialed in for other players don't work for me because I'm not them and vice versa.
 
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The question is legit. These settings sound muddy at my Axe-FX, at the OP Axe-FX, and at another user that has also tried it. What part of that is not legit? If you want to help, try it for yourself and share the results instead of dismissing the legitimacy of the question. I've been using the axe-FX since the Standard (2006), I think I know how it works.
 
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(Changed the title of the thread here, hopefully will add some clarity on my initial question).

I still haven't had time back in the studio to mess around/post a recording with my tele (sorry about that!). I haven't downloaded presets from Axe-Change or the forum here for a long time but have in the past due to specific requests on a guitar sound (ie: Dimebag, EVH, etc.). It's not to say that I'm going to get the identical sound from that preset that the person who created it was getting, just to say it might be a closer starting point so I don't need to waste much time on creating one from scratch.

I totally get that my guitar won't sound identical to the youtube video. Though I don't think I'm comparing apples to oranges either (ie: Les Paul vs Tele) so the default sound that the youtube video gets is different enough in the lows/lower mids to make me scratch my head. And really, I've never pulled up a default amp/cab setup and gotten a usable tone right off the bat the way he does (maybe other people are?). Granted, his guitar is worth like $4500 (I saw in another video that he mentions it being a NoCaster Thinline Tele: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/de...-thinline-nocaster-wide-fade-2-color-sunburst) compared to whatever my 52RI is now. Point being, I'm totally fine in knowing that the difference is a top-notch guitar, player feel, but me thinks it's worth begging the question which seemed to prompt others to get the same "muddy" results.

Plus, as I've mentioned before, I'd buy this thing over and over plus the next iteration because of how much fun it is to play. So much built into this unit, and I'm completely happy with it plus some.
 
We are all


I've started following the steps of that video.

At 3:00 he checks the direct tone of his guitar. Just a IN block directly to OUT block. My S540FM sounds as good as his. Different character compared to his Tele, but not lacking clarity or brilliance.

At 3:35 he plays with a default Amp (Dirty Shirley) and a default CAB (Factory1). That's where my tone doesn't sound even remotely like him. It is really muddy. There must be something different at his settings or he must have tweaked the preset, because it sounds totally different from what I get here.

At 4:40 he selects User CAB YA MRSH 412 M25 57vOA-1. I select the same. My tone is still dark. Muddy and nasal

I am not following that video further from there because I do not want to waste time. There is something weird.

You have been using the Axe-FX since the Ultra. You should know how to move forward without the need to follow that particular video, which is also very basic for an experienced user. There are many other good videos and good presets there

I attach the basic preset, as made at that video

Here's a quick and dirty recording of your preset with a Suhr Classic T bridge pickup. It doesn't sound amazing or anything, but I don't know if it is quite what I would call muddy.

 
The question is legit. These settings sound muddy at my Axe-FX, at the OP Axe-FX, and at another user that has also tried it. What part of that is not legit? If you want to help, try it for yourself and share the results instead of dismissing the legitimacy of the question. I've been using the axe-FX since the Standard (2006), I think I know how it works.

"I saw a guy on the internet try on this one pair of pants and they looked great on him. But then me and two of my friends tried on that EXACT pair of pants but they didn't fit at all and they looked HORRIBLE on us! What is wrong with the shop that makes these pants!"

Nothing's wrong with the pants. It's just that the pants turned out to not be tailored to fit you or your friends.

If a patch sounds muddy and bad for a handful of people but great for one person, the most likely answer is that the one guy just has gear and/or a playstyle different from everybody else's, that the patch happens to compliment. There really shouldn't be much more to it.

To be slightly more specific, electric guitars tend to get "muddy" when low frequencies are being overdriven too hard. If a patch works for somebody but it's muddy for everybody else, then the guy who the patch works for is most likely either working with an overall quieter signal at the amp's input, or a signal with overall less low frequency content than other people who find the patch to be muddy. Guitar amps overall tend to transition from clean to overdrive very suddenly. It doesn't take much difference in guitar output signal level to really transform a guitar tone from clean to dirty real quick. And, if sufficient low frequency cutting isn't done as distortion builds, things are going to get real muddy just as quickly.
 
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Guitar / hands - get the youtuber's DI track from the demo, and the preset (+ description of guitar / pups / strings ...) - re-amp the DI into that preset on your Axefx to hear the exact same sound as a baseline - then start tweaking your guitar / hands toward that.
 
The question is legit. These settings sound muddy at my Axe-FX, at the OP Axe-FX, and at another user that has also tried it. What part of that is not legit? If you want to help, try it for yourself and share the results instead of dismissing the legitimacy of the question. I've been using the axe-FX since the Standard (2006), I think I know how it works.

I've got a good pile of guitars here and if I run some of them through a particular combination of amp/cab then it can sound less than stellar. Tweak those to work with the guitar and it sounds great. I'd record some DI tracks and audio through my Axe-Fx 3 but I won't be back home for several days.

You have to remember that knobs at noon is not some sort of "default" setting. This is not a "flat" or "ideal" setting by any means. Amp tone stacks are heavily interactive and a flat setting is usually something nobody wants to with say mids on 10 and treble/bass on zero.

Fractal could have done what Line6 does where the amp model when loaded has its knob set a particular way for each amp model, but then people would be complaining that they don't sound good like that with their particular setup. So it's easier to just set them all at noon and let the player figure out which ones to turn up or down.

That they sound better in the YT video could be simply that his particular guitar is very bright sounding and combined with the way he plays it thins the amp models in a way you find pleasant.

It's also worth remembering that output devices matter and none of them are truly "flat response". Headphones are definitely not and unless you have acoustic treatment and good studio monitors etc then neither are your studio monitors in the room. I run IR-based headphones correction (created from Sonarworks Reference ID profiles) on my Axe-Fx 3 at the end of the chain and also IR-based room correction for my Genelecs. i recommend using at least AutoEQ settings for your headphones using global EQ.
 
i reckon it's the old speaker impedance curve vs the new one

and he has a single coil sized humbucker in the bridge

i did give it a go bit i don't have his user cab. the bottom end was really flubby and the top not so bright. i changed the impedance curve and that helped considerably. maybe someone should invite him on here so he can share his preset. i don't think anything is "wrong" per se. i just think firmware version and guitar are the explanation
 
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