A Tip for Dialing in Presets from Scratch

zerocrossing said:
Not “supposed to” but “should be.” Doesn’t that make sense?
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From an end-user standpoint, I understand the idea that 12 o’clock is your baseline. If you learn more about how amplifiers are designed, you start seeing why that isn’t the case.
One example: on your guitar, unless you have active electronics, your volume knob is just cuts signal. If you assume 5 is how it is supposed to sound, you will likely be very disappointed. 10 is actually “neutral.”

Another example, on a standard fender BMT tone stack (like on a hot rod deluxe), the bass and treble pots are boosting and the mid pot is cutting. Neutral is actually bass 0, mid 10, treble 0, but people don’t generally like that.
 
Other consumer and pro audio devices have likely conditioned you to think of 12 o’clock as your baseline. Any stereo or sound board has a lot of knobs where that is true. Guitar amps are a different beast because they are not designed with a flat frequency response in mind (which doesn’t generally sound very good on electric guitar by the way).
 
zerocrossing said:
Yeah, I was probably a bit harsh on Line6. I do remember one multi simulation blind shoot-out where I picked the Line6 for some high gain djent sound. I should add that metal isn’t really my thing, but I thought the tone sounded tough and right for the genre. I also almost bought some combo amp they made... I forget the model, but I believe it was designed by Bogner... something like a modeler with actual tube power section maybe... I thought it sounded great, but it was around a time when I was deciding that I didn’t want to gig anymore. I have way more fun in my studio and I really don’t crave the attention of an audience. I also used a POD HD500 in the effects send of my Kemper for its effects and I found them to be good. I got especially interesting results by using an amp head as a distortion pedal in front of the Kemper’s amp stage.
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I've never actually played a Helix but when I decided I needed to get with the times I started checking out all the Ax8 vs Helix videos and it always seemed the Helix had a synthetic fizziness in the highs. Maybe it just needed tweaking away. Then the FM3 was announced and then I got impatient waiting and got an Axe3. As a recent newcomer to the Fractal world the OP makes a good suggestion. I've certainly been programmed into the noon-o'clock baseline theory. Thankyou Mesa for helping me redpill out of the Matrix! Wish I'd known this as a 15 year old in my local guitar store trying to figure out how to make a Mark IV combo sound like Hetfield (pre internet days!).
 
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