A Tip for Dialing in Presets from Scratch

zafreemusic

zafreemusic

Inspired
Have you ever tweaked a patch for a half hour only to realize it sounds worse?
Watch a bunch of tutorials and follow their settings only to find it doesn't sound good with your setup?
Constantly resetting the amp to find the default sounded better?

Okay here's a tip for all you tone chasers out there, that will help you dial in tones quicker, with less ear fatigue and better results:
It's simple A/B every change. Say were dialing in the amp block:

1. Choose amp on channel A
2. Copy Channel A to Channel B
3. On Channel A adjust a parameter to your liking.
4. Compare Channel A to B
4b. Adjust Channel A until it sounds better than B (the default might just be the right setting)
5. Repeat from step 2, until desired.

This way you are always ensuring the change you are making is better and you don't end up making a few adjustments and then unsure why it sounds worse.

If you have an FC-6/12 you can map one of the pedals to change the channel on whatever block you are editing for even easier A/Bing.

One last thing don't go adjusting every parameter most of them are perfect where they are.

Hope this helps someone!
 
Here’s a tip from me as well. If you find the default setting to sound good, you may be done. Think about it. Why would any amp be designed to sound poor with everything set at 12:00? No reason a model wouldn’t follow that. Second, tweak in context. Get the other sounds up and running and have them loop while you get your guitar sound finalized. I’m often surprised at the differences between what I like alone in comparison to what’s good in the song.
 
zerocrossing said:
Here’s a tip from me as well. If you find the default setting to sound good, you may be done. Think about it. Why would any amp be designed to sound poor with everything set at 12:00? No reason a model wouldn’t follow that. Second, tweak in context. Get the other sounds up and running and have them loop while you get your guitar sound finalized. I’m often surprised at the differences between what I like alone in comparison to what’s good in the song.
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Yeah, several amp blocks after Cygnus didn't even need an adjustment on my end. Everything was at noon, it worked, so I shrugged and moved on.

As for the 'in context' bit, I spent a lot of time making a bunch of presets I assumed I was going to use for recording, only to find that I could have saved a fair amount of time by dialing in the preset as a DI was running through the AxeFX and playing along with the rest of the song. So I'll just change the outputs of a DI in Logic and route it into the AxeFX, play the song and then tweak in AxeEdit. You'll never have to EQ another guitar in post again.
 
I do it more or less like that, keeping simple tweaking, and always playing in a mix against a backing or similar for which it is the sound to be played. So many times I have made a patch that sounded great by itself and in a mix was garbage.

Also along my experience with the Axe Fx, have realised I had also some "problematic" guitars, difficult to pair with many amps. Now my collection is half what it was two years ago, and find it easier to please my ears.
 
zerocrossing said:
Here’s a tip from me as well. If you find the default setting to sound good, you may be done. Think about it. Why would any amp be designed to sound poor with everything set at 12:00? No reason a model wouldn’t follow that. Second, tweak in context. Get the other sounds up and running and have them loop while you get your guitar sound finalized. I’m often surprised at the differences between what I like alone in comparison to what’s good in the song.
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But noon on the axe doesn't mean noon on the amp, the controls don't translate 1:1. It was said several times by the higher ups
 
The simplicity really is key. Like others, I tend to take things too far.

I've said it many times, I go down a rabbit hole sometimes, especially with IRs, constantly tweaking; constantly obsessing.

Frankly, it's embarrassing to admit.

I've lost some really pleasing tones/feels thanks to mindless tweaking.
 
honestly - I tend to get the amp/cab block to where it FEELS right - with the right amount of gain in in the right ballpark tonally...then stick a PEQ after it to get the final sound. Its often the easiest way to make things sit - or sound as yo want it. its whats done at a FOH desk, its whats done in a studio - and you have the tools it the AFX.

if you follow that method and find your way out from what you want - reset the PEQ back to your basic feels right, gain is right - sounds OK sound.

I think too many try and do everything on the amp block because thats what there used to playing with - and neglect the other tone shaping possibilities.
 
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spikey said:
I guess you've not played the defaults on a Helix eh?
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I honestly have no idea why anyone would buy a Line6 product. There’s always a weird sound to them, to my ears at least. People love them, and I’ve even seen a fair amount of big acts using them live, but I’ve tried to like them but always returned or sold everything I had from them. It’s like the sound was coated with a layer of dull plastic.
 
zerocrossing said:
Think about it. Why would any amp be designed to sound poor with everything set at 12:00?
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I'm not sure where the notion originated that amps are supposed to sound good with all tone controls set to their midpoints. The response of a Fender and Vox, for example, with the tone controls set to twelve o'clock results in a huge scoop at 500 Hz and 750 Hz respectively.
 
Jason Scott said:
I'm not sure where the notion originated that amps are supposed to sound good with all tone controls set to their midpoints. The response of a Fender and Vox, for example, with the tone controls set to twelve o'clock results in a huge scoop at 500 Hz and 750 Hz respectively.
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though to be fair - that results in the default tone the amp is going for.

The thing about "12 oclock" is Generally (though not always) where a designer makes an amp sounds like HE intends with the controls in that position. One assumes if you use that amp its because that's the base sound you actually want - so it normally a good start. However, that base sound wont suit us all - were not all the designer. thats why the knobs move.
 
paulmapp8306 said:
though to be fair - that results in the default tone the amp is going for.

The thing about "12 oclock" is Generally (though not always) where a designer makes an amp sounds like HE intends with the controls in that position.
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What are you basing this on?
 
zerocrossing said:
I honestly have no idea why anyone would buy a Line6 product. There’s always a weird sound to them, to my ears at least. People love them, and I’ve even seen a fair amount of big acts using them live, but I’ve tried to like them but always returned or sold everything I had from them. It’s like the sound was coated with a layer of dull plastic.
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I call that the Heinz effect. Heinz soup, no matter what the flavour/recipe is it always tastes like Heinz. Saying that though, my Axe Fx 3 replaced a Pod Farm 2.0 setup with the small external DSP interface which has been my quick go to plug in and play for practice rig for the last 11 or so years. It served me great with no noticeable latency. As long as I can keep my old Mac Pro alive the Pod Farm will be part of my aging 32bit ProTools10 rig for some useful EQs, mic pre sims and stuff. Will be sad to see it be made redundant when the inevitable day arrives.
Plugging into the Fractal for the first time, however, and running through the presets had my senses of sound and feel trying to convince my olfactory system it could smell hot tubes burning and to physically check my valve heads were in fact turned off. I think of how Mario must have felt when he left 2D World for 3D 64.
 
Overcaster said:
But noon on the axe doesn't mean noon on the amp, the controls don't translate 1:1. It was said several times by the higher ups
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Interesting. I appreciate being able to go past the settings of the originals, but it would be nice to see them at least put some indicator of what “12 o’clock” was on the original as well as what the max setting was. Look at U-He’s RePro (a Pro One/Prophet 5 software emulation) does. They put a little dot on the potentiometer markings to show original parameter ranges.
 
Jason Scott said:
I'm not sure where the notion originated that amps are supposed to sound good with all tone controls set to their midpoints. The response of a Fender and Vox, for example, with the tone controls set to twelve o'clock results in a huge scoop at 500 Hz and 750 Hz respectively.
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Not “supposed to” but “should be.” Doesn’t that make sense?
 
Fjelltronen said:
I call that the Heinz effect. Heinz soup, no matter what the flavour/recipe is it always tastes like Heinz. Saying that though, my Axe Fx 3 replaced a Pod Farm 2.0 setup with the small external DSP interface which has been my quick go to plug in and play for practice rig for the last 11 or so years. It served me great with no noticeable latency. As long as I can keep my old Mac Pro alive the Pod Farm will be part of my aging 32bit ProTools10 rig for some useful EQs, mic pre sims and stuff. Will be sad to see it be made redundant when the inevitable day arrives.
Plugging into the Fractal for the first time, however, and running through the presets had my senses of sound and feel trying to convince my olfactory system it could smell hot tubes burning and to physically check my valve heads were in fact turned off. I think of how Mario must have felt when he left 2D World for 3D 64.
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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.
 
zerocrossing said:
Here’s a tip from me as well. If you find the default setting to sound good, you may be done. Think about it. Why would any amp be designed to sound poor with everything set at 12:00? No reason a model wouldn’t follow that. Second, tweak in context. Get the other sounds up and running and have them loop while you get your guitar sound finalized. I’m often surprised at the differences between what I like alone in comparison to what’s good in the song.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Totally agree with minimizing the adjustments only as needed. Most amps sound good out of the box in Cygnus. I have mostly only had to make adjustments to BMT to make the tone cut through the mix better or to roll off some spikey high end freqs.
 
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