A

Dude, other people’s presets, or OPP, as the song goes, should totally sound bad, unless you’re playing a guitar that sounds remarkably similar to the author of the preset, and you play like the author.

I truly do not mean this statement in a confrontational way, but audio is not plug and play, it’s a developed skill to which some people dedicate their entire lives. It shouldn’t be easy to jump in and create the tones a great engineer created for an artist; it’s a difficult thing.

I’ve purposely matched my guitar, a superstrat, with lower output PAF style pickups, and almost anyone else’s presets sound like crap when I go through them. I tried out a set of really high output humbuckers for a few days, and nearly every factory preset sounded godly. I went back to my low outputs because I love them, but it does mean presets that other people make will consistently sound bad. And that’s fine! I make the best guitar tones I’ve ever heard all the time on the AxeFX III, and it’s because I figured out that my guitar, with its low output either agrees with IRs from small cabinets, or with large cabinets that I’ve processed heavily with the Smoothing parameter in the cab block.

When I posted a single preset on the forum that sounded huge and awesome with my guitar and my technique, it didn’t seem to gel well with others, but that’s just an indication that our guitars sound completely different from one another, and so does our playing too, probably. But if I posted a recording of me playing through that preset, it would sound awesome, not because it’s empirically awesome, but because it’s tailored to my slightly less usual mismatch of guitar, hardware, and pickups, and perfectly supports my playing style.

So my advice is to change how you view presets, that they are a guide, but not significant. If they sound awesome for someone, it’s because of a match to the preset author, if they don’t, it’s just a mismatch, not a bad preset, or on your end, a bad pickup.

I used to watch Pensado’s Place, where there were really in depth interviews with engineers, and I so remember this one discussion of presets, where the dude was just saying that a preset has nothing to do with the real world, that everything you do in audio is based on the context of a song, and there should never ever be a one size fits all solution. Now, they meant stuff like mastering compressor or vocal EQ presets, but to me, the concept transfers elegantly to guitars.

I love looking at others’ presets as a learning experience, to gain tips and tricks that may or may not help me achieve my tones, but a good preset should be yours, just totally tailored to you, in my opinion. We have the most flexible and powerful tone generator on earth for that reason, to be able to make a tone that wraps around your guitar perfectly, not a perfect tone that you wrap your playing around. Again, this is all just my perspective, so take it with a grain of salt (hopefully that goes without saying).
 
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:/ where do people post presets then? anywhere?
You'll see some presets in the preset forum, but the bottom line is AxeFX presets have a short shelf life. After a couple of firmware updates they will no longer sound like they originally did. This tends to discourage people from sharing Axe-FX presets, with the inevitable consequence that you don't see many presets shared. Compare this to the Kemper or Helix, where you see about 50X more presets shared in a year than the Axe-FX because presets tend to sound correct for a longer period of time. That's just the way it is with the Axe-FX, there are pros and cons. Buying presets is a little better since some vendors will update their presets to keep pace with firmware updates.
 
damn thats a pain in the ass... that seems like a... poor design choice? on fractals part? especially hearing just how much they change, the sound difference is very extreme, am i going to have to constantly be re-doing every single one of my patches every firmware update?
I wouldn't call it a poor choice. It's simply the FAS way of doing things, and people are Fractal customers because they like it that way. Sure, presets tend to lose their original sound across major firmware updates, but that permits rapid development of new features with frequent updates. The expectation is you throw your old presets away when there are major firmware updates, or you put in the effort to tweak your presets. Whether that's a problem for you probably depends on how many presets you use. Some people rely on a library of hundreds of presets. Some people only use a handful of presets. Alternatively, you can simply avoid firmware updates if you don't want to risk having your presets change. But the point for this thread is: this makes it difficult to build a preset sharing community for the Axe-FX.
 
damn thats a pain in the ass... that seems like a... poor design choice? on fractals part? especially hearing just how much they change, the sound difference is very extreme, am i going to have to constantly be re-doing every single one of my patches every firmware update?

Only if a) the update affects your preset (a phaser block overhaul wont affect presets without a phaser block) b) you think it sounds way worse now c) you can hear the difference.

Are you using axe edit to build presets?
 
I used to feel that way until I managed my expectations that any preset I download will not ever sound identical for all the reasons mentioned in this thread but....but, I use them as amazing springboards to work from. I learn how certain blocks are dialed in and that is where I find the value. I find with a few adjustments in EQ to work with my setup gets me pretty damn close. I also find that choosing the right IR for your system/ears is at least half the recipe to making a preset work
 
its been the hardest and least fun part of owning an axe fx for these last few years lol. i love the axe fx but the user interface is not... great. and there seem to be very few reliable resources for getting things going easily, luckily i enjoy the factory presets quite a bit but i am really trying to get the like "real" tones now and its proving to be a gigantic pain in the ass. dialing in a good tone is easy, dialing in a great, recording-worthy one is not (at least for me lol)
It's no more difficult than turning the knobs on a real amplifier and landing at an acceptable sound. If that was the hardest/least fun part of owning an amplifier for you, maybe guitar isn't your thing? I'm not sure what UI you're used to, but Axe-Edit is one of the most straight forward and easy to grasp interfaces for this type of thing that I have ever used. What would you recommend to improve your experience with the UI?

Dialing in "great, recording worthy" tones is just like learning to play your guitar really. You're not going to be great at it overnight and there will always be room to make improvements. It takes practice and a lot of trial and error. Emphasis on the error. If you were relying on others to record your guitar parts and upload them to a site for you to download you'd never get any better at doing it yourself. Same can be said for learning how to dial in tones on any amp or modeler.
 
Dude, other people’s presets, or OPP, as the song goes, should totally sound bad, unless you’re playing a guitar that sounds remarkably similar to the author of the preset, and you play like the author.

I truly do not mean this statement in a confrontational way, but audio is not plug and play, it’s a developed skill to which some people dedicate their entire lives. It shouldn’t be easy to jump in and create the tones a great engineer created for an artist; it’s a difficult thing.

I’ve purposely matched my guitar, a superstrat, with lower output PAF style pickups, and almost anyone else’s presets sound like crap when I go through them. I tried out a set of really high output humbuckers for a few days, and nearly every factory preset sounded godly. I went back to my low outputs because I love them, but it does mean presets that other people make will consistently sound bad. And that’s fine! I make the best guitar tones I’ve ever heard all the time on the AxeFX III, and it’s because I figured out that my guitar, with its low output either agrees with IRs from small cabinets, or with large cabinets that I’ve processed heavily with the Smoothing parameter in the cab block.

When I posted a single preset on the forum that sounded huge and awesome with my guitar and my technique, it didn’t seem to gel well with others, but that’s just an indication that our guitar sound completely different, and so did our playing too, probably. But if I posted a recording of me playing through that preset, it would sound awesome, not because it’s empirically awesome, but because it’s tailored to my slightly less usual mismatch of guitar, hardware, and pickups, and perfectly supports my playing style.

So my advice is to change how you view presets, that they are a guide, but not significant. If they sound awesome for someone, it’s because of a match to the preset author, if they don’t, it’s just a mismatch, not a bad preset, or on your end, a bad pickup.

I used to watch Pensado’s Place, where there were really in depth interviews with engineers, and I so remember this one discussion of presets, where the dude was just saying that a preset has nothing to do with the real world, that everything you do in audio is based on the context of a song, and there should never ever be a one size fits all solution. Now, they meant stuff like mastering compressor or vocal EQ presets, but to me, the concept transfers elegantly to guitars.

I love looking at others’ presets as a learning experience, to gain tips and tricks that may or may not help me achieve my tones, but a good preset should me yours, just totally tailored to you, in my opinion. We have the most flexible and powerful tone generator on earth for that reason, to be able to make a tone that wraps around your guitar perfectly, not a perfect tone that you wrap your playing around. Again, this is all just my perspective, so take it with a grain of salt (hopefully that goes without saying).

It's so true. Well written post. :)

Presets truly ONLY exist in the context of the environment they were created in. Change one variable
out of the dozen or so at play, and you change the end result.
 
damn thats a pain in the ass... that seems like a... poor design choice? on fractals part? especially hearing just how much they change, the sound difference is very extreme, am i going to have to constantly be re-doing every single one of my patches every firmware update?

Since you don't like any of them it shouldn't take too long. ;)
 
I think it's way better to think of the AxeFX III like a real amp. You'd never buy a real amp then only set the dials to settings you found on the internet. You'd just play what you feel and move knobs till it sounded great. I think it's the same with the Fractal stuff; it's just way more powerful and reliable than a real amp.
 
I think it's way better to think of the AxeFX III like a real amp. You'd never buy a real amp then only set the dials to settings you found on the internet. You'd just play what you feel and move knobs till it sounded great. I think it's the same with the Fractal stuff; it's just way more powerful and reliable than a real amp.
I think for a lot of folks, option paralysis is a real thing.

I use my 70 year old father as an example. I got him an FM3 last year for his birthday. He's been playing guitar forever, but the FM3 is just collecting dust. He claims he has no time to learn how to use it. Im like, "Turn it on and turn knobs! Like your amplifier!"
 
I think for a lot of folks, option paralysis is a real thing.

I use my 70 year old father as an example. I got him an FM3 last year for his birthday. He's been playing guitar forever, but the FM3 is just collecting dust. He claims he has no time to learn how to use it. Im like, "Turn it on and turn knobs! Like your amplifier!"

I was your 70 year old Father until abouot a year ago. There is hope. :)
 
I was your 70 year old Father until abouot a year ago. There is hope. :)
Ive managed to get him to take it to a few gigs his band has had the last few months.

Unfortunately, he's using it as a clean platform... for his MASSIVE pedal board that he feeds into the front of the FM3.

🤦‍♂️

"If you'd just experiment with the FX blocks you wouldn't have to haul that toddler coffin of pedals to every gig!"

Baby steps I guess.
 
I agree with the OP and with the consensus as to why they don't work for people. I find some of the clean factory presets work for me but the high gain ones don't. Mind you this is all personal taste but I find a lot of presets over processed, I like simple. Like Dickie said, try making your own, there are plenty of cool videos out there that can help, like Leon Todd.
 
Ive managed to get him to take it to a few gigs his band has had the last few months.

Unfortunately, he's using it as a clean platform... for his MASSIVE pedal board that he feeds into the front of the FM3.

🤦‍♂️

"If you'd just experiment with the FX blocks you wouldn't have to haul that toddler coffin of pedals to every gig!"

Baby steps I guess.

Wow. First, Cool Dad alert. :)

Second, not sure how to break the ice there. Once you get him to, though, I am not sure
there will be any turning back.

That said, I am still attached to some of my pedals and amps. Kind of sentimental that way. :)
 
hey there, i think it looks like the issue is likely just changes to how the presets function as the firmware changes, i'm going out of my axe fx 3's audio output into my audiobox into logic and then out into studio monitors, the factory presets sound great, its the older ones that i'm having the trouble with.

"do you have both Power Amp Modeling turned On and Cabinet Modeling Active" i... am not sure what this means exactly, are these things i can toggle on and off somewhere?

"Also, on presets you download, if the cab (IR) is assigned to User1, User2 or User3, confirm assigned the slot # is not EMPTY"
on most of the presets i've downloaded, the cab is empty, how do i fix this? i assumed the problem was because they had an IR they got elsewhere that they just didnt mention when they uploaded the preset? i've just been trying to make educated guesses, which is incredibly frustrating
Hey James,
My question relating to Power Amp Modeling and Cabinet Modeling are adjustable through the Setup on your AF3 and also in AxeEdit again under Setup. You don't need to worry about these at this point, since the existing presets sound good, and you are not going to an amp and physical cabinet for your output.

If a downloaded preset displays an EMPTY IR, it usually indicates the maker had an IR stored in one of the User banks, on the # location that is showing EMPTY. When you look at the Cab/IR in a preset, and it displays EMPTY, if you are viewing your preset using AxeEdit, it also indicates in which BANK the IR is location (Factory1, Factory2, Legacy, Scratchpad, User1, User2, User3). If you download an IR and save it into your AF3, it will go into one of the three User banks. If you have an IR saved and want to use it with a preset, you choose the bank, and then using Picker, move to the # location.
 
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