A

Morphine said:
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.
Click to expand...

Quoting so people read it twice.
 
It’s interesting to think that this is only a problem because we have the power to simply import other people’s rigs at all. I remember the days of looking up amp settings online and trying to get close… it took hours, and I would always learn a heap in the process. Since fractal is just modelled gear, we still have that same opportunity to do things the slow way.

I mainly use presets for ideas, but occasionally have found one that just works. Ironically, I prefer Leon Todd’s tone, but his presets don’t often work for my gear and style (except his IRs). On the other hand, while Cooper Carter’s sound is generally darker than my taste, his presets are often spot on 🤷‍

I have Austin Buddy’s naked amps and a few incredible presets from Moke, and they gave me a good leg-up, but I’ve stripped back to only using one amp these days (deluxe verb). Honestly, it took me a while to get confident dialling in my own sounds from scratch- Leon’s 5 minute tones helped enormously (and note that he always describes which guitar and pickups he’s using!). These days I pretty much just plonk effects on at their default, put a bit of low cut on the amp, and use a few types of drive pedal. All with the same IR that I never change. I decided to overcome option paralysis by focusing on core tone with one amp, just like I had to with a physical rig. Turns out that’s all I need.

Long story short, I know it seems a bit harsh when people say “forget presets, learn to dial it in yourself”, but it really is the best way.
 
James Barney said:
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?
Click to expand...
No. Actually, you do not HAVE to update any firmware. If 2.0 works for you then rock on!!
Great thing is, with backups and such, you can go back and forth between firmwares until you find the right one for you and then zero it all in for your sound.
Lastly, RTFM and Wiki are great resources as well as this forum.
Happy tone hunting :)
 
Also worth noting is that with online presets, you can’t hear how it sounds on the author’s rig, and don’t know if you even like their sound. I’ve watched some videos where people dial in a sound they love, and I hate it! Not much point downloading THAT preset!
 
Across life, I find that most things done by most people are poor, but then, it’s my special talent to say that things are not good.

But I don’t buy that “old“ presets sound bad if they’re old GOOD presets.
 
Last edited:
Its so easy to make presets Ive never even bothered to download one. I dont even think Ive heard 90% of the ones that come on the unit. I just built all mine from scratch. I can build a good preset for any genre, with 4 or 5 scenes in about 20 minutes.

Input, compressor, wah, drive, amp, cab, chorus, phaser, delay, reverb, peq, output. A couple turn of the knobs, done 🤷‍♂️ Unless you have some extra routing, effects loop, midi to outboard gear, etc this isnt exactly rocket science.
 
In all honesty I struggled until Cygnus. I could never seem to get things sounding exactly right, just 95% right. Now it really is plonk-n-play for me. The trick was finding which types of amp I like, which is fenders and class A types. I actually really dislike a lot of the amps other people love.

Funnily enough, I discovered my favourite amp by downloading a Cooper Carter preset! 😂 It was his ‘perfect edge of breakup’ preset, just nails it for me. I just checked out how he did it, then made my own preset from there.
 
Feflicker said:
Its so easy to make presets Ive never even bothered to download one. I dont even think Ive heard 90% of the ones that come on the unit. I just built all mine from scratch. I can build a good preset for any genre, with 4 or 5 scenes in about 20 minutes.

Input, compressor, wah, drive, amp, cab, chorus, phaser, delay, reverb, peq, output. A couple turn of the knobs, done 🤷‍♂️ Unless you have some extra routing, effects loop, midi to outboard gear, etc this isnt exactly rocket science.
Click to expand...

Okay, this post is the wisdom of a zen master of tone. I love everything about what you wrote.
 
James Barney said:
some of these have me seriously questioning if the people who made them are mentally well,
Click to expand...

Assuming that you have already tried the presets and advices provided by people like Leon Todd or Brett Kingman, if you despise those who kindly share their presets for free, are not satisfied with the factory presets, and cannot create your own presets, perhaps you should pay someone to create them for you. There are several manufacturers here: Austin Buddy, Fremen, Marco Fanton, Moke...
 
Last edited:
Piing said:
If you despise the people that kindly share their presets for free, are not satisfied with the factory presets, and cannot create your own presets, perhaps you should purchase them. There are several manufacturers here: Austin Buddy, Fremen, Marco Fanton, Moke...
Click to expand...

I didn’t get the idea he despises anyone. I like plenty of people that aren’t mentally well, I just don’t agree with all their decisions.

I know what he means; sometimes you download a preset and it’s just nothing what it claims to be and makes ya think, “WTF?”. And sometimes it’s not even a thing of variations in guitars, pickups, playing styles. I’m in a bunch of guitar-based groups on FB, most of them based around metal; there’s people on there posting their “check out my tone test, got a brutal metal sound with this setup“ YouTube vids and it sounds like a Metal Zone direct into the board. It’s not like Dunning Krueger doesn’t apply to guitarists. :D
 
RevDrucifer said:
I didn’t get the idea he despises anyone. I like plenty of people that aren’t mentally well, I just don’t agree with all their decisions.

I know what he means; sometimes you download a preset and it’s just nothing what it claims to be and makes ya think, “WTF?”. And sometimes it’s not even a thing of variations in guitars, pickups, playing styles. I’m in a bunch of guitar-based groups on FB, most of them based around metal; there’s people on there posting their “check out my tone test, got a brutal metal sound with this setup“ YouTube vids and it sounds like a Metal Zone direct into the board. It’s not like Dunning Krueger doesn’t apply to guitarists. :D
Click to expand...

Avant-Garde Scatologie has always been misunderstood :D
 
Last edited:
I've never enjoyed someone else's preset before, even the stock ones. Some of the heavy-effects ones are really fun of course, but every other relatively normal one sounds terrible to me. However, I've enjoyed a gazillion of my own and start from scratch nearly every other day. I love the process of setting up what I'm in the mood to hear that day. Often I wonder if there's a psychological aspect to it - like, someone else's preset makes me feel like I'm walking into their studio and using their gear with their settings. But when I make my own, I feel like I've warmed up my own amp and set the dials myself.

Just a thought.
 
Imagine you visit a guitar store to buy a new amp and the staff there already set all the knobs on all the amps right for you and your guitar and you only need to plug in and play without touching any knob yourself...hm, that's not how it works.

Ok, different story: They did not set the knobs for you, but you try all 30 amps they have there, hoping that some amps have the controls set perfectly for you...hm, that's also not how it works.

The search for ready-to-use presets might be a wrong plan. You will find some, when listening to 2k presets or more, right, but it for sure takes way more time than tweaking presets yourself.
 
I'll edit this...
TSJMajesty said:
I'd recommend you start with the factory presets. If you can't find something you like in there, then I'd be looking at your setup.
Click to expand...
to: "If you can't find something you like in there, at least as a starting point, then I'd be looking at your setup." after reading the previous
666was999 said:
They did not set the knobs for you, but you try all 30 amps they have there, hoping that some amps have the controls set perfectly for you...hm, that's also not how it works.
Click to expand...
I like many of the factory presets, but yeah I've edited several to my own tastes.

With so many amps and effects to choose from, I'm certainly not familiar with very many of them, which is the reason I think going through the factory presets is a good idea. It's like having a smorgasbord of food you've never heard of, never tried, and/or don't know how to cook yourself, so you try different items as a way of broadening your palette. (And then you can look inside to see how the item was made as well!)

If I only started from scratch, I would have missed many examples of amps & effects that are now in my presets. One of the things I love about having all these presets is you get to try things you may not have thought of, were you to only make your own. Of course this depends on how well you know your way around amps, speakers, mics, & effects. Me personally? I've only been exposed to a small handful, so I use the Axe III to open up many more possibilities, but I take a shortcut by finding something I like, that I wouldn't have known how to create (or that it even existed, like several of the really cool effects-laden entries.)

I'll also take a factory preset that has, for example, a nice stereo delay that sounds awesome to me (but I wouldn't know how to get a delay to sound like that), but it's using a base tone that I don't like. So I'll take a different preset that has the amp tone I want, see what it is and how it's set up, then substitute that into the preset with the delay (or the other way around.)

And since everyone's needs are different, if you're simply looking to model that JCM 800 amp you don't want to lug around anymore, and you know the effects you want and how to get them, then my approach probably wouldn't suit you. But if you want to explore all the III (or the FM3/9) has to offer, I think you'd stand a good chance of missing out if you don't give the factory presets a shot.
 
I’ve had zero luck downloading user presets. I started with a few factory presets to see what’s going on and went from there. I did some research, listened to lots of real amps. Got some cab packs.. YA seems to make my favorites.

With my gear, and taste in righteous tone.. I make the best presets... for me. You can too.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom