After 9.04 Firmware everything sounds super bad

enc.ny

enc.ny

Member
I'm a lame user of AXE, I'm not afraid to reveal it. Maybe this unit is just not for me. I am an owner of Axe FX-II.

I barely dial any of 'my' sounds - too much tweaking, too many combinations, too many possibilities. Till today I mostly kept a few presets here and there and played them for occasional practice (I mostly play acoustic guitars nowadays anyway). I'm very casual 'in-home' player and mostly bought AXE few years back to never worry about tones anymore.

Downloaded a newest firmware today and ... everything sounds really terrible. My last firmware I think, was 7.02. Everything is so muffed, with some strange delays. I updated Axe-Edit, trying to bypass those delay blocks on random patches - and it doesn't help. I can barely find any preset that sounds OK now... I used to have few different favorite ones like Bogner Blue or Modern Savage or something, some blues presets from Tyler Grund (?), some Fremen stuff... Now they all sound like s##t.

...

Well, I don't know. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I don't understand something. I have such an 'itch' to have all my devices updated all the time, but with AXE its probably the largest flaw to date so far. Of course, when I've had updates before, they've changed the sounds of presets to 'worser' sounding, but this is quite drastic here. I've tried to load up few 9.04 patches here on forum, but those are either do not sound at all, or sound awfully.

1) What am I missing? What do you to keep your sound mostly intact when doing a firmware update?

2) Any good few 9.04 presets/sounds that do not include paid cabs?

3) Any good resources/videos on how to dial sounds/tones, how cabs work, etc.?

Thanks.
 
What are you listening through? How long ago did you download the factory presets? In your shoes, I would download and install the new firmware one more time and see if that solves your problems. 9.04 sounds great with my new and old patches
 
It might not be you actually. FW changes things. Otherwise it wouldn’t be new Firmware.

I suggest “reloading” the amps by choosing another amp type, then go back to the one you want. Note that the volume might change so keep things turned down at first. This reloads the advanced values and might put things in a better place.
 
Old presets won't work with new FW. A lot of things changed (algorithms for individual blocks). Stick with only few presets that you liked, go to the amp block, select some other model and reselect the first one. Do the same with delay block or any other block that sounds crappy. Mess only with basic parameters and forget the advanced stuff. With the newest FW it's all that you need. Keep it simple, you don't probably need more than 4-5 presets, learn them well, so when the FW changes and you notice something's different, you'll be able to adjust them quickly.
 
Make sure you haven't accidentally screwed up some global settings like power-amp/cabinet modeling. I've upgraded regularly and rarely find the need to tweak any settings afterwards.
 
My first step would be to try reinstalling the firmware. There has been the occasional report of a new firmware being 'horrible' which is fixed by just installing it again. Your mention of 'strange delays' suggests that it's more than just the tonal differences of a new firmware.
 
If you want to devote a little time the people on this forum will have you fixed up in no time. The Axe is not plug and play but it has gotten much easier with newer firmware. You should be able to start from scratch and have a good sound within a couple minutes. Tell us more about what you are playing through and what type of tones you like.
 
unix-guy said:
FW 7.02 or FW Quantum 7.02? There is a huge difference
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Latter, of course :)

Tahoebrian5 said:
Tell us more about what you are playing through and what type of tones you like.
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Well, I'm not the kind of guy who likes a great deal of presets. Couple of bluesy ones, the ones that sound great with Fender's bridge pickups. Some 80s solo / clean with chorus one. And some modern dry distortion/lead tone. I've heard some amazing metal tones here on forum a long time ago (like that Greek guy I think who made a presentation though a lot of metal tones in one video), but wasn't unable to replicate any of that.
 
There shouldn't be that significant of a change.

As suggested already, try reloading the firmware.

Also check to make sure you have Global Cab and Power Amp modeling enabled - sometimes they get turned off during an update.

Worst case, just reload 7.02 ;)
 
I've never found my presets changing so much with a firmware upgrade that they went from very nice to something not so nice.
Been a couple of times that I didn't really notice anything at all, but most of the time they sound as good or better. In the rare ocassion when I have to adjust, it's very little tweaking and I'm back on track again with an even better sound than before.

It always surprise me when people are experiencing such a night and day changes in their presets after firmware updates.
But we are all different and we all have different skillsets and different perception of these things.

To me it sounds like something is wrong on your end, and I really hope you get it sorted out :)
if it is a guitar sound with any similarity to the last 70 years of music you should be able to recreate it with the axe fx II

IMHO that is ..
have a good one and good luck
:)

ps
people around here are very helpful and the knowledge around here is vast ,so I'm sure it will get sorted out
ds
 
Stringmanipulator said:
I've never found my presets changing so much with a firmware upgrade that they went from very nice to something not so nice.
Been a couple of times that I didn't really notice anything at all, but most of the time they sound as good or better. In the rare ocassion when I have to adjust, it's very little tweaking and I'm back on track again with an even better sound than before.
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Same for me but most of my patches are pretty simple. At worst I've had to tweak the settings a little bit and then had a sound that I enjoy. I don't feel like the Axe-Fx 2 requires a ton of tweaking to get a satisfying sound out of it in the first place. All I've ever done with firmware updates is toggle the amp blocks so some of the settings get reset.
 
chris said:
what kind of guitar do you use?
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Some Japanese-made Ibanez Prestige, not too sure about exact year and model.

Tahoebrian5 said:
try downloading Leons gigging preset he recently uploaded
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Wasn't able to find it, where is that?

...

Now I've found some video on how to dial a preset from scratch, started with most basic - amp-cab combo. More and more frustration, since:

1) I am even unable to find any cab-amp combo that produces clear, loud, pronounced sound.
2) Everything is very-very quiet and still in most cases manages to produce digital clipping? (!) ...

I also checked global settings: amp modelling and cab modelling are both on.
 
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