I decided to use these threads as my impetus to really get to know the amps in my Axe2 (which I have had for only 4 weeks). My idea was to develop a a basic set of presets (clean, crunchier and lead) both for my Les Paul and my Stratocaster. I focused on the LP this weekend. I used the 59 Bassguy factory preset for my template and went from there. Based on the ideas in this thread I set B<1, M,T & P intially about 7 and then tweaked and then played around with the Bright switch. For my clean preset I backed the Input Drive a little under 3. This alone resulted in a very useable preset which covered a ton of territory simply by riding my LP's volume (with the guitars vol at 10 I was just starting to get a very enticing amount of breakup). I also auditioned a variety of factory cabs and found several that were perfectly suited to the task. Then for a crunchier tone I used this as my template and auditioned a bunch of dirt pedals. I landed up debating between the Eternal Love, Zen Master and 808 Mod. Tie went to the EL and 808 with the 808 winning out for now. This is a great all purpose preset and inspired me to play Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Doobie Brothers, etc (you get the idea). This preset really responded to my LP's volume controls and cleans up beautifully. By turning down my guitar's volume I got a very good ACDC Back in Black tone. I tried out several different delays and I was done. I then decided to compare this to a third preset using the amp's gain instead of a pedal. I settled out just a tad over 6 on the Input Drive and voila! even better.
Exclusive of the hours of flashing back and noodling this inspired, the whole exercise took me maybe thirty minutes and I have 3 presets that could me through an entire set list (especially when one considers the additional flexibility of using a foot control to kick in various effects a la a traditional pedal board set up). Keep in mind this was my first attempt at dialing in my own presets. I was blown away with how easy (and fun!) dialing up inspiring, very usable tones is. Oh yeah and I guess I can sell another couple of amps now!