it's common for presets designed by others to not sound the way you prefer. it also highly depends on your entire setup and how your ears perceive things vs how others do.Hi all,
I bought the FM3 about a year ago. I've owned a lot of pedals and several tube amps, but I basically haven't played through a pedal or amp since I got the FM3. I do think you can achieve almost any tone with Fractal's modeling. I also think it's better than all the alternatives I've tried (I have played Neural DSP plugins but have not personally tried the Quad Cortex).
My own presets are not overly complex, and not very effect heavy. I like a good low gain dirt or high gain shred tone. I have a pretty standard preferred tone (Petrucci, Andy Timmons, Vai, Govan, etc.). I admittedly am going more for amp-in-the-room (I know, it's oddly controversial), but even the FM3 can achieve pretty convincing amp-in-the-room tones through studio monitors or good headphones. However, I almost uniformly don't like the factory presets, ones I've tried on Axe Change, and a Fremen pack I bought. With some tweaking (and not even a crazy deep dive into the nuanced settings) I seem to get much better tones out of my own presets even when they are fairly simple. Anybody else feel that way?
I know how you feel. I've had ok success with my fm3 so I decided to sell it and go back to tube amps.Hi all,
I bought the FM3 about a year ago. I've owned a lot of pedals and several tube amps, but I basically haven't played through a pedal or amp since I got the FM3. I do think you can achieve almost any tone with Fractal's modeling. I also think it's better than all the alternatives I've tried (I have played Neural DSP plugins but have not personally tried the Quad Cortex).
My own presets are not overly complex, and not very effect heavy. I like a good low gain dirt or high gain shred tone. I have a pretty standard preferred tone (Petrucci, Andy Timmons, Vai, Govan, etc.). I admittedly am going more for amp-in-the-room (I know, it's oddly controversial), but even the FM3 can achieve pretty convincing amp-in-the-room tones through studio monitors or good headphones. However, I almost uniformly don't like the factory presets, ones I've tried on Axe Change, and a Fremen pack I bought. With some tweaking (and not even a crazy deep dive into the nuanced settings) I seem to get much better tones out of my own presets even when they are fairly simple. Anybody else feel that way?
yup. and all of those still affect the resulting tone the same way.Yea everybody talks about pedals in the context of their "rig" and I get that. But the "rig" for a modeler is a guitar (of which I own many but still have the same issue of the factory presets not sounding great) and either a speaker (of which I've tried several, and have pretty neutral studio monitors that I use most of the time) and headphones (also which I have several nice neutral pairs, all with same results). There are some decent youtube videos getting great tones (like johnnathancordy) but most of the demos sound fairly mediocre to my ears compared to the potential of the unit. To each his own I guess
sure, this can happen. they weren't 100% unusable to me, and others too. so it's a range of some people enjoying them, and some not, like most things in life.Totally agree, but I’m talking 100% of the factory presets were completely unusable to me
I think some of the factory presets are great, some sound great with a tweak, some are OK, and some do nothing for me because I’m not a fan of the style. I copied a few directly into my favorites and barely touched them, and a couple others got major overhauls to everything but the amp and cab. That’s what the factory presets are there for.Hi all,
I bought the FM3 about a year ago. I've owned a lot of pedals and several tube amps, but I basically haven't played through a pedal or amp since I got the FM3. I do think you can achieve almost any tone with Fractal's modeling. I also think it's better than all the alternatives I've tried (I have played Neural DSP plugins but have not personally tried the Quad Cortex).
My own presets are not overly complex, and not very effect heavy. I like a good low gain dirt or high gain shred tone. I have a pretty standard preferred tone (Petrucci, Andy Timmons, Vai, Govan, etc.). I admittedly am going more for amp-in-the-room (I know, it's oddly controversial), but even the FM3 can achieve pretty convincing amp-in-the-room tones through studio monitors or good headphones. However, I almost uniformly don't like the factory presets, ones I've tried on Axe Change, and a Fremen pack I bought. With some tweaking (and not even a crazy deep dive into the nuanced settings) I seem to get much better tones out of my own presets even when they are fairly simple. Anybody else feel that way?
So the main reason I made this thread was to take the pulse of other users. It seems it’s mixed responses so far, but some people are in the same boat as me. I personally think the default presets are the main reason that nearly 100% of the comparisons online currently favor Quad Cortex over Fractal (that and maybe some paid endorsement at play hah) - basically the ease of getting a good tone from first use. Unless the Quad Cortex is dramatically better than all the Neural plugins (which I haven’t heard anybody claim), the Fractal modeling is capable of superior “best tones” to Neural to my ears. But the factory presets sound much better from scratch for Neural in my opinion. And yes I’ve tried with multiple guitars with multiple pickup manufacturers, single coil, humbucker, soap bar, passive/active, different speakers, FRFR, studio monitors, headphones. I am capable of making a preset work well with many different pickups, etc. Maybe the Neural presets are just tweaked to a more amp in the room sound, which a lot of us prefer (but I know Cliff has posted that he doesn’t really aim for it). I highly doubt I’m the only customer who isn’t selling out stadiums every night and just wants good tone at home at reasonable sound levels. Just my unsolicited 2 cents
I think it's because they're designed for live use, which lots of high SPL gain reinforcement.I find that in particular the presets lack sustain/compression for a lot of lead work. But like everybody will respond, just my opinion and others may have different preferences
And different strokes for different folks. Been here a long time and this subject or, shall I say discussion comes up quite a bit.Presets should be viewed as a starting point. In all of the years I have been dealing with digital gear (about three decades), I have never encountered a factory preset that was "exactly" what I was looking for, save for maybe one or two stereo detuning effects in the Eventide H9.
No.Anybody else feel that way?
Ya, my stock answer (nauseatingly repetitive but I'm relentless) - get the DI track for one of those players' awesome sounding to you performances through your studio monitors with a given stock preset with no PP - reamp that DI through the same stock preset on your own Axefx rig, and listen, on the same studio monitors, to the exact same awesome sound being produced by your rig thru that stock preset as you heard from their rig - then lastly, and most importantly, accept, because there is no alternative, that the answer to why the stock preset sounds different when you play through it, can only lie within your own hands/pick/guitar/pickups/strings/guitar setup/tuning - nothing else - you can stop wishing for someone to come and say - "oh just adjust your global xyz parameter setting to abc and all those presets will dial right in for you". Also, despite HiRezReverb, AFAIK Axefx does not model AITR through FRFR - totally different things as Axefx includes mic'ing in the IRs that AITR does not - this used to be a modelling 101 mantra regularly restated here (almost pasted on our foreheads upon entry) - I don't see what's changed - Axefx with Cab modelling turned on is not designed for AITR - it's designed for a mic'd cab in another room which sounds different - possibly disappointing in comparison to some - better to others like me who prefer mic'd cab to AITR.I don’t know guys ..... I see guys like Cooper Carter, Mark Day, Leon Todd, Larry Mitchell etc sound pretty awesome without fail going through a bunch of stock presets.....
Those guys are all super talented guitar players of course. I’m not saying anyone else isn’t talented, but I think when the only difference is the person playing it’s hard to blame the gear or preset, no ?