Anyone using Austin Buddy presets live?

[yves vanmeenen]

Hi everyone,

Hi, I know its the wrong place to ask , but the Dream Rigs" TonePack. also for AXE fx 2?

 

[austinbuddy]

One thing at a time...after it’s out for AX8 will look at doing version for XL and XL+ and the Axe II... the mic choices and preamp in Cab Block may help in some presets...but you lose some factory cab options using the II...

 

[rayneman]

I was really excited about these. After purchasing the AX8 presets I find the presets to be overly harsh sounding through my CLR. I realize that live and loud they might sound better but my homemade presets sound pretty good at home volumes as well as gig volumes. I suppose I need to tweak and give them another chance, So far not the game-changer I had thought they'd be. To be honest, I'm not even really sure what I thought they would be like...

I guess every once in awhile, I will get a hold of a preset that sounds great, and is something I'd never think to do. Onc of these recently was a Mesa Mark II C++ preset that came my way. I am not really a fan of the model, but whoever put this particular preset together really knocked it out of the park. Its not a metal/Metallica sounding tone, but just really good high gain that is gooey and has lots of sustain and makes playing super slinky and its sounds natural. It must be the combination of drive pedal, EQ (obviously) and the amp model's settings. Just a great tone. My go-to amp model is the HBE V1 or V2, and I still dig those, but yeah, this Mesa preset is great.

I suppose that's what I was looking for...a BOOM...right out of the box amp model preset(s)...maybe just a few, that would kick my butt. I will keep looking.

 

[austinbuddy]

I was really excited about these. After purchasing the AX8 presets I find the presets to be overly harsh sounding through my CLR. I realize that live and loud they might sound better but my homemade presets sound pretty good at home volumes as well as gig volumes. I suppose I need to tweak and give them another chance, So far not the game-changer I had thought they'd be. To be honest, I'm not even really sure what I thought they would be like...

I guess every once in awhile, I will get a hold of a preset that sounds great, and is something I'd never think to do. Onc of these recently was a Mesa Mark II C++ preset that came my way. I am not really a fan of the model, but whoever put this particular preset together really knocked it out of the park. Its not a metal/Metallica sounding tone, but just really good high gain that is gooey and has lots of sustain and makes playing super slinky and its sounds natural. It must be the combination of drive pedal, EQ (obviously) and the amp model's settings. Just a great tone. My go-to amp model is the HBE V1 or V2, and I still dig those, but yeah, this Mesa preset is great.

I suppose that's what I was looking for...a BOOM...right out of the box amp model preset(s)...maybe just a few, that would kick my butt. I will keep looking.

What kind of guitar and pickups are you using?

 

[rayneman]

What kind of guitar and pickups are you using?

Today, which was the first time with the presets I was using a Music Man JP6 with the stock pickups which I believe are Dimarzios. Nothing active or super high output. Going to try again tomorrow with some different guitars.

Tim

 

[Sonofiam]

I was really excited about these. After purchasing the AX8 presets I find the presets to be overly harsh sounding through my CLR. I realize that live and loud they might sound better but my homemade presets sound pretty good at home volumes as well as gig volumes. I suppose I need to tweak and give them another chance, So far not the game-changer I had thought they'd be. To be honest, I'm not even really sure what I thought they would be like...

I guess every once in awhile, I will get a hold of a preset that sounds great, and is something I'd never think to do. Onc of these recently was a Mesa Mark II C++ preset that came my way. I am not really a fan of the model, but whoever put this particular preset together really knocked it out of the park. Its not a metal/Metallica sounding tone, but just really good high gain that is gooey and has lots of sustain and makes playing super slinky and its sounds natural. It must be the combination of drive pedal, EQ (obviously) and the amp model's settings. Just a great tone. My go-to amp model is the HBE V1 or V2, and I still dig those, but yeah, this Mesa preset is great.

I suppose that's what I was looking for...a BOOM...right out of the box amp model preset(s)...maybe just a few, that would kick my butt. I will keep looking.

I too have yet to find any presets, free or for purchase, that sound good right off the bat. There has always been a need for more tweaking than expected for them to sound as anticipated. After being frustrated and disappointed trying other's presets, I decided to dig into the AX8 and learn how to "roll my own". I will say that @2112 does a great job explaining how he builds presets and shares a lot of tips and "tricks".

There are plenty of resources in the Axe Fx Wiki and Tech Notes section of the forum that go in depth into the parameters as well as countless threads that cover anything else you need to know. Yes, it requires time and effort but so does dialing in a traditional amp. At the end of the day you just end up paying someone else to do the homework. Nothing wrong with it, just haven't heard of paying for someone else's settings for a 'real' amp. There's really no secret to it and there is nothing they have access to that we all don't. With a little bit of knowledge of the workflow and understanding the basic parameters, it's really no more complicated than a traditional amp.

 

[curious]

At the end of the day you just end up paying someone else to do the homework. Nothing wrong with it, just haven't heard of paying for someone else's settings for a 'real' amp. There's really no secret to it and there is nothing they have access to that we all don't. With a little bit of knowledge of the workflow and understanding the basic parameters, it's really no more complicated than a traditional amp.

I have had success dialing in some great tones with the help of @2112 @Burgs @austinbuddy and others but only got them truly dialed in for my playing after much trial and error at gigs. I have used the Ax8 for the past 2 years with great success. It is a reliable product with a consistently great tone for all the various venues we play but it has taken over a year in some cases to dial in some of the tones. One thing I learned using this product live is that the Fletcher-Munson concept and equal loudness contours really do affect tone greatly. Most of us (including me) just can't/don't take the time necessary to tweak our tones in a real gig volume setting. Like me, lots of folks make a few adjustments at the gig to get through the night but don't really craft their tone properly. I think the value of the @austinbuddy tone pack is that you get the benefit of someone with extensive experience creating tones and working with Fractal products to bring you much closer to great tones for live use than most of us could achieve on our own. There will always be EQ adjustments to suit a particular venue or personal taste. Also, I think you can't really judge the tones fairly unless you're using them live at full gig volume with all the other instruments and crowd noise, etc.

 

[GuitarGuyLP]

How many in 700+ : -> Around 400 presets if I remember correctly, with most having Amp X/Y so over 700 different tones. I can get number exact later, answering all this typong on my iPhone and resting my ears after long session of leveling the Marshall bank...

How many presets can we expect in this new Dream Rigs pack?

As of now there are five banks and most presets have an Amp X/Y...some intentional blank spaces (16 slots) in each bank for a purpose... so right now about 540 presets and nearly 1000 tones.

Bank 1 is Fender, Vox, Hiwatt, Supro, Gibson

Bank 2 is all the Marshalls, Friedman BE and HBE, plus Atomica

Bank 3 is all the Class A amps (or no negativve feedback amps) auch as Matchless and then the Dumble style and boutique amps like Trainwrecks

Bank 4 is modern and modern combo style amps like Suhr, Friedman Small Box and Shirley, Bogner XTC, Komet, FAS

Bank 5 is the heavy modern amps like ENGL, Diezel, Uber, Peavey EVH, FAS Modern

Just about every amp is covered with four tones. So this pack is comparable but not identical to the 1000+ Axe III Pack.

When you see the extra goodies and footswitch stuff you’ll understand.

I may do a bonus Bank with artist gig rigs like Jimmy Page, Eric Johnson, Blues Rig. If I don’t get that done before Thanksgiving then it will be available as update download in December.

The real purpose is to make it easy for YOU to audition and easily assemble your own “Dream Rigs” by finding the cleans, low gains, medium and rhythm tones, high gains and lead tones you like best and copying into your own rig slots and tailoring them to the type of guitars and playback system you use. There will be effects in the presets and a modest effects library you can audition from too.

I am fairly new to the AX8, and thinking about getting either the Naked amps, or waiting for this one. Are you able to give a quick bit about what the main difference is between the two packs for someone like me looking at getting one, or the other?

 

[Brian Coonan]

I was really excited about these. After purchasing the AX8 presets I find the presets to be overly harsh sounding through my CLR. I realize that live and loud they might sound better but my homemade presets sound pretty good at home volumes as well as gig volumes. I suppose I need to tweak and give them another chance, So far not the game-changer I had thought they'd be. To be honest, I'm not even really sure what I thought they would be like...

I don't know if this will help you but I removed the FX Loop from any of the presets I was using from the AustinBuddy pack - definitely made a difference. He really did a great job - like I found many of them that I could use without tweaks in his pack. I add FX and stuff but don't generally have to mess with any EQ or anything.

 

[austinbuddy]

I am fairly new to the AX8, and thinking about getting either the Naked amps, or waiting for this one. Are you able to give a quick bit about what the main difference is between the two packs for someone like me looking at getting one, or the other?

I would wait. The new one is better organized and has more extras like effects. My hope is it is ready by or around November 21st but it depends on a few things beyond my control. It is coming together nicely though!

 

[Hhuent]

Anyone knows a workaround how to convert Austinbuddys cabs for Helix use (from .ir to .wav or whatever). I checked a lot of mails on this forum, but its not really clear if there is a way how to do this. Cablab 3 light seems not to work for this.

 

[Jarick]

There's no way to convert Fractal cabs to wavs.

I think the Naked Amps pack is a good buy at $59. If you're the kind of person who would buy aftermarket impulses especially. All the amps are dialed in and paired with a factory cab. It simplifies the process substantially. You can tweak after the fact. Maybe it's kind of like the Kemper...you get a profile and it's already dialed in and has a cabinet and mic and everything. If you like it, great! If not, move on and try another one. The process is simplified, fewer variables.

They also act as a good "sanity check" for me. I have four different sets of headphones and the tone of each is a little different. One is bright, one is dark, two are in between. I don't have a studio with flat reference monitors to dial everything in. So if I compare to these I can get a sense if what I'm doing is way off base or not.

Not every amp is a winner...but that's to be expected. The amps I typically dialed in before are the same ones I tend to like in this pack. It's nice too with say the Friedmans that he doesn't dial all of them in to sound identical, so you can shop around a bit. Rather than me trying to pick an amp then pick a cab then dial in a tone, I can pick a tone and fine tune.

I am looking forward to the next pack too. I typically program patches with four scenes (clean, crunch, gain, lead) so that will be very interesting to try.

 

[jasonharris530]

Another happy customer of the AB pack here. I've spent countless hours over the last year tweaking and re-tweaking patches for touring and studio use, and I was pretty satisfied with where I had landed. The AB presets just brought it to the next level for me. Austin's Matchless DC-30 patch absolutely knocks me out - that alone is worth the $59.

 

[dariosicily]

For what concerns myself, I 've bought AB's package few days ago
(I wish I'd read the updates from this thread before doing it, as I know now there'll be a newer and better product in few days).

The power of the AX8 can kill you. It's like a super weapon, you've got to handle it carefully.

After spending hours and hours tweaking and learning a lot of things, gigging and getting back to the bench to fine tune my sounds,
I decided I was not improving much some of the sounds.

I'm very happy I did it.

My first point is :
it seemed quite easy to nail Fender sounds in a couple of months, because I own a DR 65 as my main amp. So I'm super happy with the sounds I created myself for Fender amps, maybe even better than AB's for my needs, as I can see the aim of AB's is to be a fantastic starting point to get you to your personal settings - and this gets to my second point.

I've found that nailing other amps it would take me a long time, as I should first learn how to dial them and this takes time, the time that you save when you buy AB's.
I do use only 8 presets live, based on my band's playlist, I use Fenders, a VOX, a couple of Marshalls and a Mesa Rectifier.
I was surprised I can't nail perfectly the Vox and the Marshalls, really. AB's is helping me doing it.

My second point is :
AB's are a starting point, now I've got to learn how to not "ruin" them to get to my personal needs from the amps, as if I tweak those too much I will get back to the starting point when I did not have the AB's. Looking for more gain from a plexi, I've got to avoid screwing the receipe and burning the Thanksgiving's chicken.

Love my AX8.

 

[richb]

Hi everyone,

So this is a kind of sneak announcement...but it is germane to the thread topic of using AX8 presets live. While a lot of attention is being paid to the AXE-Fx III deservedly, I've not forgotten about the AX8.

I've spent the last few months and hundreds of hours developing a NEW special "Dream Rigs" TonePack.

I'm hoping to have it ready before Thanksgiving for you.

Austin, Just a reminder that Thanksgiving is next week... and I am off work all week...No pressure... lol!

 

[ax8guitarist]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping to have it ready before Thanksgiving for you. My beta testers are very pleased with it. Anyone who bought a 700+ Naked Amps Pack will get a price discount as well. This TonePack is much better organized, uses X/Y effects blocks, and is designed so there is a methodology to follow to help you more easily assemble your own "dream rig(s)" from the preset choices, designed for Live use.

Christmas in November? I'm all for that!

 

[austinbuddy]

Need to adjust expectations, there may be a delay from originally intended release next week.

I (and my beta team) am finding that, when using single coils, there is a little excess treble in 10.1 firmware using original amp brite cap values in Fenders, Marshalls, a few others compared to say the ARES firmware or older AX8 firmware. Mostly okay with humbuckers.

Hard to dial out with treble control alone here... Having to lower bright cap value to give alternative sound (else your single coils will ice pick your ears), or take out a little at 4kHz in amp block GEQ. So, I'm adding a single-coils only bank with those kinds of changes to compensate as well. Remember I'm trying to make most Dream Rig presets work with both humbuckers and single coils with a switch or two.

So, taking lots of time, want this to be just right. So not sure it will be done by Thanksgiving Day, but it should be ready by that weekend or Cyber-Monday is my hope.

 

[richb]

Need to adjust expectations, there may be a delay from originally intended release next week.

I (and my beta team) am finding that, when using single coils, there is a little excess treble in 10.1 firmware using original amp brite cap values in Fenders, Marshalls, a few others compared to say the ARES firmware or older AX8 firmware. Mostly okay with humbuckers.

Hard to dial out with treble control alone here... Having to lower bright cap value to give alternative sound (else your single coils will ice pick your ears), or take out a little at 4kHz in amp block GEQ. So, I'm adding a single-coils only bank with those kinds of changes to compensate as well. Remember I'm trying to make most Dream Rig presets work with both humbuckers and single coils with a switch or two.

So, taking lots of time, want this to be just right. So not sure it will be done by Thanksgiving Day, but it should be ready by that weekend or Cyber-Monday is my hope.

@ Buddy. I find I have a love/hate respect for you thoroughness. And, now I anticipate spending more time eating leftovers... lol!

 

[Saturn]

How many in 700+ : -> Around 400 presets if I remember correctly, with most having Amp X/Y so over 700 different tones. I can get number exact later, answering all this typong on my iPhone and resting my ears after long session of leveling the Marshall bank...

How many presets can we expect in this new Dream Rigs pack?

As of now there are five banks and most presets have an Amp X/Y...some intentional blank spaces (16 slots) in each bank for a purpose... so right now about 540 presets and nearly 1000 tones.

Bank 1 is Fender, Vox, Hiwatt, Supro, Gibson

Bank 2 is all the Marshalls, Friedman BE and HBE, plus Atomica

Bank 3 is all the Class A amps (or no negativve feedback amps) auch as Matchless and then the Dumble style and boutique amps like Trainwrecks

Bank 4 is modern and modern combo style amps like Suhr, Friedman Small Box and Shirley, Bogner XTC, Komet, FAS

Bank 5 is the heavy modern amps like ENGL, Diezel, Uber, Peavey EVH, FAS Modern

.

Hi Austin,

I'm keen on this pack, but can't see Mesa represented above. No love for the Recto's? Or are they included too?

Thanks

 

[austinbuddy]

Hi Austin,

I'm keen on this pack, but can't see Mesa represented above. No love for the Recto's? Or are they included too?

Thanks

Every amp channel/model is included. The Mesa Boogies including Rectifiers are in there - the 2 channel and 3 channel ones each havea preser with mulitple tones via scenes.