As we go, sharing patches is getting complicated... and more

[Scott Peterson]

...with all the ways you can use this box, patch sharing is getting dicey.

Just a few thoughts.

On my patches, they are Ultra only because the multi-band compressor is in use. Add to the fact that I have it optimized for my guitar, my hands, my playing style and it's not just 'plug-n-play' even for other Ultra owners. Add that to the fact that I am using third party speaker IR's (Red Wirez) in a custom mix (free utilities to get there...) and duplicating what I am getting just at the Axe-FX level gets 'interesting'. Now add in the fact that I run FRFR and with all the variance of output quality out there even in JUST the FRFR world and, well, sharing isn't apples to apples.

I've gone on to create, for me, my ideal world of tones now. Using my own mix of craziness, trial and error and epiphanies. I can do mine all 'in the box' but with so many external variables at play... it's no longer universal to simply share the preset and say, 'here... that's my rig. Have fun!" I have to include all sorts of conditions and things to look at when using my presets for other folks.

Take the Mark Day patches (aka SamHillBand); guys freaking go INSANE to get his tones, but he's not using a 'standard' rig, he does things his OWN way (radical global EQ's, mixing direct and mic'd conventional cabs driven by power amps, etc).

Take Dweezil's patches that freaked a lot of guys; some loved them, some could not get them to sound 'right' without a lot of tweaking. Dweezil is rolling wth TWO Ultra's working together. (I mean, DAMN!)

Stef has taken a lot of flack for building rigs out of a collection of gear that he likes, but doesn't feel he can do just using the Axe-FX exclusively. Three threads on three forums that just exploded with all sorts of various levels of reaction to that.

The instant response to most any clip is 'share your patch!' but that's becoming less a reality than anything else IMHO.

On another tract, I really like that guys are now pushing the box to create tones that really are not possible in the analog world. There's a thread in the clips section here were a guy took a pedal block into a cab block and it's a GREAT metal tone. He customized that pedal block in a way that isn't really possible in 'real life' outside the box. Guys were scrambling to get that tone with their Metal Zone pedals, then realizing it will not/cannot work.

And finally - I think we are starting to see guys go in directions creating new tones, textures and sounds that sort of toss the entire knee-jerk 'can't sound as good as...' slam on it's head. You can't create a lot of what is being done 'in the box' anymore without the box. Analog conventional rigs cannot touch what we can design and create in the box. Where else can you create a electric/acoustic rig with all your time domain effects tied to tap tempo, with parallel/serial/sidechain routings, with effects AFTER the cab, with a multi-band compressor running in parallel with your direct signal chain, with controllers attached to pitch to change the mix parameter of certain effects and world class delays and pitch stuff.... all running direct to FOH? In one box? And that's just touching the tip of the ice berg.

It's getting fun.

 

[gittarzann]

The instant response to most any clip is 'share your patch!' but that's becoming less a reality than anything else IMHO.

Hopefully this aspect doesn't get totally lost. One of my favorite things about the digital domain is the ease of sharing...and this tops my list of fun things to do.

Sure maybe 1 in 10 or 20 sound OK...but there is still a lot of valuable info contained within presets to be excited about, even if it doesn't translate 100%.

 

[browlett]

Cheers to this thread, Scott.

 

[Matt_B]

As you basically said Scott, the odds of a using someone else's Axe-FX patch as-is are pretty low and in some cases it's impossible without having all the same assets (e.g. user cabs) the patch creator used for the patch. Even then, all the other variables you mentioned (the same guitar, same amp solution, same hands, etc.) mandates some tweaking...or alot of tweaking.

Giving someone a patch instead of helping them learn how to create a patch is akin to the old saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime". Understanding the process someone went through to create a patch and knowing why they made the decisions they did is far more useful to me as Player. I want to learn more about how to craft the sound I want instead of relying on the kindness of strangers.

I haven't shared a lot of patches with the community hear because I don't have any that are necessarily unique. That said, I recently posted a few patches because another member was looking for something very specific - a recreation of the ADA 3TM MP-1 - which I owned and loved for many years. I only shared it because it's not a very complicated sound and I figured what the heck. If no one liked the patches, so what. I love 'em. The fact is it only took me a few hours (after receiving my first Ultra) to get the basic patch programmed and this was because I have a good understanding of the fundamentals of creating patch. Over the past 27 years I've owned a truck load of gear and sold guitar gear for 12 of those years. One of things I was always good at selling was guitar processors because I understood how to create a sound that someone wanted, be it for me for a customer.

In closing, I always love learning how to create sounds. I want to know the who, what, where, when and why.

 

[Scott Peterson]

Matt B - very good point and one that I should have concluded with.

We need to let folks know how to dial patches; when I share a patch it is with the hope that they 'get into it' and look to see how I set it up and ask why I did this or that; that's how I treat others' patches... as learning tools.

Another VERY cool tip here on this board is to search for Cliff's posts (fractalaudio) and keep track of his tips. I keep getting epiphanies from stuff he just tosses out there. Dude knows the box, ya know.

The Line 6 world made patch trading almost a given, at the top of the range waaaaay up here in Fractal land, it's not so much like McDonalds hamburgers and more like Filet Mignon... it takes a chef, not a kid trained in a day. If you wanna get your money's worth out of the Fractal, you are gonna have to get some skills in the 'tone' kitchen.

 

[MisterE]

Even with the L6 stuff I was almost never happy with patches that were shared.
Until they were made to be used with a Variax.
That way, you were using the same guitar.
the only variable would be your playing style.
What I do find the sharing of patches useful for, is for effects. Not the pure amp and cab thing.
Sometimes you can find some very nice effects and perhaps you can learn from those how they were made.
I never cared for copying tones, I was always looking for something I liked.
I don't care if a modelled amp sounds exactly the same as the original since I couldn't afford all the amps anyway to compare.
And what you can do with this box is a lot more than any amp.
The combinations are nearly endless, perhaps, that's why some people get lost.
Perhaps I was lucky to find the sounds I was looking for very quickly.
But then again I never look too far. I try too keep things simple.

 

[Peter Hundley]

If you wanna get your money's worth out of the Fractal, you are gonna have to get some skills in the 'tone' kitchen.

Most people don't wanna hear that Scott.........they don't wanna cook, they wanna be hand fed.

I've always found patch sharing to be useless for the most part. Effects are pretty much the only thing you can share and have any hope of it translating from person to person. How in the world can I expect someone else to dial in an amp for me when they don't know what guitar I'll be using, what pickups, what playback system, what style of music, what other instruments are in my band, what those instruments sound like.........it's endless. It would be like me asking you to go out and buy a dress for my aunt without telling you what she looks like, what her size is or where she will be going.

p

 

[godprobe]

[...] here in Fractal land, it's not so much like McDonalds hamburgers and more like Filet Mignon... it takes a chef, not a kid trained in a day. [...]

Share your recipes!

 

[electronpirate]

Good post.

I admit to some frustration with this.

I can dial in a tone as well as most, but at the same time, there are a whole range of tones I flat out DON'T HAVE the bandwidth (as it were) to create, tweak, test, tweak, etc. I might never use them, but might like to have them in the arsenal for some future unknown use.

I had hoped with the onset of the Atomic FR, that patch sharing would become so much easier as more people adopted them. With the advent of the IR's, it no longer is that simple. We have so much more to work with (which I love), but I've always tried to explain that a full set of *working mans* presets would be incredibly beneficial. That meant stock IR's, and minimal (or no) FX for EVERY AMP. That way, anyone who wanted to just 'plug in and play' could do that initially.

It's not popular, since the outcry is 'Do it yourself', and 'Learn how to use it'. All of which I HAVE done, but I still argue there is value in 'Plug and Play'. I know this is a tone shaping machine, but why can't it just be SIMPLE for some? My constituency is small but strong.

Ron

 

[m lebofsky]

Once version 9.0 comes out due to the epiphanies, perhaps factory presets could be redone (not just tweaked by the master, but reorganized).

Example:
Bank A: Typical drive/amp/speaker combos
Bank B: Artist and/or Song Sounds
Bank C: Exotic, effect heavy Sounds

The market for a professional sounding box with the above types of presets available has to be large. IMHO, YMMV, etc, etc

 

[Scott Peterson]

Good post.

I admit to some frustration with this.

I can dial in a tone as well as most, but at the same time, there are a whole range of tones I flat out DON'T HAVE the bandwidth (as it were) to create, tweak, test, tweak, etc. I might never use them, but might like to have them in the arsenal for some future unknown use.

I had hoped with the onset of the Atomic FR, that patch sharing would become so much easier as more people adopted them. With the advent of the IR's, it no longer is that simple. We have so much more to work with (which I love), but I've always tried to explain that a full set of *working mans* presets would be incredibly beneficial. That meant stock IR's, and minimal (or no) FX for EVERY AMP. That way, anyone who wanted to just 'plug in and play' could do that initially.

It's not popular, since the outcry is 'Do it yourself', and 'Learn how to use it'. All of which I HAVE done, but I still argue there is value in 'Plug and Play'. I know this is a tone shaping machine, but why can't it just be SIMPLE for some? My constituency is small but strong.

Ron

It's there - the Raw bank presets a member here made.

What I am talking about and what you are talking about is basically the same; but we cannot pretend (with our hands over our eyes) that some of these more esoteric things will transfer.

The IR's are a flat out key to getting good tones. If you haven't noticed the 'little uproar' over the 'in the room' vs. 'close mic'd' guys over the past few years.... you are not being honest. The guys saying you CAN have the 'in the room' thing with a full blown FRFR were doing advanced (at the time... or still) things with custom IR's. They are flat out, imperative to nailing certain 'feels' in getting tones. Jay Mitchell has probably been bloodied from banging his head on his desk debating that it CAN be done - the holy grail of 'in the room' - with far field IR's. Then the Axe-FX gets some of Jay's IR's as standard factory IR's. My personal problem is the cabs and speakers chosen for that are not MY preferred flavor of speaker and cab. I was using ReCabinet and Clawfinger IR's for a very long time. So when Red Wirez came on the scene, with totally pro level, totally above board quality IR's... the world for me was suddenly 'open' for lack of a better term. I was chasing MY 'thing', my 'grail' and now with the freely distributed "IR Mixer" from RedWirez... boom. Once RedWirez drops true far field referenced mic'd version of their cabs and speakers in the next few months... BOOM goes the whole thing again.

But doing that takes time. It takes effort. It takes trial and error and a hunger to work with what is at hand in order to find YOUR formula.

And that, is where the 'plug-n-play' guys and I will have to separate. I don't want to sound like this guy or that guy. I bust my arse to find MY tones and keep working, keep refining in much the same manner I always have with conventional tube gear/pedals/speaker cabs for the past nearly 30 years (damn, am I getting old....).

I knew from the day I got my Axe-FX, it was the way. As Cliff has opened up the box via firmware updates - and the User Cabs with custom IR's is IMHO is the biggest leap forward and one of the MAIN advantages the Axe-FX holds over all other boxes - I was waiting for the day when we could have the amp/cab as we hear it on stage is at our fingers.... all inside the box.

That day is quickly approaching. And using custom IR's is IMHO integral to that. No box on the planet can offer all that everyone wants in a plug-n-play manner without really cutting down on the number of options inside.

I am TOTALLY for patch sharing. WhatI am saying about it though, is that guys need to get inside the patches they like and LEARN TO UNDERSTAND why the patches they like are... well, likable.

Here's an example. Someone today asked me on TGP about my Bogner patch. "Why do you use "L+R Sum" instead of "Left"?" Frankly, I didn't remember why. So I monkeyed with it, and don't hear much of a difference and post that. *BUT* while I was in looking at that, I noticed that I had the EQ sets to 'End' instead of 'Post' and when I changed it... the patch I've been using for years was instantly.... better.

So what he was asking me wasn't any big thing tonally... but getting inside my OWN damn preset and changing one small thing... was WOW. Guys are teaching me about MY presets... how cool is that?

I am ALL for sharing... but I think there is a tendency to not want to learn to do it on their own. I get inside other folks presets and tear them apart. I want to know why the reverb sounds that way, or how this guy approaches Marshall tones.

I've had this box for well over 2 years. I am still learning stuff *everyday*. And I'm in there up to my elbows making music every week with the thing.

What else on earth has offered that?

 

[Matt_B]

Once version 9.0 comes out due to the epiphanies, perhaps factory presets could be redone (not just tweaked by the master, but reorganized).

Example:
Bank A: Typical drive/amp/speaker combos
Bank B: Artist and/or Song Sounds
Bank C: Exotic, effect heavy Sounds

The market for a professional sounding box with the above types of presets available has to be large. IMHO, YMMV, etc, etc

I'm very close to have that kind of preset arrangement done though I wiped out 64 factory presets for user preset slots. I've got all the work done in a spreadsheet but I've been waiting for the official editor to get out of beta so I could arrange the presets into banks.

 

[GM Arts]

Good post, Scott and I agree for some extra reasons as well.

I have a set of patches that I think sound pretty hot with my modified Tele. They sound like rubbish with my dual-humbucker guitar. At best, I expect they'd sound so-so with a stock Tele.

For amp tones, I think it's far more useful just to share which amp and cab models were used, maybe with any important amp tweaks (eg damping set to max) and anything else critical to the way the tone was dialled in (maybe drive blocks).

I think this also explains why the presets rarely get anyone excited (on all modellers, not just the AxeFX).

I've had more luck getting good tones from scratch with just a amp and cab model as a starting point - I seem to focus on improving the tone towards my goal.

With other people's patches, the focus seems to be on taking away the stuff I don't like, and it just never seems to end up as well for me. Probably just a mental thing

I think patch sharing can be valuable in some cases: to see some good effect settings and/or unusual routings, but not for the entire patch.

 

[rodabt]

Amen to all what it's been said. I'll try to add my two cents.

Since I've had my Ultra I've discovered a huge new world of tonal possibilities, so much in fact that I can easily get confused and frustrated. I'm not too deep into patch sharing because 9 out of 10 times it's a rather disappointing experience...you know the classical "YMMV" statement. It's such an honest disclaimer but in the end it's not very refreshing. I've learned (the hard way) to improve the sound of my patches collecting pieces and bits of information here and everywhere, trial and error. Very time consuming but also very rewarding. Specially when you have something like this great community which is always willing to share it's knowledge..or perhaps lighten a bit when you've lost your way. As Scott said sometimes you don't know why you do the things you do and yet you get great results...even if you don't know these can get even BETTER with "a little help from my friends". A patch is always welcomed as a starting point, but if you don't know why on earth the person who programmed the patch did the things in that particular way, there is a great chance you won't be able to use it at total satisfaction, specially if your setup is quite different. I know it's easier for us to just let go a patch and cross our fingers hoping it'll sound ok when it's out of our boundaries.

For example, yesterday I was recalling a simple crunch patch: a Plexi, a 4x12 and a little reverb. Sounded great to my ears. I was tweaking happily when suddenly I looked at the layout view and noticed something "wrong": my reverb block was after the cab. How did that happen?. The I remembered that when I had and amp the last thing a tweaked was always the reverb, which was always at the end of my tweaking "chain". The Axe is a mysterious monster that was designed to follow a logical set of specifications, which you can break of course. But in order to break something you need to know how it works. So I changed the reverb block to where it "should" belong and voilá..my tone was better. Considering the large degree of freedom in the ordering and adjusting the effect blocks there is a great chance of ending with a combinatorial explosion of possibilities. And if you don't know what your doing, even if you will break it later, there's a great possibility of frustration if you don't nail your tone quickly.

So you tweak, and tweak, and later you discover you are quite away from what you've started with until a point where two things can happen: 1) You get frustrated and drop the patch or 2) You nailed it and becomes an "official" patch. In the first case is simple: no one will see it, so no big deal. But when you get your tone and decide to show it to world something is lost and that is the PROCESS of making it. The added value. You know the rest of the story.

What I want to say at the end is that sharing a patch should be more like telling a story step by step: what tone were you after and why, what other equipment did you use (specially type of guitar and pickups), what monitoring system, what did you put first, what did you put next, how you tweaked, what problems did you encounter...and the most important and most difficult question: when you decided to stop and why. Sure it's more than posting a patch. But I think in the end we will be very thankful, like Scott said, to learn everyday something new.

Granted, no one keeps track of everything when you're building a patch, and sometimes you get carried away. But it's easy to take a look just when you've ended your patch and ask yourself "what did I discover today". That's the piece of gold.

 

[supersecretjim]

For example, yesterday I was recalling a simple crunch patch: a Plexi, a 4x12 and a little reverb. Sounded great to my ears. I was tweaking happily when suddenly I looked at the layout view and noticed something "wrong": my reverb block was after the cab. How did that happen?.

Just out of curiosity, where would you normally put the reverb? I usually stick mine after the cab. Do you find it better to your ears between the amp & cab? Why?

 

[rodabt]

For example, yesterday I was recalling a simple crunch patch: a Plexi, a 4x12 and a little reverb. Sounded great to my ears. I was tweaking happily when suddenly I looked at the layout view and noticed something "wrong": my reverb block was after the cab. How did that happen?.

Just out of curiosity, where would you normally put the reverb? I usually stick mine after the cab. Do you find it better to your ears between the amp & cab? Why?

Short answer, where it sound best to your ears. However as I've used previously amps with integrated reverb controls, I'm onto placing it before, but honestly I really don't know where "logically" it should be placed.

 

[Merlin]

For example, yesterday I was recalling a simple crunch patch: a Plexi, a 4x12 and a little reverb. Sounded great to my ears. I was tweaking happily when suddenly I looked at the layout view and noticed something "wrong": my reverb block was after the cab. How did that happen?.

Just out of curiosity, where would you normally put the reverb? I usually stick mine after the cab. Do you find it better to your ears between the amp & cab? Why?

Short answer, where it sound best to your ears. However as I've used previously amps with integrated reverb controls, I'm onto placing it before, but honestly I really don't know where "logically" it should be placed.

I always put it in the end off the chain just like i did when i had a real pedalboard.. never thought about it though .. wil try different places now you mensioned it

Btw can we get a place on the forum where we can share in sections ... lets say 1 axe/atomics 2 axe poweramp real cab.

 

[Friedlieb]

Good thread, many thoughts that will be useful for me.

IMHO, one of the most important rule when posting patches is: provide the context. The old AxeChange site made big efforts to cope with that. Scotts initial post included a list of things that belong to the context a patch lives in. May be we could add more items to this list when we find them to be useful.

Btw, a patch created for one guitar is not neccessarily unusable for a different guitar. It just will sound different. And to add a funny story on this: To my own surprise, I found out that any of my patches created for my Les Paul also sound great with my Telecaster and vice versa. Of course they sound different, but I can swap the Tele and the LP with no adjustments to the patches. Seems like those guitars share a strange relation...

 

[Merlin]

Btw, a patch created for one guitar is not neccessarily unusable for a different guitar. It just will sound different. And to add a funny story on this: To my own surprise, I found out that any of my patches created for my Les Paul also sound great with my Telecaster and vice versa. Of course they sound different, but I can swap the Tele and the LP with no adjustments to the patches. Seems like those guitars share a strange relation...

My thoughts exactly, if i have a solid good base in my patch all my guitars give a different character but remain musical and nice.
Giving the fact that for some styles i pick certain guitars who match well.

 

[stef herbuel]

...

And finally - I think we are starting to see guys go in directions creating new tones, textures and sounds that sort of toss the entire knee-jerk '

just my 2 cent, i have a vg99 with gk3 , and you should try it for new tones/texture , it's crazy !
check this myspace :
http://www.myspace.com/jeremypezard
listen to the "electro rock live TAGG" , it's vg system for acoustic and "bizarre" sound with guitar synth for the "hold strings" + normal guitar signal
we are 3 (bass/guitar/drum) and it's a live jam rehearsal

BTW : for normal guitar sound , VG99 sucks compared to axe fx, but for "texture" and and crazy stuff, that's a good gear


for what you discuss, i understand, but what made me crazy it's that everybody told it was "it" and then with firware update it was "it"...and then with new "IR" now, it's really "it" ...can something be better that "incredible" ?
for myself i may not find the solution, but i found myself too much tweaking instead of playing, and the sound i'm searching is maybe in the axe fx, but don't want to spend my life searching it !
so now it's jmp1 preamp, clean, crunch , axe fx in parallel , a dist for boost.

and that's was great with axe fx , as a effect unit (in fact you can use it as 2 effect units, that's great) it's killer too.