Austin Buddy Looks Good, But What Else Do You Recommend?

The idea behind professionally made presets packs is intriguing but the fundamental problem is with their limited lifetime. These presets are optimized for a particular firmware and as the firmware evolves, these presets become outdated. They may be good as examples of "best practices" but ultimately being able to create your own presets within any given firmware is the path to take.

I should listen to my own advice as I am still pretty poor at doing this and still hope that there is a magic preset pack out there that will do the work for me. It would be nice if Fractal would release a small subset of presets (10-20) with each firmware that are optimized (in their opinion) for that firmware. These might serve as better guidelines as to how to create our own presets within that firmware or demonstrate what that firmware is capable of.
 
I'll chime in since I got into the Axe Fx with almost no real life amp experience.

It took me a while to understand how unique all the amps and cabs really are. The best thing I ever did was start reading this forum, buying the Austin Buddy pack, and watching all of Leon Todd's videos haha.

Dialing in presets over the last few months has been enjoyable instead of frustrating. If I know what amp I want to use and can't get it to sound great on my own I jump into one of the AB presets and steal some of the ideas. Hopefully that helps
 
Learn about the amps the models are based on. If you can dial in the real deal, you can dial in the Fractal model.
 
I decided to cave in and buy a good preset pack. I've been looking at Austin Buddy simply because of how well the package covers a wide variety of amps and the quality the patches seem to have. It seems to me that the AxeFX excels at cleans and Marshall type amps most of all. I'm still new to the unit, but that's my impression thus far. Therefore, I don't really want to invest in clean amps since I don't play clean very often anyway. I'm interested mainly in metal, black metal, hard rock, and classic rock covers.

I tend to play a lot of Maiden, Satriani, and Yngwie kind of stuff, but lately have gotten into a lot of Metallica, Lamb of God, Pantera, etc.. In fact, I recently learned the solo to Tornado of Souls and want to also find a good Megadeth sound. Then I know some classic rock tunes like various Pink Floyd songs, Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo, Styx, etc...

There are a ton of youtube guys selling patches, and I've come across a few commercial looking sites that seem to offer decent packs. What do you suggest to fit my needs and with the best quality? Thanks in advance.

Have you tried auditioning any presets from Axe-Change within Axe-Edit?
 
Does the naked amps collection from AustinBuddy use all default cabs?

Yes. One user RedWirez mix IR for the bonus tonepack part (Redwirez gave me permission to use/include).

The naked amps will sound even better using good 3rd party IRs. Feel free to try those too. But I wanted to make it all work with Factory Cabs.
 
I checked out Yek's presets. It was interesting to see how he did it. Mine look so primitive in comparison. I thought I was getting pretty close in tone to what I was looking for, but my patches were like <drive><amp><delay><cab>. I could tell how his patches sounded fuller and even feel/respond closer to the real amps.
 
I recommend starting with a shunt and using your ears and go from there...

That's what I explained earlier. I think I got pretty close with about 5 patches just with <drive><amp><delay/reverb><cab>, and pretty much just dialing in the basic gear as if I were on a real setup. I haven't begun to experiment with FX loops or anything else yet.
 
That's what I explained earlier. I think I got pretty close with about 5 patches just with <drive><amp><delay/reverb><cab>, and pretty much just dialing in the basic gear as if I were on a real setup. I haven't begun to experiment with FX loops or anything else yet.
What have you discovered by putting time based effects before the cab block?
 
What have you discovered by putting time based effects before the cab block?

I just copied a couple of basic videos until I red Yeks How To. I don't know much about placement of the effects before/after the cab, but I do know a lot about working with real amps and effects, so I just treat them that way. From what I have been able to tell, before the amp or after the cab makes the effects a little harder to control or more dominant if you will. I like more subtle effects, so it seems to work just putting them in between the amp and cab.
 
Why does it sound a little louder when I put the chorus after the amp?

It could be due to something nonlinear in the cab block (preamp sim, motor drive) or cab block panning e.g. mono mode or stereo without fully panning L/R. So it's not always true that there's zero difference. Seeing the preset would make it easier to give a definite answer.
 
It could be due to something nonlinear in the cab block (preamp sim, motor drive) or cab block panning e.g. mono mode or stereo without fully panning L/R. So it's not always true that there's zero difference. Seeing the preset would make it easier to give a definite answer.

I just moved the chorus after the cab and it got slightly louder. It's not much difference, but there is a difference. All I have is <drive><amp><chorus><cab> in that order along a single shunt. Also, it seems to affect how much difference small adjustments make. That too is a subtle difference but you can still tell there's something different. I'd like to understand why that is.
 
It can matter if you put a stereo delay or chorus in front of a mono cab block. Stereo into mono = mono output.

If Cab block is set to stereo then should be no difference.
 
It can matter if you put a stereo delay or chorus in front of a mono cab block. Stereo into mono = mono output.

If Cab block is set to stereo then should be no difference.

What if the delay block has something about it that produces very high or low tones. If you put it in front of a cab block that has high or low thresholds set, isn't that going to sound a lot different than if you put it behind?
 
Use the delay EQ page to control how you want the delay to sound EQ wise. Same with Reverb. It lets you low and hi cut
 
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