Austin Buddy Presets...a Review.

electronpirate said:
A philosophical note: FAS is at a point where we have almost unlimited power at our fingertips to be able to craft tone, and pull sounds out of our head to pour into the box, but the ‘simple’ guitarist gets left behind in this endeavor. There is a vast audience out there that does not want to spend time RTFM, and wants to just play (yes, pendants, once you learn to navigate simple things.) These presets offer that to those folks. When neophytes are ready to move up to more advance functions, they can do it, but these offer a 'open the box, hook up, and go to the gig' options.
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Damn right. I was in that boat a couple of years ago with the AX8. The AB presets really sorted out all the issues I was having as a fractal newbie and educated me on how to craft tones, how to level them, what sort of cabs work, how much of an effect to mix in, what advanced parameters to touch etc.
And even though I am much more comfortable whipping out a preset on the Axe III now (also in part due to the updated modeling), I always go back to an AB preset to check his choice of cabs, tone stack etc. so I have a good baseline for what an amp should sound like.
 
austinbuddy said:
@ToneDriven -- have you check out my Brit Rock Royalty Tonepack #1 yet? Because every studio guitar tone Mr. Page did on Led Zep albums 1-4 is emulated/recreated there. You can find it here.

Unfortunately, this is just for Axe-Fx III, need the CPU and lots of blocks to recreate the complex studio signal chains. Cooper Carter did a demo of some the sounds for I&II here; I think the filmed some for III and IV but hasn't produced them yet.



I have Van Halen and AC/DC basic tones covered (along with Page and some Sabbath) in this forthcoming tone pack. But I don't label presets by artist name here (great way to get sued!), but by amp model types instead, yet the amp preset scenes will say things like "Malcolm Clang" as clues etc.

And it's not always the predictable amp (or the one they use in real life) that makes the best tone of that artist. The JMP-1 preamp does some very convincing ZZ top tones for example, as well as AC/DC or Def Leopard. Gotta use your ears, not your eyes!

Once I get done with a few big projects, we (my amigos who helped on the Brit Rock stuff) want to sit and do a Brit Rock Royalty TonePack #3 that recreates/emulates/evokes some of the classic tones of those artists you mentioned above.
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Well, I hadn’t seen that before so I just watched it all and that was absolutely SICK, but unfortunately I don’t have an AX3 - “just” an FM3... I’m starting to think I should have bought an AX3, but I want something on the floor without having to buy an AX3 + FC6... l’ll be looking forward to seeing what you bring out for the FM3. Hopefully soon, I’m dying for some awesome Page, Young and Iommi🤘
 
What I love most about Naked Amps is that after setting up my RJM MasterMind GT16 to match the AB presets (super easy) I now spend about 3% of my time scoping out the sound that best matches my mood AND I SPEND THE OTHER 97% ACTUALLY PLAYING!

World's best value on the Time=Money Scale!
 
Shai`tan said:
I too am looking forward to a Naked Amps etc etc etc pack for the FM3. It`ll be nice to have a sort of fast track to playing.
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It's going to be called the "Live Gold" TonePack and will have over 1000 sounds, cover most guitar amp models with four sounds per amp channel modeled. Three banks total - one is Marshall-style mainly, another is Fenders and Boutique amps, the last is Metal and maybe some single-coil only presets if I have time. There are 8 scenes per preset.

It's coming along nicely - probably just under half the presets are done/ready, and the Marshall's bank is already the hands of a few beta testers so I can hear how it is translating on their playback systems and if I made any errors they may pickup.

It's a very detailed process to finish everything -- but I'm leveling amps/scenes as I go in batches every night, and I am hoping to have it ready in 3-5 weeks. The presets are designed and should work on both a FM3 AND an Axe-Fx III, and so when you buy it, you'll get a version for both units, for one price. I'm making sure these presets really translate well to live gig playing, and to do that, I'm actually dialing these in at 92db+ loudness with a single Atomic NEO CLR up off the floor on a stand about 10 feet away from me and slightly off-axis ( because we move around on stage and the sound gets less bright slightly off-axis). It's behind me as I play (not in front of me) -- just like playing with an amp behind you on stage -- to simulate what you'd hear with these on stage at a gig. I played with Speaker Impedance curves on a lot of these to match the IR and give it some amp Bottom end.

So far, I'm really happy -- these may be the best presets I've ever done, they build on all that came before this. They really sound great on the FM3.
 
I can certainly vouch for the Naked Amps tonepack as well as the British Royalty tonepack. They're both top notch products and have shortened my curve for getting great tones from the AXE-FX III. MY JP dragon tele has never sounded better. I definitely will be purchasing the LiveGold tonpack when it's available. Thanks for all your hard work!
 
TimeBandit said:
I can certainly vouch for the Naked Amps tonepack as well as the British Royalty tonepack. They're both top notch products and have shortened my curve for getting great tones from the AXE-FX III. MY JP dragon tele has never sounded better. I definitely will be purchasing the LiveGold tonpack when it's available. Thanks for all your hard work!
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Thank you so much @TimeBandit! I was hoping someone with a dragon Tele could check the Brit Rock Royalty out, since I had to use a '68 neck Tele with Lollar pickups and (Glendale bridge) for dialing in most of that (but it seemed to work great!).
 
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I purchased the live gold pack yesterday but I'm experiencing a very noticeable gap when switching scenes on all the presets. Has anyone else experiencing anything similar?
 
DaymansSky said:
Is it worth getting the naked amp pack if I've got the live gold one for the fx3?
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It's not updated for Cygnus yet, gonna take awhile before I can get to it and complete it.

That TonePack uses two amp blocks per preset, so there is no FM3 version (and will not be). 1400+ Naked Amps is a little more oriented to recording than live playing like LiveGold. You do get more sounds per amp, and it takes up just two banks (not three like Live Gold) plus there are some bonus presets in a third bank (not full).

There is some overlap but it's not a complete duplicate of LiveGold. Some people get both just to have options. But If I had to buy one TonePack, I'd get LiveGold myself, because it's better organized in terms of scenes and gain and humbuckers and single coil options.
 
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austinbuddy said:
It's not updated for Cygnus yet, gonna take awhile before I can get to it and complete it.

That Tonepackk uses two amp blocks per preset, so there is no FM3 version (and will not be). 1400+ Naked Amps is a little more oriented to recording than live playing like LiveGold. You do get more sounds per amp, and it takes up just two banks (not three like Live Gold) plus there are some bonus presets in a third bank (not full).

There is some overlap but it's not a complete duplicate of LiveGold. Some people get both just to have options. But If I had to buy one TonePack, I'd get LiveGold myself, because it's better organized in terms of scenes and gain and humbuckers and single coil options.
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Ah some overlap is fine. I'm only a bedroom guitarist anyway. But I was so impressed with the live gold pack I'll probably get the other after a Cygnus update
 
Sorry if I missed this, but do the presets pull from the factory cabs? And/or, do you recommend one of your IR packs to go with the Gold? Thx in advance.
EDIT: Disregard, I just read your website.
 
DallasGlenn2005 said:
Sorry if I missed this, but do the presets pull from the factory cabs? And/or, do you recommend one of your IR packs to go with the Gold? Thx in advance.
EDIT: Disregard, I just read your website.
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All factory cabs. But there are very good third party IRs that can be used to make them sound even better. For example, the Bogner 4x12 IRs by York Audio sound great with the Bogner amp models.
 
austinbuddy said:
They work either way. You can set the unit to Stereo, or If you want to run mono, use Copy L to Right or Sum on Hardware in Audio settings page. Some stereo effects might be affected, but it is minimal.
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Hi where can I actually find the list of presets in the golden pack ? Thanks
 
mw19 said:
Hi where can I actually find the list of presets in the golden pack ? Thanks
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Hi @mw19 - It’s just the guitar amp models - presets for each one, with four scenes for humbuckers and four with a boost for single coils. So look at the amp model list in your Fractal - that’s it (although I use the real amp names for the presets).
 
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