Austin Buddy Presets...a Review.

electronpirate

Axe-Master
I purchased Austin Buddy’s presets. For several reasons. One: I’m a bit committed to making sure that shared presets do not infringe upon purchased presets...can only get that look if I have those presets. Two: I’ve always felt that the presets that come with the Axe are somewhat functional out of the box, but with a complex machine as we have here, any Guitarist should be able to just ‘plug and go’ with a myriad of amps and be completely satisfied (and blown away) with their tone. Three: I’m about supporting this community and those who contribute. Four: Bored and wanted to check something new.

After roughly a week with the presets, I can say they should be a required purchase for new users who do not care to spend a month in the intellectual gym learning every in and out of tone crafting. Caveat: You HAVE to know how to navigate and learn how to tweak…but this is trivial if you already have gig ready presets. He provides concise instructions on how to configure your levels to monitor, FOH, and DAW which are already in the preset.

On the tones (I have only loaded Bank 1 so far to get an opinion): If you can’t find close to your sound here, it doesn’t exist. I’ve thrown different guitars, PUP’s at this, and had excellent results. There are many redundancies here in scenes, and I’ll just focus on Marshall, AC30, and Fender tones, but with a bit of poking around, could nail everything in my playlists. From the Eagles to Green Day to ‘brootalz’ it was there. Granted, I needed to tweak here and there…addition of ‘verb, low cut on cabs to reduce ‘boomy’, add some sag; it was very little work. I’ve added WAH, changed up the drives, engaged and saved bypassed ‘verb as well as use my pedal to manage volume.

My litmus test was against my own presets. I preferred the AB presets over most of the amps I favor (or they were so close that the additional routing was preferable to my simplistic presets.) The exceptions were my Plexi 50 and JCM800 presets. This is not a small thing, as I’ve been at this a long time. That he has done the work to offer flexibility for various routings is huge.

IMO FAS should offer these pre-loaded for an additional fee. I understand how they would not want to go down that road business-wise.

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.

Short review. Wanted to give the guy a plug.

Enjoy.

R
 
:cool:...and it took you THIS LONG to figure this out?!...seriously, as one of the first loud advocates of his work, I still believe Buddy’s are are most impactful third party releases ever in the Fractal ecosystem, and anyone who doesn’t have ‘Em are missing out big time...so, agreed with ya.
 
Very good review! On my side, I have literally just replaced all of the Factory presets with the AB presets (Naked Amps). I did like the factory presets but felt I had more use from the AB ones.

It takes a looooong time to work through all of the presets, and then you can still play around with how drives interact with his amp settings which takes even more time. Basically for any potential new AB customers, purchase these only if you enjoy playing guitar because you will end up spending a lot of time doing just that!
 
The problem here is the limited number of preset slots at the Axe-FX III. It falls short when we face these massive preset collections

I fully agree. I didn't think it would be a problem initially, but having bought 2 tone packs from AustinBuddy, I've been forced to delete all of the factory presets, I have one bank for my own presets, and I have no room for anything else. And I've only had it about 2 weeks.

It's disappointing that the number of presets in this new model actually shrank by 33%. And with them taking up such little space, and storage being so cheap these days, I can't wrap my head around it. If they were going to shrink the number of presets, there should at least be a USB slot for external storage, like on my 10 year old Roland drum kits.
 
I don’t even have my III yet but have been seriously considering purchasing this even before I get my unit. It seems like a tremendous amount of work has gone into it, and the ability to quickly get a base tone with any amp in the unit set with typical settings usually used with that amp would be great. Would save a lot of time in wrapping ones head around how to even dial in each of the hundreds of amps available, especially boutique amps I have never (and will never) get to play a real example of to even know what they do.

Great review - has pushed me over the edge to purchase :)
 
Just purchased yesterday after sitting on the fence for awhile.
As a tone chaser....hours and ten minutes play. Should have bought them sooner.
Now play for hours and tone chase....not really.
5 Stars 🔉📢

The problem is - now I have nothing to do but practice - "tone chasing" and gear hunt days are pretty much over. No more excuses. :/
 
I don’t even have my III yet but have been seriously considering purchasing this even before I get my unit. It seems like a tremendous amount of work has gone into it, and the ability to quickly get a base tone with any amp in the unit set with typical settings usually used with that amp would be great. Would save a lot of time in wrapping ones head around how to even dial in each of the hundreds of amps available, especially boutique amps I have never (and will never) get to play a real example of to even know what they do.

Great review - has pushed me over the edge to purchase :)

Good choice. Do take the time to go through the factory presets beforehand. There are plenty in that that are great. Especially those that use some of the wilder FX. You may want them later (although it's trivial to restore factory if needed.)

And again, this does not preclude learning the unit at a basic level. AB's instructions are clear, but they will be baffling if you have not learned to navigate.
 
Good choice. Do take the time to go through the factory presets beforehand. There are plenty in that that are great. Especially those that use some of the wilder FX. You may want them later (although it's trivial to restore factory if needed.)

And again, this does not preclude learning the unit at a basic level. AB's instructions are clear, but they will be baffling if you have not learned to navigate.

Yep thanks. I have been using fractal products since the beginning (started with an axe fx standard way back when you could import direct from FAS!). Have always found the presets to be great and a fertile ground for learning about the unit, and about the art of crafting amp sounds and effects in general. The effects in particular, as you say, in the presets present some awesome routing and settings.
 
Are the presets designed to work with a stereo setup or are most of them mono output?
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.
 
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.
Thanks. I plan on running stereo but was not sure if they were intended for running stereo or if everything is programmed for mono. Wanted to know before I buy. I just bought the axe fx III and it will arrive on Friday. I’ll play around with the stock presets but will likely buy your pack.
 
You guys (and AB) are just teasing us newbie FM3 guys with this. Get this thing ready for FM3! I need some real good Jimmy Page and Angus/Malcolm tones...
 
You guys (and AB) are just teasing us newbie FM3 guys with this. Get this thing ready for FM3! I need some real good Jimmy Page and Angus/Malcolm tones...

i am working stupid hard on it for FM3, it will be called something different than Naked amps. The Marshall style presets for Bank 1 are done and the best I have ever made. With the boost engaged they really sound like a Marshall amp in the room on my Atomic NEO CLRs. You will be happy.

Two more banks to go (they are sketched out already as draft presets and this is the pass I take to fine tune and fix scene and drive stuff and then level). It may take most of June but this product will be out for Fm3 before July 4th weeknd I promise if not earlier! There will be an Axe Fx III version made available shortly after the FM3 version is released (you will get both Unit Versions in one product).
 
i am working stupid hard on it for FM3, it will be called something different than Naked amps. The Marshall style presets for Bank 1 are done and the best I have ever made. With the boost engaged they really sound like a Marshall amp in the room on my Atomic NEO CLRs. You will be happy.

Two more banks to go (they are sketched out already as draft presets and this is the pass I take to fine tune and fix scene and drive stuff and then level). It may take most of June but this product will be out for Fm3 before July 4th weeknd I promise if not earlier! There will be an Axe Fx III version made available shortly after the FM3 version is released (you will get both Unit Versions in one product).
Sounds great! Even better that I play through a Friedman ASM-12 next to an Atomic CLR so these should work out pretty well for me. I’m just hoping for Artist Presets versus generic presets. For some reason there are several notably missing superstar guitarists that I really need good presets for:
Jimmy Page
Angus&Malcolm
Tony Iommi
I’d say 4 to 8 scenes of each of them highlighting their most popular songs would make 3 of the greatest presets EVER👍🤘 I bet a lot of others would agree too. Some say these are easy artists to emulate, but there’s nothing out there that sounds virtually identical to any of them. Consider all the amazing work going on right now across this forum on Eddie’s Brown Sound that has hit so scientifically close to obtaining THAT elusive sound of our younger years. It’s unbelievable! Jimmy, Angus, Malcolm, and Tony can’t be that hard comparatively speaking... I could be wrong, but I’ll happily shell out $$$$ for Presets matching those 4 guys equal in quality to any of the good Brown Sound presets out there. Thanks for what you do - this is exciting news - especially for all of us new-to-Fractal FM3 guys!!
 
Sounds great! Even better that I play through a Friedman ASM-12 next to an Atomic CLR so these should work out pretty well for me. I’m just hoping for Artist Presets versus generic presets. For some reason there are several notably missing superstar guitarists that I really need good presets for:
Jimmy Page
Angus&Malcolm
Tony Iommi
I’d say 4 to 8 scenes of each of them highlighting their most popular songs would make 3 of the greatest presets EVER👍🤘 I bet a lot of others would agree too. Some say these are easy artists to emulate, but there’s nothing out there that sounds virtually identical to any of them. Consider all the amazing work going on right now across this forum on Eddie’s Brown Sound that has hit so scientifically close to obtaining THAT elusive sound of our younger years. It’s unbelievable! Jimmy, Angus, Malcolm, and Tony can’t be that hard comparatively speaking... I could be wrong, but I’ll happily shell out $$$$ for Presets matching those 4 guys equal in quality to any of the good Brown Sound presets out there. Thanks for what you do - this is exciting news - especially for all of us new-to-Fractal FM3 guys!!

@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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