I just bought the Live Gold for Axe FXIII and am going though bank 1. The last 7 presets I tried (from Slash's AFD100 through Silver Jubilee) are the worst sounding presets anyone could imagine. Ice pick in your ears. I thought the wah was on full treble, but it wasn't. I have a pedal assigned to external 1 for wah and it works fine. So that's not it. I can't imagine how anyone, anywhere, in any circumstance would think those presets sounded good.
Update: I went through the presets up to the start of the Soldano section and thank God none of the rest of them sound like that, except for the 2C&2D Cameron CCV100x3 which is ice pick in your ears also.
The CLRs must be dark sounding and lacking in treble because in general almost all of the presets have a little too much treble to me. Only the ones I mentioned above are oppressive. Or maybe Austin Buddy has lost some of his high end hearing from dialing in all these presets while blasting the CLRs.
So
@trancegodz, sorry you aren't happy with LiveGold -- so allow me to ask you a few questions to see if maybe there is something missed here:
1. What guitar are you using? What year (modern, vintage) and pickups (low, medium high output)? Strings (steel or nickel?)
2. What playback system -- are you using a power amp in to a real cab, or FRFRs, or studio monitors? Are you using the XLR outs or the S/PDIF out?
Be specific. This is real important for us to know.
3. Are you playing loud (over 92db) or soft like bedroom monitoring?
4. What is your Axe-Fx III Output 1 knob setting at?
5. Is your Axe-Fx III's Global Output1 EQ and Output2 EQ flat - all at zero?
6. Are you using a spring loaded pedal in exp. 1 for the wah, or not?
7. When you look at the WAH block, is the "Control" value showing at zero, or 10, or some other number?
(As example, I have a Mission pedal that will not calibrate right, and the wah shows up at 9.17 and won't turn off when I use that pedal -- while my Fractal pedal does not have this issue - something worth checking).
8. If you roll your guitar's tone knob down to 5 or 6, is it still too bright, or does that help a lot? (BTW, I dialed these in with my tone up at 10 on my bridge, but I personally usually roll my bridge tone knob down to 6-7 or so when I play whether Les Paul or Strat or even Tele).
FYI, I have a pair of high end studio pro ATC 25's monitors here. They are the monitors Guys like Eddie Kramer (Hendrix, Zeppelin, etc). and Elliott Scheiner (Eagles, Steely Dan) mix on. I had conversations with them at NAMM about these amazing, transparent speakers.
I played all those presets this morning only on my ATC 25s, and I don't hear what you described at all. (In fact, the ATCs are a little darker than the Atomic CLRs). I am working on a bass pack all day today with a bassist, but if I have some time next 48 hours, perhaps I (or someone eese here?) can make a Logic Track of the sounds I'm hearing and post it here. I'd love to hear you do the same and share so we can compare.
You are the first in hundreds who have the TonePack to say this is an issue, and that makes me think there is a problem somewhere we can fix here.
By the way, the real life JCM 800 amps and the Slash amp ARE trebly and raspy compared to many Marshall-style amps. Not amps I would grab as my first choice for a Marshall, but they can "slice through"in a mix. On those amps, you have to turn the gain up high to get them to darken up. So yes, a clean and lower gain Scenes 1 or 2 is going to be brighter sounding than the Scenes 3 or 4 versions of those amps - that's the way the real life amps work.
On FRFRs, if anything, the Atomic CLRs have very detailed mids -- they are not dark, I assure you, and others can chime in.
Last, unlike the Naked Amps which were designed for recording via studio monitors (as I said in my video), these presets were made to be played live, loud, from a good FRFR speaker about 10 feet away from you like on stage, with lots of mids and highs to punch through in a band mix, but with some bottom like a speaker cab, and so that with a good FRFR when you move around stage four feet left or four feet right, when playing, you don't lose all your sound's highs (so it's not just okay standing in one sweet spot but you move three feet and all your highs are gone - some FRFRs have that issue).
Lets us know, and we can take this into a private conversation if you prefer, or hash it out here Happy to work with you to figure out what's causing this.
Anyone else with Axe-Fx III LiveGold finding similar "everything is too bright", or finding to the contrary, that wants to weigh in (respectfully please)?