Presets MASTER THREAD - AustinBuddy's 1400+ NAKED AMPS TonePack for firmware Cygnus X2

Third party presets and packs for Fractal Audio products
Only made it through to the HIWATT tonight. Storms. I am liking the Voxes a lot better as dialled in by AustinBuddy than any I have tried to set up myself. Never having owned a Vox, the Top Boost tone control interactions are still a bit mysterious....
 
So I am still running a machine with 6.04 and also one with 8 firmware, both with Naked Amps loaded.

Love to hear feedback from anyone here using the 1400 Naked Amps with firmware 8 that also has used them under 6.04 -- what are your impressions?

I suspect you will hear a bit more bass in fw8, so in any future Tonepack update there may need to be some more lo cut applied in cab block...or not?

Firmware 8 does seem to "feel" better and even more like a real amp does (is that even possible?) -- but I still think 6.04 also sounds killer too.
 
austinbuddy said:
Right? It is SO GOOD!

Try Scene Midnight Rambling Boosted, humbuckers = effortless great rhythm guitar, crunchy but not saturated...
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OMFG! Tried it tonight.

After a single crunchy 5th fret D chord to see what it had going on, I instantly started playing "Can You Hear Me Knocking", which I'd never ever even tried to play before.

Sometimes that happens to me when I hear something that sounds "right", my brain goes, "that sounds like ___ that I've listened to on the radio for 40 years," and it just comes out. My buddy's 660/12 through his '66 Princeton Reverb made me play "American Girl" spontaneously.

Anyhoo, great preset! I only got through the rest of "other vintage" and a few Marshalls in before the witching hour tonight, and I was playing for at least 90 minutes. A whole bunch of presets got bookmarked in a row....
 
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So I snuck in an hour of guitar time before deployment, and got through exactly one preset. The Plexi 100 Watt, Scene 4 (Thick dark lead - Jumped) got an immediate amp channel copy into a new preset in my "favorite amps" preset group, as did Scene 8 (Norm Rhythm).... :)
 
Got through the rest of the Marshalls after deployment, as it ended quickly with no issues in testing. :)

LOVE the 1987X! Scenes 1 and 2 (Lower Gain and Rhythm, respectively) are really great sounds! Lower Gain stays clean with varying degrees of "pushed clean" feel when you dig in, and is one of my new favorite clean sounds for the Strat. Rhythm will go to crunch when you dig in--great for riding your volume knob and playing with picking dynamics to go from warm, purring clean to GR-RRR!
 
curious said:
Lookout FW9 just landed. @austinbuddy ease let us know if this changes anything. I’m loving your amp pack and many of tones are damn near perfect IMO. Let us know if FW9 causes any changes.
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Cliff’s release notes say that most the zero negative feedback amps (which are located the at start of Naked Amps bank B) plus the Vox amps kn Bank A may be affected under firmware 9.x.

I will check out sounds on Sunday but am traveling for work all next week. Sounds like may need to do a minor update under 9.0 — but I like to wait a little and see... see how fast it changed between firmware 7 and 9? Will give it a few weeks before commit to doing update.

BTW I still use 6.04 on one of my Axe-Fx IIIs, and the TonePack is optimized for that version - that is my tonal reference to A/B against new firmwares.
 
With 9.00 beta the volume dropped a bit on all my Marshall presets. I'm guessing this will be the case for every amp, but I'm not sure. It sounds good though. I thought of Austin Buddy immediately when I noticed the volume drop, and thought this would be a lot of work for him to re-balance all the levels. The Marshalls all sound good with 9.00 beta. I will try out the Fender and Vox amps tonight. I haven't bought any Austin Buddy products yet, but I am planning to do so soon. He gets great reviews from everyone.
 
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trancegodz said:
With 9.00 beta the volume dropped a bit on all my Marshall presets. I'm guessing this will be the case for every amp, but I'm not sure. It sounds good though. I thought of Austin Buddy immediately when I noticed the volume drop, and thought this would be a lot of work for him to re-balance all the levels. The Marshalls all sound good with 9.00 beta. I will try out the Fender and Vox amps tonight. I haven't bought any Austin Buddy products yet, but I am planning to do so soon. He gets great reviews from everyone.
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I have a few hours Sunday to check it out... thanks for the head's up!
 
I was about to buy this but I didn't understand what this meant: "Purchasers also get access to one free TonePack upgrades (after 1.x and 6.x) in conjunction with future Fractal Axe III firmware updates included in the product price."

Does that mean that if you put an update out, I'll get access to it but if Fractal do more updates down the road and you update again that I'll have to pay again to have presets that fit with the current firmware? Sorry, it's not very clear to me.
 
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Tannhauser said:
I was about to buy this but I didn't understand what this meant: "Purchasers also get access to one free TonePack upgrades (after 1.x and 6.x) in conjunction with future Fractal Axe III firmware updates included in the product price."

Does that mean that if you put an update out, I'll get access to it but if Fractal do more updates down the road and you update again that I'll have to pay again to have presets that fit with the current firmware? Sorry, it's not very clear to me.
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Good question. So far I have never charged for a firmware update. If you bought today you would get access to a future update. “But”...

You have to understand there is no way to predict them —- when new firmwares will happen or how many. We might go a year before a new firmware, or Cliff can produce four of them in four months.

I generally only do a TonePack update when a firmware requires the amp block to be reset - which means the sound changes enough due to new firmware to warrant it. I wait a few weeks before even starting the process of updating 1400 scenes/sounds because of multiple factors, such as I need the editor to be udpated and any firmware bugs caught and fixed, else I waste way too much of my time.

Good example is Cliff going from firmware 7 to 8 and now 9 in a matter of weeks. If I had started updating 8 i would be frustrated now since all that work is not applicable under 9. So I use common sense.

Usually roughly after six-eight weeks after major firmware release the dust settles, I start working on updating TonePacks, and it takes me many weeks to finish - I take my time and do it right/A/B to original preset under prior firmware (I have two Axe-Fx III’s and keep 6.04 firmware on one of them). I may have to update for multiple unit types which also adds time.

That process I’ll do roughly two times after first TonePack release (to update everything, reset levels, included in original $99 price) for a particular set of tonally changing firmware.

But I always have (and still do) reserve the right to charge existing customers who want a future updated version beyond up to three different account downloads covered in original cost. Never had to do so far. You aren’t obligated to pay it, it would be at your option. Some customers who just use a few amps learn how to update their favorite sounds themselves with each new firmware.
 
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So how many FW upgrades(more importantly, true functional/audible improvements) do you think is fair to expect recent customers(2019) to have to pay full price for. Just curious, free enterprise is free enterprise. Easier to swallow when you know the rules. What do you mean by "3 different account downloads"?

Thanks
 
madmarcus1960 said:
So how many FW upgrades(more importantly, true functional/audible improvements) do you think is fair to expect recent customers(2019) to have to pay full price for. Just curious, free enterprise is free enterprise. Easier to swallow when you know the rules. What do you mean by "3 different account downloads"?

Thanks
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There is no way to answer this question accurately, as it requires predicting the future and what Cliff will do. I have never charged for an upgrade to date.

If there are no changes to firmware you have nothing to worry about. If Cliff puts out four new firmwares in four months and each change sounds dramatically (require amp reset) and requires me to take four months of my life to update two or four times all 1400 sounds, that is a different story. It is inherently ambiguous.

But to date everyone appears to be happy with how I have handled updates - we all wish they happened faster, but there is no way of getting around listening to 1400 sounds and tweaking or re-leveling if a firmware requires it — it just takes lots and lots of time to do it correctly. I won’t sacrifice preset quality.

Hope this helps you understand better where I am coming from on this. I think my reputation shows I try to do the right thing by every customer, best I can. Thanks. Back to the studio - gotta listen to presets under new firmware 9!
 
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I think that folks need to remember that just because a new firmware comes out it does not suddenly make all of the presets they've purchased worthless. Even if Buddy never did another update they would still be worth the price of admission and probably still sound good. If something sounds off after a firmware change, learn to tweak it. The basic sound should still be there.
 
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