Ax8 patch & scene strategy to manage CPU

[6stringscott]

I think I'm hitting a brick wall in trying to do things the Axe FX II XL way on the Ax8. I had accepted not using a bazillion blocks, but I am having a really tough time making an "all in one" patch with scenes that have a variety of sounds.

If I want to have different scenes like: rotary, phaser+trem, big delays
And I'm using a Stereo Ultrares Cab,

Then there is not enough CPU for a Drive and Reverb too... I need to dump one (ax8 automatically mutes it on me). That makes a general-purpose patch not very useful anymore.

So what do you all do? The only path forward I can see is:
1. Stop using scenes
2. Treat each bank like a preset and put each scene in a separate preset with just the blocks needed for that "scene" (really preset)
3. Figure out CabLab to mix IRs so I don't use Stereo UltraRes in the cab block. I read today (but may not have understood correctly) that I can't use the stock cabs in CabLab, so I would also have to buy some Cab Packs... so far I have only been using stock cabs and I get by fine with using Stereo cabs on AxeFX II XL.

Does this seem reasonable? Is there something else I'm overlooking?

 

[6stringscott]

But I just figured out one part that makes this strategy suck. If I use sticky preset button the way I have been using sticky scene button, then the display no longer shows which blocks are available if I want to go back to stomp box mode. My workflow so far is to use a footswitch to enable scene sticky mode, but untap that to get access to individual effect stomp buttons if I need something not already set up in a scene. If I swtich to pure presets and no scenes, then I pretty much surrender the functionality of stomp-box mode...

On the other hand, there is not enough CPU to have a bunch of effects to make the stomp box mode important, so maybe just a preset sticky is the way to go. I look forward to hearing what other people do.

 

[SoProg]

I imagine you've already taken care of reducing echo density on your reverb..

If you switch to presets instead of scenes, you might get some lag due to running your CPU real high.
But when you find out what works let us know.


The only option you didn't mention that I have used is to replace your drive block with an FXloop block, and use a real drive pedal.

 

[philipacamaniac]

I'm able to fit this into a single AX8 preset that hovers around 85%:

- Wah
- Drive
- Phaser
- Tremolo
- Amp
- Cab (Stereo UltraRes - F184 x 2)
- Rotary
- Volume
- Delay 1
- Delay 2
- Reverb (Normal Q, Density 2)

That said, a "complete" all-in-one preset just isn't possible. But - what I do for those circumstances is a mix of presets, scenes and IAs. Since you can assign a preset, scene or effect to any of the switches, there's a lot of flexibility to be had. Even more if you add more footswitches via MIDI.

 

[Moke]

There are some clever ways to optimize CPU sometimes. But you might want to look at having a couple of (almost) all-in-one presets. Then just use the version that has what you need, when you need it?

 

[Smittefar]

I think, the AX8 requires different strategies than the XL+

I agree that the 'everything preset' is not really possible with AX8. I usually run into limitations with either CPU or sometimes the 8 buttons is simply not enough. I did make a 'Super jam' preset that has five scenes with five base tones: Ultra clean, Acoustic Sim, edge of break, rock dist, metal dist. Those were on IAs 1-4, then I had Comp, chorus/phaser, delay and boost on the remaining four switches. I also had a wah and an always on reverb. It was hell to setup, but it sort of worked. But it is still not an 'everything preset'

I realized this limitation fairly early, so instead, I went for the 1 preset per song strategy. With this strategy, I rarely run into CPU limitations, I do all my switching with scenes (one scene for each required sound in the song), so I have enough footswitches. I set up two (soon to be three) preset templates, so setting up new presets is very fast. To me the biggest downside with this strategy is that you get a lot of presets to maintain. I currently have 40-50 presets that I gig with regularly, so when there is an update to the amp block modelling, it takes a considerable amount of work to soft reset all those amp blocks.