AX8 Tones for Guitar Instrumental Music

T

TomBisbano

Member
I have owned the AX8 now for a little over one year. My intention has been to use this for instrumental guitar music. While I have had great success with getting tones for songs with vocals (where the guitar is very much in the background) I have struggled to get guitar tones that: A) Sound professional and B) work well together in the mix. The instrumental music that I write falls mainly in the Hard Rock category with a little old school Metal thrown in while the songs that have vocals tend to be anywhere from Indie Pop to 90's Rock. There is a huge difference in guitar tones between the two. Has anyone on here had this issue or can anyone offer advice that has worked for them? Seriously after a year I do not even have anything that I can post up on here without total embarrassment. It is really that big of a struggle. I know that the unit can get great tones but for whatever reason it just isn't happening for me. Admittedly I am not the best at tweaking sounds but find that the stock preset (while they work great for the songs with vocals) are pretty far from my ideal sound. Also I should mention that I love to layer guitars. Usually double track the rhythm guitars but then add a lot of overdubs ( melodies, fills and harmonies). My issue is mainly just the rhythm and lead guitars not sitting well together. Haven't even had much of a chance to layer parts since the foundation of the music is so off. I have tried stock sounds with every cab possible and also creating my own presets. Again any help would be appreciated.
 
I recorded 5 or 6 albums with the AXE-FX II. Two albums are pure instrumental stuff. I always ignored the stock presets and I almost never used stock cabs. If I were you I'd start with an amp and a cab block. As simple as possible. Two blocks, your ears and the guitar. Believe me, it'll work.
 
I have a few presets at the Axechange. You are welcome to try those. Just search for my name. I have a few for the Axe and a few for the AX8.
 
I dont imagine that we will be able to help you much at all without hearing a recording of what you currently have.
It could be as simple as turning the low and high cuts in the cab block to something like 150 Hz and 5000Hz respectively.
Maybe you need a different amp model? Try a recto1 with stock cab 58. Turn the bass control all the way off and leave master volume at about 2. Doing all that should give you a pretty aggressive rock tone.
Could be totally opposite what you need though. We really need a recording to help!
 
I see it is your first day and first post. Allow me to welcome you to the forum.
It being your first day does not mean you have not done a lot of reading here, but have you?
If you have read the many resources available, watched the many videos available, and downloaded some of the gazillion free presets people have generously posted, and still can not get the ideal tone you want, or dial in a preset that meets your needs, you could touch base with one of the very talented tone gurus that usually gather in the "Preset Exchange" forum here: https://forum.fractalaudio.com/forums/ax8-preset-exchange.94/
Seriously, they can do magic with these little black boxes.
Peace!
 
Look at the situation more organically. If you were to record your instrumental track with a physical amp, which amp would you use? Which cabinet/speakers would you use? Start there. Tweak the bass, mid, treble as you would the physical amp. I have always set my high pass in the cab block to around 100hz and the low pass to around 7.5k hz.

When I have recorded, I usually plug my guitar into my interface and use a guitar plugin (Guitar Rig) to monitor. I focus strictly on the performance, not the tone. Once I have the performance nailed, I like to "reamp" with the fractal. That way I can focus strictly on the tone without having to bounce back and forth between twisting knobs and playing. Start with the rhythm guitars, and once you have "printed" them move on to the lead guitars.

I hope this helps.
 
Maybe obvious, but how are you handling the instrumental mix? You need to treat the lead guitar playing the melody similar to a voice, depending on the source and different instrumentation, at a minimum you'll probably need to have a steep high pass from 400 to as high as 800 as well as boosting the upper mids in the 2K - 3.5k range. Conversely, the rhythm guitars should be cut in the high mid range a bit to make more room. Depending on your DAW, you can run a side band multiband compressor on the rhythm to cut those frequencies only when the lead is playing as well.
 
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