Axe2 Preset building

went to bed too late.... got up too early...
and now I'm gonna be late cos I'm sat here noodling with the 5153 Red... lmao...
 
5153 Red

I got in the same mess Clarky....... Loveeee the 5153 Red. It very well
will become my Go To amp for most of the material requiring a
heavier tone. I actually just dialed in a wonderful sounding Van Halen
patch with it, changing the cab as well as doing some major tweaking of
the amp settings got me really close to where I want to be for that sound anyway.
Sooooo glad they added these new amps to 6.1. I havent even gotten
to check out all the other goodies yet.
 
I like all of the 5153's.. I think they're superb each in their own way...
I really like the new 6160 sound too... it's stunning...

oh my god... I got too much choice now....
it means I have to actually make a decision... lmao
 
clarky said:
Yek / Bakerman: I found the prob with my MFC

I got to say this one is real subtle...

EDIT: MIDI: IA11 pOF PC OFF Ch01

I changed pOF to pON and found that it was set"
IA11 pON PC 292 Ch01

I set it to:
IA11 pON PC OFF Ch01

and everything works fine..

so I can make IA11 switch me in and out of solo mode in the same way as my EXS1 does

what I didn't realise is that the pOF and pON settings are both active..
I thought [in error] that seeing pOF PC OFF meant that this was not doing anything

this is the thing I missed in the manual
"A setting of “OFF” for either state will cause it to send no data."
Click to expand...

Note to add: having an IA and an EXS setup to trigger the same MIDI CC is not a good idea...
I was kinda hoping that by doing this I'd gain a 'get out of jail free' solution.. so if my EXS battery ran out I could us the IA's instead
the outcome though is that they can cause state conflicts..

I've switched these IA switches to CC=off now
if Fractal at some point allow the MFC to be configured such that the IA switches and occupy the front row with the presets to the rows behind, I'll change my config to use IA's to switch my preset 'modes'...
until then, I'll continue to use only the EXS switches...
 
next job is to replace the 5150 with the 5153 Red, and dial it's behaviour into my presets...

audio clips to come...
 
ok... so now I have the 5153 Red replacing the 5150...
presets 0 to 4 use the 5150 [which I believe has been remodelled in 6.01]
presets 5 to 8 use the 5153 Red

this makes it easy to delta test the old with the new....

they sound subtly different..
to my ears the 5153 Red is a little smoother.. the 5150 is fuller and has more attack..

the prob here is that I like them both... a lot... but in slightly different ways....

and now I have to make a choice...
jeez this is real tough.. lmao..
 
I think I'm going to go with the 5153Red...

changing amp type is not as straight forward as you think when your presets work like mine..

when the EXP is heel down, the amp drive will be at it's min value to help clean up the tone..
the min value for the 5150 is much louder and a little dirtier than that of the 5153Red..
also, as the EXP moves to the toe down position, the 5153Red dirties up more gradually
this means that - as I have two amps running simultaneously, the VH4 will dirty up more quickly..
so right now, as the EXP moves to the toe down position, the VH4 on the right of the mix gets dirtier and louder sooner..
this means that at the mid point the 5153Red is still quite clean and soft, and the VH4 is getting quite crunchy and is far louder..
this of course needs sorting out cos it sound crap...
but to be honest, I expected this.. in fact, when I set up the preset with the 5150 and the VH4, I did quite a lot of work to find the right modifier curves so that they dirty up and louden at the same rate..

when you change amp type you should expect it to have completely different charateristics in this respect...
so.. I need to noodle around some more with the VH4 and 5153Red modifier graphs to re-align their "dirtying growth rate"..

I've also found that the 5153Red is a little less fat than the 5150..
so the amp's depth and EQ page controls will get a bit of a nudge..
if I don't do this, I will have different levels of low end between the VH4 [panned right] and the 5153Red [panned left]..
the lack of low end on the left will make the preset pull to the right in the stereo image..
although the whole point of running two different amp/cab combinations is that their differences combine to grenerate a 'bigger' resultant tone..
it is very important to [as best you can] have each amp generate the same amount of low end in roughly the same frequency range...
this is just a case of listening and tweaking... it's well worth taking time to get this right...
 
here's my new main preset
in riff mode the VH4 is to the right, the 5153Red is to the left
in solo mode the VH4 mutes and the 5153Red pans centre and takes over..

so this is yet another unstructured / meandering bit of playing..
towards the end I played some long notes with the lead tone..
I thought this prudent because it shows just how sweet the 5153Red can be.. it really sings...

 
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sounds really nice clarky, love the way it blends together. The 5153 I agree is really awesome and does "sing"
as comapred to what u had before. A definite improvement I believe. I like the panning as well, to me it
helps to create a focused sound when u go into lead mode. Is it what u'd call a finished product or are u gonna
change it up still??? I think its great the way it is but thats just my opinion.
 
sounds great, really. congratulations. I've enjoyed following you through your transition to the axefx....happy to hear such excellent results. keep 'em coming!
 
functionally I'd say this preset is done...
all it needs now are a few minor adjustments... mostly EQ and levels..
I'll be able to do this when I start playing along with some songs for the studio presets..
and when these are done, I'll take the Axe to a rehearsal studio and get the volume up through my backline so I can dial in the live versions of the presets..

I now have 4 versions of this preset:
1 - morphs to clean
2 - morphs to crunch with a phased delay
3 - morphs to clean with no delay in solo mode
4 - morphs to synth-ish pad

preset 5 needs looking at now
this will be a bit different because the two amps do not sound at the same time..
amp1 = clean [trying the Hiwatt for this]
amp2 = solo [trying the JVM OD2 for this although I may go back to the 5153Red cos I like the way it sings]
the neat trick in this preset is that the clean amp morphs to the synthish pad, the solo tone amp morphs to clean..
 
just finished my clean preset...
well at least the bulk of it...

jeez.. I think it's lovely...

I'll post a clip of it when I get a free mo to record it...
 
haaa... thanks dude....

right... so I had to decide which amp to use for the soloing tone on my clean preset..
the requirements here are a little different to my regular soloing tone
- I don't need quite so much gain..
- it does not need to be quite as loud [cos it's used in softer songs
- it needs more ambience [delay / reverb]
- the tone needs to be softer and less cutting

I experimented with the JVM OD2 and got some great results...
thing is.. the 5153Red can really sing too... it can be sooooo pretty...

in the end, my decision was based upon taste alone rather than some hard technical reason...
it was very very close..
the JVM has a real nice quality that lets the guitar's voice shine through
it sounds lovely.. really organic.. if my ballad soloing requirements were more 'blues lick centric' the JVM would have won...
generally though, my ballad soloing style tends to be more 'lyrical / melodic centric'..
and this is where the 5153Red really shone through...
I backed off it's presence and highs in the amp EQ to soften the high end..
I didn't cut the gain by much though..
I simply pumped 3dB less into the amp block from the vol block
that was just enough to kill the tonal aggression but leave enough gain in there to help with long sustained notes and to make for a silky smooth tone..
also, I quite deliberately messed with this tone such that it's primarily to be used by the neck pup..
it's quite a pretty tone...

jeez.. is there anything the 5153Red can't do??
 
I've just tried - for the first time - using these new presets to play along with the live set I usually play...

I've found that I'm falling short on a little top end.. and to be honest that was kind of expected...
I went to the GEQ's in each preset and added a few dB to the 2k, 4k and 8k bands...
it's starting to sound really nice now...
6.01 [and up cos 6.02 sounds the same] was definitely the magic fw drop for me cos the top end seems to be so much sweeter..
you can start throwing in quite a lot of it yet maintain a smoothness...

I think this is just getting better and better...
 
Clarky, excellant thread... Thank You.
Would you consider sharing your 'rffsolo1st2.syx'? This is amazing..
I have no controllers set up yet, So I wont be able to fully utilize the preset.
But I would really like it to study. I feel this is you finest effort thus far.
Thanks Again
 
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no worries.... I'll post the preset...
having probs with Axe-Edit right now...
I'll post the preset when I've figured out what's going wrong..

basically, Axe-Edit is switching the amp types to bassguy when I'm saving to the preset folder...
which is kinda scaring me...
 
ok.. I've found a workaround... it's not pretty but at least I can archive the badly backed up presets..

Ax-Ed: source = axe-fx
as I've not saved anything the correct amps and cab will be displayed
- save the amp and cab blocks individually

Ax-Ed: source = preset
recall the archived preset [the amps and cabs will default to bassguy / oval]
- recall the individual amps and cab/s
- save the preset
the backed up preset will now be saved [and can be recalled] with the correct amps / cabs

when saving a preset to the preset folder via Ax-Ed you must verify that it saved correctly
if not, follow the steps above to correct it or you run the risk of losing all your hard work
cos it's easy to accidentally over-write your 'good' Axe-FX preset with the 'bad' archived one

EDIT: found this too
copying a preset to another location via Ax-Ed still defaults the amps / cabs [even after they have been 'fixed' using the steps above]
copying the same preset via the Axe-FX front panel is successful
 
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