Benefit of Scenes verse patches?

Hattrick17

Hattrick17

Inspired
I just finished reading the definition of both in the AX8 owners manual. However I am curious what the end users prefer and why? My understanding a scene is a patch within a patch is that correct? Why is this beneficial? I just ordered my AX8 which should be here Friday.
 
Its nice to be able to set multiple "presets" in a preset mainly becuase the switching is seamless. When switching between patches, youll hear a noticeable dropout. Im not talking about seconds of dead space, but theres a spot of air. Scenes eliminates that. Plus you can make a preset really go far with them; XY states, multiple blocks, trigger multiple blocks at one time.
 
I see a preset as a pedalboard you have in front of you. Switching scenes is basically turning on some pedals and some other off, and tweaking some of their parameters at the same time. All of this ~instantaneously.

Loading a new preset loads a new pedalboard :)
 
The benefits for me are

1. It's easier to keep track of my presets if there is fewer of them.

2. As long as you aren't using any x/y, scenes gives you instant switching.
 
The main benefit is faster switching. This has limitations but with careful preset programming, using scenes can provide faster changes.

I personally just use presets and not scenes. The gap in changing presets is not a huge concern for what I do.
 
This is still a bit confusing to me. Too me a patch is a selection of pedals called up on the board for you to use which also are set up with specific settings with defaults. I don't really get the Scene thing as of yet unless patches in the AX8 are just pedal coming up with default settings but you have to turn them on and off like stomp boxes?.
 
Hattrick17 said:
This is still a bit confusing to me. Too me a patch is a selection of pedals called up on the board for you to use which also are set up with specific settings with defaults. I don't really get the Scene thing as of yet unless patches in the AX8 are just pedal coming up with default settings but you have to turn them on and off like stomp boxes?.
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Scenes are like a analog loop controller. With one footswitch, you can activate / deactivate multiple virtual blocks.

In addition, some blocks have two sets of settings called X and Y, you can change from X to Y or Y to X per scene too. So with one footswitch you can activate, deactivate and change settings for multiple blocks all at once.

There are more more features of scenes too.
 
Scenes are different "sets" of fx/settings within one preset. So for example Scene 1 might have Amp-Cab-Reverb turned on, and Scene 2 may have Phaser-Drive-Amp-Cab-Delay-Reverb, etc. You can turn on all of those fx (Ph, Dr, Del) with just one footswitch/press. Scene 3 might be some other combination of fx in the preset, plus you changed to Amp Y and Reverb Y to get a different amp and different sounding reverb for a specific part of the song...
 
Yep...Scenes = multiple changes within a patch with 1 press.
I have Scenes on one row of switches and fx blocks on the other...best of both worlds.
 
Ok so I have "scene" built which I want as stated, Amp
jefferski said:
Scenes are different "sets" of fx/settings within one preset. So for example Scene 1 might have Amp-Cab-Reverb turned on, and Scene 2 may have Phaser-Drive-Amp-Cab-Delay-Reverb, etc. You can turn on all of those fx (Ph, Dr, Del) with just one footswitch/press. Scene 3 might be some other combination of fx in the preset, plus you changed to Amp Y and Reverb Y to get a different amp and different sounding reverb for a specific part of the song...
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But couldn't one do this with a patch as well? In other words as stated above, Patch 1 = Amp-Cab-Reverb is on then go to Patch 2 with the same amp/cab/mic, but with additional effects? Or is the benefit just the additional effects one can activate and not be reloading the Amp - Cab- Mic as per new preset with latency?
 
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Hattrick17 said:
Ok so I have "scene" built which I want as stated, Amp


But couldn't one do this with a patch as well? In other words stated above, Patch 1 = Amp-Cab-Reverb on then go to Patch 2 with the same but with additional effects? Or is the benefit just the additional effects one can activate and not be reloading the Amp - Cab- Mic as per new preset with latency?
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Yeah you can use either method. But if you can fit what you want in one preset, that's gonna be the fastest switching option.
 
Sure, but as you said, there's the latency in changing presets, plus it makes organization a lot easier (at least for the way I do things). Let's say I have preset 25-1 as my rhythm, 25-2 my lead, and 25-3 my trippy ambient chorus part. I always need to remember to keep them "together" and now I have 3 separate presets to level match. That will work fine if you don't use a lot of presets / only have one tone you use for everything, and may be perfect for you. But for me it's easier to have all of those in one preset.

My general setup is more along the lines of: a couple of clean presets, a couple of lo-mid gain presets, a couple of mid-high gain presets, with the "standard" fx in most of them (i.e. phaser, wah, drives, chorus, delay, reverb). And then if I have any song-specific presets I'll create as needed. And most of that will fit into one bank of 8 presets. For one of my bands I really only need two or three because we play funky jams; my other band is more of a standard rock cover band so I'll have more song-specific presets for that one. I keep the presets for the two bands in separate banks so I can tweak for the levels and mix of each band - otherwise I'd be tweaking back and forth way too much.

Hope that helps, and really, the best advice is: do what works for you. As you get used to the AX8 you'll find out what's the best for your workflow... there's no one 'right' way.
 
SoProg said:
Yeah you can use either method. But if you can fit what you want in one preset, that's gonna be the fastest switching option.
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I will create a scene this weekend when I get the device maybe doing this will clear up the difference for me.
 
Quick question for those using this for live work. Do you find the need to do much editing on stage with the AX8 as venues change? Is it quick and easy with the current screen and menu options? Some feel this is a bit cumbersome but I am not sure if there is a large public editing while playing.
 
Switching from one scene to another is more instantaneous than switching from preset to preset. You will notice a slight audio gap switching from preset to preset. Especially going from say a crunch to a clean and vise versa. As for editing on stage, if I need to I use the Global EQ's for Output 1 for FOH and Output 2 for my onstage monitoring.
 
Hattrick17 said:
Quick question for those using this for live work. Do you find the need to do much editing on stage with the AX8 as venues change? Is it quick and easy with the current screen and menu options? Some feel this is a bit cumbersome but I am not sure if there is a large public editing while playing.
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I setup my presets using AX8-Edit, but I do some editing on the unit live. Mainly volume & B/M/T adjustments, maybe an occasional effect level change. It is great to have the pots on the front for basic changes & you do have to know how to navigate the menus for the effects changes, but I don't find myself doing a lot of that.
 
That make total sense. Not to bash Helix owners but they do complain about the screen but logic to me would use the AX8 Edit dial in your settings and use the nobs for stage tweaking. Another question if you don't mind. When setting up scenes do they display in the screen as well? I would think so but don't have the unit yet just curious?
 
You can set up footswitches to call up any of the scenes, and there's a special function to toggle from scene 1 and scene 2. If you set any of those to any of the 8 main footswitches, the label for that block will show up on the display. If you don't do that then they are still there, and you can select them but you won't see them on the display.
 
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