Building a new patch from scratch

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philclcc

Member
I'm a fairly novice guitarist though I've been playing for a long time and more or less always used Multi-FX pedals (Line 6, BOSS, even a Zoom) so have never really learnt how all the pieces of kit come together to make a guitar tone like I guess you would if you only had an amp for 6 months, then bought a drive pedal and just had that for 6 months etc.., plus my ears aren't that great so I find it difficult to determine the difference between settings and how they would apply musically in a mix.

So, I'm determined to make the AFX work for me but am struggling to get the sound in my head into the box, I've had a look around the forum and the wiki but can't see any tips on building a patch from scratch.

For example, I guess you would start with an amp and a cab (I'm building using earphones and play live using FRFR) but how do I know which amp and cab combination will work for me? There are so many variables and combinations it can be overwhelming!

Any tips?
 
what are the amp sounds you want to hear?
clean? overdriven? Metal?

start with one amp and cab (shunt the first four blocks, give yourself some room to work. go to the wiki, find the amp section, there is a list of typical cabs to use with the amp. once you get this set up, select an effect. place it in front of the amp. Play and listen. Move it behind the cab, listen. which sounds better?
add another effect and do the same thing. It so too easy inside the axefx.

one thing i do on ocasssion, i search thru the presets for a sound i like, study it, then develop a similar effect (of effect group) in my preset.
 
Mike Snider said:
what are the amp sounds you want to hear?
clean? overdriven? Metal?

start with one amp and cab (shunt the first four blocks, give yourself some room to work. go to the wiki, find the amp section, there is a list of typical cabs to use with the amp. once you get this set up, select an effect. place it in front of the amp. Play and listen. Move it behind the cab, listen. which sounds better?
add another effect and do the same thing. It so too easy inside the axefx.

one thing i do on ocasssion, i search thru the presets for a sound i like, study it, then develop a similar effect (of effect group) in my preset.
Click to expand...

Well, for a clean.tone I really like yellow ledbetter by pearl jam, and for heavier sounds, alive by pearl jam. Where would you start in trying to nail that?
 
So you need a bassman, a twin, a marshall and a matchless amp patches in a split signal mode.
2 amps per patch max on the AFX. I'd go ahead & buy two AxeFX Ultras. :mrgreen:
 
no doubt that's a rig.
Most likely not all amps engaged at the same time- so the axefx is probably a good tool to use to build a similar tone.
 
quonsar said:
Not going to work. What you build with headphone will sound completely different live.
Click to expand...
Ok, so what would be the point of using headphones then? Purely from a practising perspective?
Is there any way of building patches without playing at fitting levels?
Would it sound closer through my home hifi system?
 
Unfortunately sound isn't Linear.. Frequency response (and perspeption.. Does that count as getting "Munson'd"? - lets see who catches that quote..) can also be drastically different from room to room and PA to PA. Your IDEAL solution would be to play through the system you'd play through and tweak. This is of course in most cases an extreme rarity, especially for those who Gig. Your next best solution would be to play through something at gig volume. This can be a guitar cab (if you're doing the poweramp/cab thing), studio monitors or even a HiFi system I guess.. I have no experience with the latter. At gig 'volume' you would at least be able to get a general idea of how it'll sound.. IE Thin, Boomy, Muddy, etc.

Headphones are great for practice, jamming and even screwing around with a preset but I definitely wouldn't recommend cans for building patches to play live. Theres no way that I know of to even begin to get similar response as a PA pushing air in a large space vs smaller efficient transducers a few centimeters from your ear drums.

Between cans and the hifi system I'd choose the hifi. A Pair of decent studio monitors would at least be a step in the right FRFR direction - But we use what we have!
 
Ok, well I only play in church so building them through the same system shouldn't be a problem, and that will probably save me some dosh since i was thinking I might need to get a headphone amp, I guess for practising I'll just my headphone amp.

Those people that do live work and recording, do you have two sets of patches, one for live use and one for recording?
 
How's this for an approach... BTW, this would be for a situation where you would be using FRFR for stage monitor on gigs. Set up patches with headphones, then for live playing, tweak the overall sound with the EQ on the output. Basically play through your FRFR, go through your main patches and adjust the output EQ as necesary. You could also do the same for a given venue using the mains as a focus instead of your stage monitors.
 
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