THIS TOPIC HAS A FEW BASIC TIPS ON HOW TO GET REALISTIC TONES OUT OF THE AXE-FX. IT'S QUITE A READ BUT IF YOU WANT TO TAKE YOUR TONE TO THE NEXT STEP THEN YOU SHOULD DEFINATELY READ IT SINCE THESE TIPS WILL ANSWER MOST OF THE QUESTIONS I USUALLY GET ASKED AROUND HERE. REMEMBER THAT THESE ARE NOT RULES, THIS IS THE WAY I DO IT AND IF YOU HATE MY TONES THEN READ WHAT I DO AND DO THE OPPOSITE. 
... has been the answer to many of my tone related dilemmas here on the forum. I just want to make it clear to you guys that in my case it usually doesn't. I get a lot of questions concerning my patches and how I get the tones that I get etc. The truth is I don't have any go-to patches. I always create new ones since the Axe-Fx is that easy to use. So for me to post patches would be like me scanning and posting my toilet paper after wiping my butt a week ago. I've always flush them after use... they don't exist anymore so I can't give them to you. All of those patches have two things in common: no PEQ, just amp+cab.
The Axe-Fx is the best way to get tube-like tones. I actually think that I can get the Axe-Fx to sound even more real than a real amp. All those comparison clips show that people can't seem to tell the difference and in my clips people thought the Axe-Fx was the real think and vice versa. I didn't even tweak the patch, that's just stock settings. Less things can go wrong this way so if you're struggling to get a decent tone out of the Axe-Fx you are probably making things too complicated for yourself. This goes out for the beginners: Don't trust your ears! You are not a professional studio engineer. Trust the Axe-Fx. It'll do what you tell it to do. Your ears are probably polluted by getting accustomed to bad tones. :shock:
My point would be to avoid using the PEQ to compensate for a bad tone. There are so many things that can go wrong/right in the amp sim that using a PEQ is unnecessary. Using a PEQ is most likely going to fail since most guitarist don't know what to do with it. Lowcut is fine, high cut is unnecessary if you are using cab sims since the "right ones" have a natural roll-off. I've seen dozens of guitar mixing tutorials which all tell us to boost highs. DON'T DO IT! You just tweaked the tone that's perfectly balanced so boosting highs is like adding unnatural sounding treble to your tone that should be awesome by now. Cut the lows if your guitar doesn't fit in the mix. Use compression. Anything except post EQ.
"The PEQ does not compensate!". Okay that's a broad accusation... let me explain. The Mesa Mark series GEQ is something we've already talked about so let's start there. For the scooping part the PEQ does it's job and I do scoop certain amps. Here the PEQ does compensate for the lack of the GEQ in the amp sim. Instead of using the PEQ to boost the lows and high like in the real Mark series GEQ I much prefer using more presence and depth. Like presence at 1.5 and depth at 3-ish. You can go further to compensate for an even more steeper curve. So if you want a more scooped tone you should scoop the power amp simulation, not the whole tone. Presence and depth will take care of that. My tip would be to have twice the amount of depth. Like pres 2 and depth 4 or pres 4 depth 8. Try what suits you.
The second part of why I don't use PEQ for compensation is because the cab sims are already so good that using PEQ after the cab will most likely sound bad in the long run. However using PEQ before the cab sim gives the whole thing a more realistic vibe and lowpass cleans up those fizzy cab sims nicely. STILL!! I wouldn't do it. I'd switch the amp EQ or pres'n'depth until it sounds good. Using PEQ before the cab sim is usually compensation for a bad cab selection. Recto2 is what I'm loving ATM. Sounds really cool on just about any tone.
I hope this helps you guys. I also hope that we get a conversation out of all this. Thanks for reading!
... has been the answer to many of my tone related dilemmas here on the forum. I just want to make it clear to you guys that in my case it usually doesn't. I get a lot of questions concerning my patches and how I get the tones that I get etc. The truth is I don't have any go-to patches. I always create new ones since the Axe-Fx is that easy to use. So for me to post patches would be like me scanning and posting my toilet paper after wiping my butt a week ago. I've always flush them after use... they don't exist anymore so I can't give them to you. All of those patches have two things in common: no PEQ, just amp+cab.
The Axe-Fx is the best way to get tube-like tones. I actually think that I can get the Axe-Fx to sound even more real than a real amp. All those comparison clips show that people can't seem to tell the difference and in my clips people thought the Axe-Fx was the real think and vice versa. I didn't even tweak the patch, that's just stock settings. Less things can go wrong this way so if you're struggling to get a decent tone out of the Axe-Fx you are probably making things too complicated for yourself. This goes out for the beginners: Don't trust your ears! You are not a professional studio engineer. Trust the Axe-Fx. It'll do what you tell it to do. Your ears are probably polluted by getting accustomed to bad tones. :shock:
My point would be to avoid using the PEQ to compensate for a bad tone. There are so many things that can go wrong/right in the amp sim that using a PEQ is unnecessary. Using a PEQ is most likely going to fail since most guitarist don't know what to do with it. Lowcut is fine, high cut is unnecessary if you are using cab sims since the "right ones" have a natural roll-off. I've seen dozens of guitar mixing tutorials which all tell us to boost highs. DON'T DO IT! You just tweaked the tone that's perfectly balanced so boosting highs is like adding unnatural sounding treble to your tone that should be awesome by now. Cut the lows if your guitar doesn't fit in the mix. Use compression. Anything except post EQ.
"The PEQ does not compensate!". Okay that's a broad accusation... let me explain. The Mesa Mark series GEQ is something we've already talked about so let's start there. For the scooping part the PEQ does it's job and I do scoop certain amps. Here the PEQ does compensate for the lack of the GEQ in the amp sim. Instead of using the PEQ to boost the lows and high like in the real Mark series GEQ I much prefer using more presence and depth. Like presence at 1.5 and depth at 3-ish. You can go further to compensate for an even more steeper curve. So if you want a more scooped tone you should scoop the power amp simulation, not the whole tone. Presence and depth will take care of that. My tip would be to have twice the amount of depth. Like pres 2 and depth 4 or pres 4 depth 8. Try what suits you.
The second part of why I don't use PEQ for compensation is because the cab sims are already so good that using PEQ after the cab will most likely sound bad in the long run. However using PEQ before the cab sim gives the whole thing a more realistic vibe and lowpass cleans up those fizzy cab sims nicely. STILL!! I wouldn't do it. I'd switch the amp EQ or pres'n'depth until it sounds good. Using PEQ before the cab sim is usually compensation for a bad cab selection. Recto2 is what I'm loving ATM. Sounds really cool on just about any tone.
I hope this helps you guys. I also hope that we get a conversation out of all this. Thanks for reading!
