Do I need Scenes?

W

Wildwind

Experienced
I'm mainly a p&w guitarist. Five main presets cover 98 percent of what I do - not your typical cover band scenario. Anything outside of that is occasional and easily covered in a second bank.

Patch switching in this fashion is quick enough for my needs. Spillover is not a concern.

I do know how to set these up, have an MFC, etc. But for my playing, what advantages am I missing out on if I just do it the old fashioned way?

Thanks to all who take the time to respond.

Greg
 
What is p&w?

The big advantage of scenes is for "seamless" transition between sounds.

If you get what you need with presets there is probably no big reason for you.

However another reason might be if all or many of your presets very similar... Only differing in what blocks are engaged.


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if ambient tails spilling over is not an issue, and short dropouts don't bother you at all then you don't need to worry about scenes..

they do however have other advantages in addition to the things they fix..
with a single IA, you can turn on a pile of fx at the same time rather than just 1..
but then, you don't needed scenes to do that either, you can simply assign an IA to a CC and switch them all via a modifier..

killer thing is… you have choice… a pile of it..
 
Christian praise & worship. We cover a range of styles, lots of dynamics, power chords, solos.

My needs are relatively simple. Few effects, not trying to nail particular sounds for the most part. So I'm thinking Scenes may come in handy for some things, but there is otherwise no compelling reason to go there.

Thanks. Anyone else?
 
I operate my Axe like a traditional amp and pedal board and, like you, I don't need loads of presets and ignored scenes for a long while. What I have found scenes useful for though is assigning one button on the MFC-101 to select scene 1/2. I then save all the effects in their X state as scene 1 and save them all in their Y state as scene 2. I also have a button dedicated to Amp X/Y as well. In doing this, I effectively get a two channel amp with two totally different pedal board settings in one preset. This gives a huge amount of flexibility in one preset and allows you to cover a very wide range of different tones.

You could very easily play a gig using only one preset.
 
Thanks MNG. That confirms a suspicion I had. Today I am playing around with setting mine up in a similar way. Should be fun.
 
MNG said:
I operate my Axe like a traditional amp and pedal board and, like you, I don't need loads of presets and ignored scenes for a long while. What I have found scenes useful for though is assigning one button on the MFC-101 to select scene 1/2. I then save all the effects in their X state as scene 1 and save them all in their Y state as scene 2. I also have a button dedicated to Amp X/Y as well. In doing this, I effectively get a two channel amp with two totally different pedal board settings in one preset. This gives a huge amount of flexibility in one preset and allows you to cover a very wide range of different tones.

You could very easily play a gig using only one preset.
Click to expand...

So are you saying that you you then use IAs to turn the blocks on and off? It's an interesting approach... But I suspect you probably don't change scenes mid-song?


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Greg, as you know, I play p&w also. What I do is always use 3 scenes. Scene 1 is the basic rhythm sound, whether clean or dirty. Scene 2 is the same type of tone with more gain. Scene three is for solos, with the tone and volume appropriate for the basic tone. That gives me 5 (patches) x 3 (scenes) to choose from during rehearsal (without jumping banks). If I find that I'm jumping all over the place for a certain song, I'll program a patch just for that song. I use the same basic principle, but geared for the song. For example, maybe the chorus part requires a smooth legato type of distorted tone for work high on the neck, but not the volume boost I would normally program into scene 3, and maybe not as much presence so it blends in better behind the vocals.

Basically the idea is to set things up so during the service I have as little pedal dancing as possible. The only drawback is, even with scenes, there are usually short dropouts when I switch. Since no one seems to mind I don't worry about it.
 
jakel said:
only drawback is, even with scenes, there are usually short dropouts when I switch. Since no one seems to mind I don't worry about it.
Click to expand...

Are you using X/Y amp settings between the scenes? This is the normal cause for that. You can use two amp blocks instead and should be able to eliminate dropouts.


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Wildwind said:
Christian praise & worship. We cover a range of styles, lots of dynamics, power chords, solos.
Click to expand...

I use my AFX & MFC for the same scenario and scenes are widely important. Mainly from what clarky said, ambience & being able to maintain a specific tone in a single preset.

Personally it adds diversity to each preset and a wide range of possibilities without having to interrupt the signal chain going to another preset. It also keeps your preset count down for what you are using it for, meaning, you don't need to maintain 4-5 presets, just one. Just one preset that can turn multiple effects/drive/comp on at one time. Once I found out about scenes after purchasing the AFX, that's how I began building presets to accommodate with at least 5 scene changes. Personally to me, yes, you are missing out ;)
 
I would really look at how much variation you do in those presets. For example, how much you if you really only tap a drive or delay block within your preset. If you don't do much, then scenes are nice, but not necessary.

On the other hand, it's REALLY nice to have 4 or 5 scenes within the preset: 1. Only verb, 2. Verb and delay. 3. Drive and verb. 4. Drive, verb, and delay. 5. Dry. Simple, and you know what your'e getting with each preset. Flexible without getting crazy. You can tap on/off anything else if you have the need.

Scenes are tremendously addictive. My vote is to try it.
 
I much prefer switching between scenes than presets, due to the seamless transitions. However, if that is not an issue for you, there is one advantage to using separate presets. Meaningful names can be assigned to presets, we currently cannot assign names to scenes. Hopefully, this will be possible at some point down the road.
 
Same routine for me but I also find that I am switching XY states for amps and delays through the scenes more often lately.

jakel said:
Greg, as you know, I play p&w also. What I do is always use 3 scenes. Scene 1 is the basic rhythm sound, whether clean or dirty. Scene 2 is the same type of tone with more gain. Scene three is for solos, with the tone and volume appropriate for the basic tone. That gives me 5 (patches) x 3 (scenes) to choose from during rehearsal (without jumping banks). If I find that I'm jumping all over the place for a certain song, I'll program a patch just for that song. I use the same basic principle, but geared for the song. For example, maybe the chorus part requires a smooth legato type of distorted tone for work high on the neck, but not the volume boost I would normally program into scene 3, and maybe not as much presence so it blends in better behind the vocals.

Basically the idea is to set things up so during the service I have as little pedal dancing as possible. The only drawback is, even with scenes, there are usually short dropouts when I switch. Since no one seems to mind I don't worry about it.
Click to expand...




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Wildwind said:
Christian praise & worship. We cover a range of styles, lots of dynamics, power chords, solos.

My needs are relatively simple. Few effects, not trying to nail particular sounds for the most part. So I'm thinking Scenes may come in handy for some things, but there is otherwise no compelling reason to go there.

Thanks. Anyone else?
Click to expand...

I'm a heavy user of scenes myself..
one thing I would say about scenes [and multi-tone / multi-function presets in general] is that they will give your overall performance that extra coat of polish..

once you start experimenting with scenes, MIDI control and tone-morphing, you find that they can unlock very interesting and unexpected avenues..
they can in fact simplify things from a performance perspective..
 
I play three or four nights a week with several different cover bands, and do a couple of regular duo and trio gigs, including a Jazz brunch on Sundays at a restaurant. None of the bands rehearse, so I've never had to make custom patches for specific songs (meaning I also never get the chance to tweak my patches in a rehearsal room with a band either, which can sometimes be frustrating).

Except for a few specialty, one-off kinds of patches, I have all of my patches set up the same way. They're distinct from one another by genre: "Blues," "Funk," "Country," "80s," "Classic Rock" and "Jazz," plus "Basic 1" and "Basic 2," which are all-around workhorse patches (I choose which one to use based on which guitar I'm playing and how the room sounds).

I have my MFC set to 0 bank size, so that I change patches with my bank switch. I use six scenes per patch:
1. Mild - usually cleanest setting, depending on the patch--on some, it means "closest to a normal tone")
2. Medium - usually crunchy, gain-wise, but can mean something else (see above)
3. Spicy - you get the idea
4. Dry Mod - depending on the patch, something with a combination of effects, but without much reverb or delay. For instance, in my "Funk" patch, the Dry Mod scene is a Mutron filter sound combined with compressor and a lower octave pitch block.
5. Wet Mod - generally a spacey, ballady combination of effects
6. Lead - Gain depends on the patch; it's high-gain for my '80s patch, clean for my Country patch, and in-between for my Blues patch.

The bottom row on my MFC is scenes 1-5 (scene 6, my lead patch, is on the top row, next to the tuner/tempo switch). The rest of the buttons are set up like a pedalboard--Comp, Drive, Phaser, Chorus, Delay, etc.

I also have an external switch set up as a boost, so that I can use anything for a lead sound, if I want to.

General rules:
I try to include unused blocks for every effect that's represented by an IA switch in every patch, so I don't "lose a pedal" from my virtual pedalboard when I change patches.
for my two "Mod" scenes, I usually use effects that aren't represented by the IA switches (most often using X and Y, but when necessary, adding a new block); that way, I get the most tonal mileage out of each scene.

This tends to work for me...
 
unix-guy said:
Are you using X/Y amp settings between the scenes? This is the normal cause for that. You can use two amp blocks instead and should be able to eliminate dropouts.
Click to expand...

Yes, I use amp x/y quite often. I try to avoid two amp blocks because you lose resolution or something (can't remember). Maybe I'll experiment and see if I can tell the difference. Thanks.
 
jakel said:
Yes, I use amp x/y quite often. I try to avoid two amp blocks because you lose resolution or something (can't remember). Maybe I'll experiment and see if I can tell the difference. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Actually, that is not correct... Just put them in parallel and set bypass mode to mute in.

The only real concern is extra CPU load.


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unix-guy said:
Actually, that is not correct... Just put them in parallel and set bypass mode to mute in.

The only real concern is extra CPU load.
Click to expand...

This is from the manual (emphasis mine):

Each Axe-Fx II preset can use two fully independent Amplifier blocks. Presets that use a single amp block run in full resolution, providing the utmost in fidelity and resistance to aliasing. This mode is automatic and is selected whenever there is only one amp block in the layout grid. Adding a second amp block will revert both to normal resolution, where modeling is still of extremely high quality. Note that switching between presets with differing number of amp blocks may introduce an additional delay as a “soft reset” of the amp blocks must be done whenever changing the resolution.
 
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