Manny Fufish
Power User
Going through the Fractal presets as well as my own and testing out the new Dynamics and Motor Drive features made me realize this is a good exercise for those who are brand new and haven't worked with the Axe FX much or maybe haven't worked on building tones at all. If this sounds like you, follow along and get your feet wet with a couple of simple parameters. Players are all different, Guitars are different, Amps are different, styles of music are different, and ears are different too, so you probably want to get used to building your own tones for your own guitars, amps, and style of music anyway.
To keep this very introductory we are only going to talk about two of the new parameters but they are great additions, and worth being very comfortable with. These two parameters are the Amp blocks 'Dynamics' and the Cab blocks 'Motor Drive'.
First you will want to set your guitar input level correctly. Click I/O on the front of the AxeFX and adjust the 'Instr In' value until strumming all of the strings hard just starts to touch the red lights.
Now click the 'Recall' button on the AxeFX and bring up a Preset that has an amp you really enjoy playing through, maybe A23 the Freidman BE preset. If you are working on a more complex preset, turn off any blocks in front of the amp or anything that will significantly change the tone of the amp. If you're new just follow along with one of the first 42 that showcase the amps.
Just click the 'X' button and you will be brought right into the Amp Editor for that preset (easy huh). With the Type value selected, turn the large 'Value' knob one click to change to the next amp and then change back again to your original amp. This resets the amps values to that of the new firmware. Now hit the 'Page Right' button until you get to the 'Dyn' page. Use the right arrow in the 'Nav' section to select the 'Dynamics' value and we are ready to make our adjustment for this amp.
The key to making changes to presets or building your own tones in general is knowing what to listen for when you are adjusting these values. This can vary depending on what you are trying to accomplish, but just to put a stake in the ground, we are going to increase the Dynamics value until we loose the definition between the notes when arpeggiating a chord (ie playing the notes of the chord one at a time). If you picked the Freidman BE preset, think along the lines of 'Aint talkin bout love' by VH. You can add the flanger later ;-). If you picked a clean amp, think any Pink Floyd tune that arpeggiates chords, 'Hey You' is a nice one, mid-gain 'Sweet Home Alabama', etc...
The Dynamics value should be defaulted to 25% so slowly pick through the notes of some 'cowboy chords' or standard major or minor chords played at the end of the neck. Set it to zero and see what it sounds like when you bypass the effect... Then run it fairly high, like 3 o'clock, and see what it introduces so you have a feel for the setting. Go back to the initial 25%. Increase the Dynamics by 5 or 10% and try again. Continue this process until you feel the definition between the notes is getting lost and it's turning into too much of a wash for what you're trying to do. 'Ain't Talkin Bout Love' is more forgiving then 'Sweet Home Alabama' which is more forgiving then 'Hey You'... Your guitar, pickup volume, and tolerance will make this differ significantly as well, but I typically like this between the initial 25% and somewhere around 50% (I play a lot of 80s high gain amps with 80s 'super-strat' type guitars) but others have reported they prefer this dimed at 100% so let your ears be the judge as to what you think sounds best. Again, guitar and amp will factor in heavily and you may go higher or lower and that's perfectly OK.
Once you have Dynamics set the way you like it for this preset, click the 'Layout' button and then use the right arrow in the 'Nav' section to move over to the Cab block. Once you have the Cab block selected click the 'Edit' button to edit the Cab parameters. Use the 'Page Right' arrow to navigate to the 'Mix' page and this time we are going to adjust the 'Motor Drive' value. This value will default at 0.25 which is just enough to enable the feature but we need more
.
Once again with the 'Motor Drive' value selected we are going to use the large 'Value' knob to increase by small increments. I tend to use the 'clock' reference, so I would say I like this set between 9 o'clock and noon. What we are listening for this time is the bass notes to lose their definition or go flubby. At one point it just won't have that same bottom end and you will hear it when it happens. If you chose an amp like a Fender Twin you will notice you start with a big bell base tone and you don't want to lose that, if you chose a Recto Orange you will start with a booming bass tone you don't want to lose either. If you 'got djent' you will want to mute the bass strings while you play your best riffs and make sure everything chugs like you need it to and you will back off just before you lose it. Again, amp choice, your guitar, your pickups, your 'drop b' tuning, and playing style will all impact when this bass notes fall apart for you, but I like 9 o'clock to noon myself and sometimes I certainly go past that depending on what I'm playing, that's just my sweet spot.
Once you have found your sweet spot for this as well you can be real proud of yourself because we are done. If you want to save your work click the 'Store' button and you will be prompted with the location to save this preset. If you want to save over top of the existing, just click 'Enter'.
See 'easy peasy' there's nothing to it, so go out there and experiment with other settings. It's all in what you're listening for and different people will tell you different things. These simple examples were just a way to get your feet wet and we used one reference property that these values effect. I hope this was valuable to you and I hope you will go on to try adjusting other parameters one at a time and see what sounds good to your ears. Then post your presets on the forum so we can all enjoy!
Hope it helps,
Manny
To keep this very introductory we are only going to talk about two of the new parameters but they are great additions, and worth being very comfortable with. These two parameters are the Amp blocks 'Dynamics' and the Cab blocks 'Motor Drive'.
First you will want to set your guitar input level correctly. Click I/O on the front of the AxeFX and adjust the 'Instr In' value until strumming all of the strings hard just starts to touch the red lights.
Now click the 'Recall' button on the AxeFX and bring up a Preset that has an amp you really enjoy playing through, maybe A23 the Freidman BE preset. If you are working on a more complex preset, turn off any blocks in front of the amp or anything that will significantly change the tone of the amp. If you're new just follow along with one of the first 42 that showcase the amps.
Just click the 'X' button and you will be brought right into the Amp Editor for that preset (easy huh). With the Type value selected, turn the large 'Value' knob one click to change to the next amp and then change back again to your original amp. This resets the amps values to that of the new firmware. Now hit the 'Page Right' button until you get to the 'Dyn' page. Use the right arrow in the 'Nav' section to select the 'Dynamics' value and we are ready to make our adjustment for this amp.
The key to making changes to presets or building your own tones in general is knowing what to listen for when you are adjusting these values. This can vary depending on what you are trying to accomplish, but just to put a stake in the ground, we are going to increase the Dynamics value until we loose the definition between the notes when arpeggiating a chord (ie playing the notes of the chord one at a time). If you picked the Freidman BE preset, think along the lines of 'Aint talkin bout love' by VH. You can add the flanger later ;-). If you picked a clean amp, think any Pink Floyd tune that arpeggiates chords, 'Hey You' is a nice one, mid-gain 'Sweet Home Alabama', etc...
The Dynamics value should be defaulted to 25% so slowly pick through the notes of some 'cowboy chords' or standard major or minor chords played at the end of the neck. Set it to zero and see what it sounds like when you bypass the effect... Then run it fairly high, like 3 o'clock, and see what it introduces so you have a feel for the setting. Go back to the initial 25%. Increase the Dynamics by 5 or 10% and try again. Continue this process until you feel the definition between the notes is getting lost and it's turning into too much of a wash for what you're trying to do. 'Ain't Talkin Bout Love' is more forgiving then 'Sweet Home Alabama' which is more forgiving then 'Hey You'... Your guitar, pickup volume, and tolerance will make this differ significantly as well, but I typically like this between the initial 25% and somewhere around 50% (I play a lot of 80s high gain amps with 80s 'super-strat' type guitars) but others have reported they prefer this dimed at 100% so let your ears be the judge as to what you think sounds best. Again, guitar and amp will factor in heavily and you may go higher or lower and that's perfectly OK.
Once you have Dynamics set the way you like it for this preset, click the 'Layout' button and then use the right arrow in the 'Nav' section to move over to the Cab block. Once you have the Cab block selected click the 'Edit' button to edit the Cab parameters. Use the 'Page Right' arrow to navigate to the 'Mix' page and this time we are going to adjust the 'Motor Drive' value. This value will default at 0.25 which is just enough to enable the feature but we need more
.Once again with the 'Motor Drive' value selected we are going to use the large 'Value' knob to increase by small increments. I tend to use the 'clock' reference, so I would say I like this set between 9 o'clock and noon. What we are listening for this time is the bass notes to lose their definition or go flubby. At one point it just won't have that same bottom end and you will hear it when it happens. If you chose an amp like a Fender Twin you will notice you start with a big bell base tone and you don't want to lose that, if you chose a Recto Orange you will start with a booming bass tone you don't want to lose either. If you 'got djent' you will want to mute the bass strings while you play your best riffs and make sure everything chugs like you need it to and you will back off just before you lose it. Again, amp choice, your guitar, your pickups, your 'drop b' tuning
, and playing style will all impact when this bass notes fall apart for you, but I like 9 o'clock to noon myself and sometimes I certainly go past that depending on what I'm playing, that's just my sweet spot.Once you have found your sweet spot for this as well you can be real proud of yourself because we are done.
If you want to save your work click the 'Store' button and you will be prompted with the location to save this preset. If you want to save over top of the existing, just click 'Enter'.See 'easy peasy' there's nothing to it, so go out there and experiment with other settings. It's all in what you're listening for and different people will tell you different things. These simple examples were just a way to get your feet wet and we used one reference property that these values effect. I hope this was valuable to you and I hope you will go on to try adjusting other parameters one at a time and see what sounds good to your ears. Then post your presets on the forum so we can all enjoy!
Hope it helps,
Manny
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