Fractal AX8 bank per song, preset for intro, verse, chorus, bridge, solo

J

Joost

New Member
Hi all,

I'm new to the world of modelers and multi-effects, as I have been a pedal dancer for the past 20 years. I've tried a couple of multi-effects, including the Line6 M13, Ibanez Pue5 tube, Boss GT-10. As I didn't find them much intuitive and/or good sounding, I quickly went back to stompboxes every time, but the increasing weight and pedal dancing is starting to play parts.

Recently, I was able to shortly try-out the Headrush Pedalboard and Line6 Helix. I don't want to burn them down, but after spending 2 nights each, I found that the sounds of each were not exactly what I would want (Helix better that Headrush to my ears though…) Also, being unexperienced, I didn't have enough time to figure out if these units can do what I would want them to do. I then read some things about the AX-8. From what I have heard so far, the unit sounds better than the Helix still. For it to be interesting to me, and justifying the investment, I am looking for the following features. I would really be obliged to more experienced users who would be able to clarify these things to me. For convenience sake, I have made a list of features that are important to me. I am playing 3 coverbands at the moment, with differing and quickly changing setlists and flexibility and intuitivety (is that a word?) are very important to me.

- using a bank per song (1 bank = 1 song), which is subdivided by patches, which will be allocated per song part (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, solo)
- being able to quickly adjust the order of banks (songs), because a setlist may change night per night
- be able to save banks (songs) in a folder on computer, so that each song needs to be programmed once; that songs could be 'parked' at a computer, so that I can take them whenever the band will play that song again.
- easy setup of songs per computer, so that quickly changing setlists can be followed with ease of use and new songs can be programmed easily
- setting unity volume per song eaily so that songs have same volume per default and not have default volume differences preset per preset
- be able to more or less plug and play at venues, using either an amp (or 2) or go to the front of house directly
- having a database of user presets that can be shared, so that one might look for the presets of a song, rather than everyone figuring it out on ther own.

Also, how many banks and presets per bank does the AX-8 have?

To state once more, I have little experience with programming units, and I don't particularly like to. I like to approach a modeler from the song, and be able to quickly and intuitively dial in the right tones and get to the playing part of the songs. I would be really helped with your expertise on this unit. I am oblivious… Thanks!
 
I think what you want is the scene function per song. Each song could be a preset.

You really don’t want to switch presets in a bank as it can have some dropouts. Works sometimes, but scenes are typically better way to go. They are designed for on the fly changes from verse to chorus etc, with less tap dancing as you can change a lot of parameters at once
 
Thank you for that!

I suppose the way I call things may even be off... What I meant was having 5 buttons per song that can be designated intro, verse, chorus, solo and bridge. A new song would be a new 5 buttons and so forth
 
You can have 8 scenes within a preset, and a scene can do things like turn certain effects on/off, change between two amp channels (x/y), change parameter values with scene controllers etc. You can have the 8 scenes with one per switch, so you'd likely want each song to be its own preset, and then the scenes can do things like kick in a boost and delay and chorus for a solo etc, with one press of a button changing lots of things.

Then you can hit one of the F buttons on the right (sold my Ax8 a while ago, forget which) and it can switch to preset mode, where you can have a bank of 8 presets, you select the one you want, say for the next song, and then you can switch back to scenes, to control those on the fly changes in each song

Forum member Chris has a great website called Axe-Fx Tutorials and his videos can give you a good idea of how scenes etc work. One of those things that is a lot easier to show in a video than it is to describe in words, but I think most users use the Ax8 exactly the way you want.
 
Thanks again, that makes stuff clearer. I will have a look at that website for sure. So for example sake, let's say I have a song that would require the following:

intro: Mesa rectifier with delay
verse: Fender clean with reverb
Chorus: Plexi with reverb and delay
Bridge: Mesa with tremolo and reverb
Solo: Plexi with EQ, delay, reverb and boost

Could I set that separate scenes within a preset? Also, could you please comment on the other issues I raised? Thanks again!
 
Hi Schmokes, I cannot, it may not exist. I am trying to find out what the boundaries are. Thanks for pointing out that a max of 2 amps may be used per song as I intend to use it. Is there a maximum amount of effects I may assign or can this be done at mind's will?
 
You may want to consider an Axe II, or a III.. The II can run dual amp blocks, so each block can have x/y. The III can run dual amp blocks as well, but each block can have 4 channels, with each channel being a different amp, so you can have 8 unique amps per preset, with the ability to have 2 of those amp combinations running at once. You can also boost the amp with various OD's etc, and use scene controllers to change parameters like input drive etc, which also can give a good bit of tonal variation.

Ax8 works for most applications, but if for some reason you really want a near infinite number of effects, amps etc, the III may be the way to go. It has like 4 instances of the drive block and each drive block has 4 channels, so that is 16 different on the fly drive pedal you can put in front of an amp, per preset. Dual reverb blocks, multiple delays, sky is the limit really


That said, as others have mentioned, I don't know how likely it is to really need 5 different amp models per song. Don't really know anyone who does that. Sometimes guys might use a few different amps per show, but 5 different amps per song ?? That seems a bit overkill and I can't see that really making a huge benefit. Sometimes less is maybe more
 
Hey lqdsnddist, Thanks for your replies! As I understand it, the Axe II and III are more expensive than the AX-8. I'm not saying that a max of 2 amps per song is a deal breaker, don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to find out what the possibilities -and limits- are. It was just hypothetically, as I also cannot name a song that would use 4 amps.

how do you guys feel about the ease of use with the AX-8? And how about flexibility? Let's say I have a gig tomorrow night where I play around 40 songs (so 40 scenes) and Wednesday I have a gig with another band, playing 30 different songs. Could I easily 'park' the 40 songs on my laptop, programme the 30 songs and simply upload the 40 songs back to the AX-8?

Also, let's say I play the same 40 songs again next weekend, but in a different order, would it be easy at all to swap the 'setlist'?
 
Just save your presets into a designated folder on computer and upload via AX8 Edit as required.

As for scenes, using the above video from Smittefar as a starting basis, you can setup many presets and scenes, X/Y switch for different amp, lead boost, clean scene, crunch scene, etc. Lots of possibilities.
 
First of all, play around a bit and see how things work.
Everyone has different needs and desires, AND the AX8 is quite flexible.

I have tried and “used live” a variety of options with the AX8.
I usually don’t need 4 amps for anything, so that’s a non-issue.
It’s easy enough to change presets within a bank, so that’s how I solve the need for different amps.
Each bank has 8 presets and each preset has 8 scenes...pretty awesome.

The only issue I’ve had is when attempting to use TOO MANY effects within one preset.
Again, solved easily with using the 8 available presets within a bank...

There are PLENTY of banks, even if you were to use a whole bank PER SONG. Of course that’s providing you don’t have more than 48 songs in your show...which I don’t know any band that’s does 48 tunes in one show, that’s a lot of songs.

SO, you have a serious amount of versatility and many options for set-up.
Best of luck, have a great time...the AX8 is super easy to set-up and use at shows as well.
 
Schmokes said:
I think we are nearing “can but probably shouldn’t” territory with this thread. You can officially create 512 presets, each with 8 scenes. So you could probably create individual song presets for each of your gigs without having to swap them out between gigs.

But.

Running more than 3 or 4 different amps/cabs during the gig can be a real pain for a soundguy. And if you run your own sound from the stage, forget it entirely. You might sit perfectly in the mix with one, but may need drastic volume or eq changes on the next. I won’t use more than one amp in a song, and try to keep the same iR for the whole gig. If I need a song that has clean and dirty, i’ll use an amp that can handle both and supplement with a drive.

I think instead of researching which unit can handle hundreds of different presets for each of your various songs, your time would be better spent figuring out how you can handle all of your songs only using a handful of presets.
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I agree. The amount of work to get 40 or even 20 different presets to sit in the mix live (especially if you use more than 4 amp models total) would be a ton of work. If you are up for it, I say do your thing. You'll need a cooperative band to play along while you are setting the mix. As a real practical way to get one for each song I really like the approach @Smittefar showed above, basically using a few presets that are already set up in a mix and making adjustments to create "new" per song presets. Gives you one per song but avoids a lot of the pitfalls.
 
I am not advocating anything specifically, the OP was asking about options, versatility and what "CAN" be done.
Regardless, the AX8 can do a bunch.
As was mentioned, ALWAYS "level" your presets, no matter how many or what use use...the VU meters in the AX8 can work well for that. Austin Buddy also has great info on gain staging and volume/noise ratio as well.
No sound man will want to continuously adjust your slider because your levels aren't even, yet it's easy enough to do before you get to any gig.

There's plenty of videos on Youtube as well, if you are so inclined.
Have a great time.
 
I work just now in a band where the three female singers change the song multiple times in the middle of a medley. Basically I need a setup where I could switch between just any song within seconds, so having a set of pre-defined songs would not work for me. Suspect I'm not the only one with this dilemma.
 
GtarLover said:
I am not advocating anything specifically, the OP was asking about options, versatility and what "CAN" be done.
Regardless, the AX8 can do a bunch.
As was mentioned, ALWAYS "level" your presets, no matter how many or what use use...the VU meters in the AX8 can work well for that. Austin Buddy also has great info on gain staging and volume/noise ratio as well.
No sound man will want to continuously adjust your slider because your levels aren't even, yet it's easy enough to do before you get to any gig.

There's plenty of videos on Youtube as well, if you are so inclined.
Have a great time.
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hi, theres a way to level all patches and ecenes at the same time?..or just one by one?tnxs
 
Carlos Richards said:
hi, theres a way to level all patches and ecenes at the same time?..or just one by one?tnxs
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No. There is no way to change the level of multiple patches all at once by different amounts. If you think about it, how could that even work?
 
The only gripe I would have is that it's nice to use a high gain stack for solos and the rest with a clean amp, just now the only way to get to this is to use a distortion model that mimics high-gain stacks.
 
I love using a variety of amps and the on the amps instead of pedals. But what is often overlooked is using the AX8 with a slightly past breakup amp and using pedals for high gain structure. The AV8 does this very well. Most new AX8 users are probably coming from an analog setup like this anyway so the transition is easy. I did the opposite and now I am coming back to where I am using drive pedals for gain again.
 
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