I was like you in that setting this thing up is so time consuming that sometimes you almost want to go back to an amp just so that you can turn two knobs and you are forced to live with it.
ALMOST. But cooler heads prevail as once it is setup and find you like it, it is indispensable.
Comically, for me, I at first tried to do WAY too much tweaking. I fucked with everything that you could. In the end, it was too complicated and sounded like shit.
I had to learn to simplify the approach. So I turned to using as few presets as possible, and making what is in front of me in a single preset quickly and highly customizable.
Unless a song needs a very specific sound, I therefore use only a few presets and use scenes 1-4 and combinations of X/Y of two amps to vary the scenes.
Basically, I'll setup a patch for a sound/song type, like blues rock, metal, folk, etc.
For each patch, I'll set up my "goto" sound for scene 1 (MFC button 1). In scenes 2 and 3, I'll have a clean(er) tone and a more saturated tone.
For scene 4, it is the "lead tone" for that preset, which has a boost and in some cases a more driven sound/set of effects.
Where scene 5 would be on the bottom (button 5) of the MFC, I put a boost (I use PEQ2 to do it) that can be hit for any tone I'm in at the time to solo.
So, the character of the drive and sound is on the bottom five buttons with the exception of the drive "pedal", which I can use to further change the sound.
I also have a PEQ I use to change the tonal character of each scene if it just isn't fitting right, which is generally a mid-range tweak depending on the preset.
I will use two amps and X/Y both of those as necessary to get the variance and sound for each tone in each scene, but I don't mess with this stuff live...that is the scene's job!
The MFC is setup to do all IA. About the only tweak I need to perfect the approach is external control of the drive level, although I fear I may be tweaking it too much again.
I find that I can get nearly anything I need pretty close for a live situation quickly without having to page through a ton of presets.
I do not like when the presets stomp's on/off stay "modded", so I turn that off. I if want something's on/off state to stick, I'll save it that way on the fly.
All of this stuff is highly personal preferences for sure. For me, I'd rather tweak what I can see and get comfortable with a few patches and how they can sound vs.
trying to remember fifty patches. Even when they are setup for a certain song, which button is that funky tone with the tremolo? I used to get pretty confused.
Keep everything the same across patches if at all possible. i.e. most folks need an X/Y on the delay, so make your longer delay Y always, and your shorter delay X always.
I say make a few patches and make them versatile and get really comfortable with those unless a song needs something truly unique. Even then, make that song a variation
of a patch you are comfortable with so that your world doesn't change dramatically on stage. With scenes and X/Y and multiple amps/cabs/delays/effects, you do A TON of
variation within a single preset.
That is my vote.
