How many presets do you really use live?

How many presets do you really use live?

  • 1

    Votes: 4 3.1%

  • 2-5

    Votes: 45 35.2%

  • 6-15

    Votes: 53 41.4%

  • 16-40

    Votes: 17 13.3%

  • 41+

    Votes: 9 7.0%
  • Total voters
    128
M

mickmay

New Member
Ok, so I am new to the AxeFX and still finding my bearings with it.

I've set my self up with 3 banks of 5 patches, but I find that at a gig, I keep going back to the same 5 or 6 patches. I think it's more of a comfort thing at this stage (and plus I really like the same 6 that I keep going to).

Anyway, I'm going to have to sit down and play with the thing in a bit more depth, but I still can't see myself using more than 15 or so patches. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing - to be honest, that's probably 14-15 better sounds than I was playing with before.

I know the Axe and the MFC are capable of holding hundreds of presets, accessing things in banks of songs etc, but I wonder how many people have actually gone to the trouble to set all of that stuff up?

So I thought I would throw the question out there - how many presets to you really use live?

NB "Presets" means presets - don't count every change you make by adding or subtracting effects using IA switches on a foot controller.

Also, I'm talking about playing live here - I appreciate that in the studio you might be free to play around with a few more patches
 
It really, *really*, depends on the gig. On some, I can get through with one preset and turning different effects on/off and adding various levels of gain. On others, I need to be switching up every song; just depends. I rarely use more than 10 so I went with your 6-15 range for any given gig. Over the range of stuff I need, I have about 40 presets I have at hand and lean heavily on about a dozen of them with any regular basis.
 
I play in 2 different bands (one making Jazz-Fusion and the other more Rock Blues), plus sometime I jump in to substitute a buddy that plays with a cover band, so I'm more around 40, but most of them are because of the last one....
 
I am currently using 15 presets live (3 banks of 5). But for 90% of our tunes, I use the 1st bank of 5 presets. The other 2 banks (10 presets) are for songs that have a very specialized sound or tone.

So with the FCB1010, I have another 16 banks of 5 that are not even being used.
 
I have 2 main presets I use for the majority of my band's stuff. I also have a few more I use for some of the more interesting effects in our music whether it's atmospheric or heavy delays or something like that.
 
I answered 2-5. I use sounds patches primarily, with a third on occasion. I just set up my primary patches to have single effect options. Basically the same patch but the single effect (delay, chorus, flange) is replaced. I went to a very simple footswitch option. 1 IA switch. So, actually I use a lot more patches but they all sound the same.
 
I haven't gigged with mine yet. Just got an MFC this week. Plan on five with lots of IAs, and probably a few more for one-off sounds. I hope I don't have to remember 40 presets. Too old to keep up with that many.
 
Thanks for the replies guys - this is actually really interesting, I was expecting most people to be in the 16-40 or beyond range.

Solo-act, I'm curious as to how you switch between all of those - do you rearrange them in order of your sets every gig or do you just leave them in the same location all the time? If you're using the MFC, what bank size do you use?
 
Mine are based on which guitar I'm using.. Generally I use a les paul and during a gig there are 5 presets I will use (2 primary, 3 for various flavors). If I bring a strat or a tele or an acoustic there are 1-3 presets for each of those guitars. So if I'm switching between a les paul and a strat I may use 5-8 presets during a gig.
Generally every type of guitar has it's own set of presets for live use, just as you would adjust any amp for a specific guitar.
 
Sorry, one other thing, I'm interested in how people set up their banks. Currently I'm using 3 banks of 5 split into sound types - ie one bank of 5 clean presets, one bank of 5 crunchy presets and one bank of 5 high gain. But I'm starting to wonder whether I should just do it so that the main 5 sounds I'm using are in one bank and the others are spread over the other two banks - i just cant think of a logical way to organize the other 10 sounds at this stage. Anyway, whatever it takes to reduce the tap dancing! :)
 
I have five at the moment - a wet clean, a trem clean, high-gain rhythm, high-gain lead with delay and then the same with chorus on top.

I have to do some tweaking, I need to start using the top half of my MidiMate as stompboxes so I can have a couple of extra sounds available. All I need to get through a metal gig, though.
 
mickmay said:
Sorry, one other thing, I'm interested in how people set up their banks. Currently I'm using 3 banks of 5 split into sound types - ie one bank of 5 clean presets, one bank of 5 crunchy presets and one bank of 5 high gain. But I'm starting to wonder whether I should just do it so that the main 5 sounds I'm using are in one bank and the others are spread over the other two banks - i just cant think of a logical way to organize the other 10 sounds at this stage. Anyway, whatever it takes to reduce the tap dancing! :)
Click to expand...
I go from Clean -> Dirty in each bank. I also have them organized based on song (I haven't got into song mode on MFC yet) so I don't have to change banks within a song or when switching from clean to lead and back. We have about 100+ songs in our list, ranging from Pop, R&B to Blues and Country, so I have quite a few presets.

Given that I also do backing vox on most songs, I want the minimum amount of switching. I DO plan to make use of the song/set mode capabilities of the MFC - once I find some time to dive into it. Should make all that bank switching obsolete :)
 
I'm in two bands and I program a separate preset for every song including those which are encores/backups for the main set. This means lots - easily over 40. I program each bank of my MFC with one preset in it, so to change songs I just need to bank up (one click) on the controller.
 
I think it can depend on what kind of music and band setup you're playing in. If a cover band is set up to sound original - or at least different from song to song - you'll probably need a number of presets.

Plus, using IA's can change the number of presets you need dramatically. I don't have them with my FCB so I'm having two different presets whereas someone using stomp box mode on the FCB (or IA's on any other board) will just use the same patch and add the desired effect.

Whatever you like best and is the easiest to use live.
 
I am playing in an 80's rock cover band (Ratt, Scorpions, Quiet Riot, etc), so I have been able to get most of the tones I need in one bank of patches on the FCB1010. I have a couple different hot-rodded Marshall patches (one based on the JMP1, the other on a JCM800), a crunchy Plexi tone, a clean patch, then one I play around with - currently a Brown patch. I have some others, but prefer to keep the bank jumping to a minimum.
 
About 20. But I lose track because "presets" I use tend to be one preset called up different ways depending on the patch in my All Access. But yea, off the top of my head: there are about 20 patches on the AxeFx I'll touch in an evening of Duran Duran covers.
 
I use 28 presets currently, but depending on new covers, that can change. I have 10 standards that i use for "distortion", "clean" "clean chorus" etc. And then specific ones for certain songs, such as "Octave lead", "violin", and specific delay times needed that are prominent in the song (U2, Dave mathews)

i do banks of 5.
Clean, Clean Lead, Dirty, Dirty Lead, Dirty Lead 2. WIth the Lead 2 having more gain than just dirty lead. So, from cleanest to dirtiest across the bottom. On my GC Pro, i only had 4 across, so for dirty Lead 2 i had to hit an IA to add more gain.
 
Maybe I don't use the Axe as efficiently as possible, but I tend to use between 2 and 5 presets per song. We play all originals, and I'll often go clean to dirty, verse to chorus, so that's two patches. Often the 2nd verse will be effected differently than the first verse, so that's another patch. Maybe another for a bridge or outro or something. There are a few songs I use the same 3 or 4 presets for, but in the end, I'm probably using close to 30 presets at a given gig.
 
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