How many scenes you really use? Is 8 overkill?

Billbill

Power User
How many scenes you guys typically use? Some of my custom presets only 2 or 3. The highest is 5 in one of my custom presets. So is 8 overkill? Tell me how you guys use your scenes? I'm wondering if there's a super creative way to use them that i haven't thought of yet.
 
All my presets have at least 5 scenes. A clean, a gritty, a distortion, a lead with a volume boost and an ambient patch. If there is anything special a song calls for I will probably add a 6th scene. Thats on an Ax8 though, if I was setting up my Axe-FX rig I think I would use all 8 scenes and use them to switch delay timing between 1/4 and dot 1/8.
 
So far, I don't use any. I set up my presets like an old school pedalboard. Call up the preset, and then add effects as needed. Personally, I am glad FAS strives to give as much flexibility as possible. Imagine how people would complain if it only had 4 scenes.
 
3, some patches its' clean, chank, chunk... with the aic trib, I use 1 as main tone, 2 would be a effected tone, 3 lead boost with delay. Or in order of tones needed, like on Rooster, 1 is the clean chorused sound, 2 is main tone, then 3 lead. Never felt a need for more than 3.
 
Most is 5
U2 Beautiful Day
S1 Verse: Clean / Delay
S2 Chorus: Dirty
S3 Break: Synth
S4 Breakdown: Spacey
S5 End: Trem
 
I usually set them up with 5:

1. Clean
2. Slightly dirty
3. Crunch
4. Normal lead
5. More distorted lead.

4&5 generally have delay added, while 1,2&3 have only reverb as they're intended for rhythm. 5 is really intended to compensate for the lower output of SC pickups to match the amount of perceived gain of 4 with more powerful pickups.
 
I have some songs where I need all 8 and could even use more. That's because I like to just hit the scene up switch to get the next sound of the song. It's a different kind of usage, but very handy :)
 
So far, I don't use any. I set up my presets like an old school pedalboard. Call up the preset, and then add effects as needed. Personally, I am glad FAS strives to give as much flexibility as possible. Imagine how people would complain if it only had 4 scenes.

Me too. I'd rather use my switches to have access to lots of different amps through multiple presets than one (or two) amps and a bunch of scenes.
 
I wrote about this last year!

See: A Change of Scene(ry)

TLDR: 5, but 1 and 2 are used, live, to setup A/B switching on the fly. And then 3-5 unlock the B-side of a lot of the blocks for extra versatility.

On the AX8 I don't really use scenes at all. Some of my presets have a Scene 1/2 swap button assigned to do the same A/B switching-on-the-fly stuff. But that's it. The long-press button behavior on the AX8 coupled with the smaller presets makes scenes mostly unnecessary for me there.
 
Depends what kind of ground you want to cover. I try to do one preset for each band I'm in with maybe a secondary preset to get certain one-off effects.

I use 5 scenes along the bottom row of the MFC: Rhythm, Dirty, Clean, Lead, then a wildcard for specific song or set. The clean settings usually use the "Y" side of the effect blocks for even more diversity.

Then I have another IA switch situated way off on the bottom corner of my pedalboard that goes to Scene 8 for my piezo sounds. So I can pretty seamlessly switch between electric/acoustic without the worry of switching to an acoustic sound in the heat of the moment due to clumsy feet.
 
Personally, I use all 8 scenes because I like to have dry options with X/y amp choices and x/y drive choices.in scenes 1 through 4 Then I like to use scenes 5 through 8 to have different effects changes with x/y block switching already programmed into each scene under foot. Then I just get my sound with one tap & minimal thinking.

As a second approach to scenes, if I am using them for jamming or performance, I will usually make a copy of a desired preset, re-order the scenes, delete the scenes I don't need and see if I need other variations or repetitions under foot as scenes, so that I can just use scene change up and down buttons or the turn the twisty knob at the front of the unit to get what I need with minimal tap dancing or knob turning.

When building companion preset/cab combos in my "interesting amp pairings" folders in the impulse response Cab Packs I sell, I use the first approach I talked about.
 
I have one preset w/ 5 scenes that's used to cover a number of different songs and their various sounds, while using S1 as the main sound for all of them. There's one preset w/ 4 scenes, and a couple w/ 3 for specific songs. Other than that, my other 10-12 presets either don't use scenes or just have one for the main tone and one for the solo if I want to engage multiple fx at one time.
 
5.
My MFC is labeled
1. Intro (first sound of any song, regardless of clean or dirty)
2. Rhythm/main (in case main rhythm sound is different than intro
3. Lead (fills, heavier crunch sound, various 2nd guitar sounds)
4. Solo
5. Special ( long ping pong delays, outro sounds, all kinds of uses.

I have not found a song I could not cover with this setup. I still have the stompbox buttons if I need or desire some change midstream.
 
4 or 5 at most.. never come close to using 8 on my XL
With the added advantage that they all fit on the bottom row of my MFC :)
 
Hmm some pretty cool ideas goin on in here! I didn't start thinking about how many I actually need until I got my new MFC101 last week and was setting up my IA's. Of course more is always better and I, we, are all greatful for what FAS has to offer with its products.
My biggest issues right now is trying to "refurbish" some newly created custom presets that run 2 amps with the dreaded X/Y switching delay. Trying to use my scenes more effectively with that in mind....
 
Have an MFC so 5 scenes is all I allow myself - have IAs set up for on/offing FX and a level boost as well so it covers most things.

1 or 2 'general' presets can cover a lot of ground live and for weird songs I'll set up individual presets

For clean to dirty songs
S1 Clean(ish) dry
S2 Cleanish + mod + delay
S3 Rhythm/Crunch
S4 Rhythm + Mod + Delay
S5 Leg flapping solo

For dirty to dirtier songs - something similar to above but more grit in the cleans ... well dirt in fact instead of cleans
 
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