Hi guys,
Forgive me for chiming in here, but after reading this entire thread I would like to give you some food for thought if you care to read.
Though everything said here by everyone has merit, the one thing I think that has NOT been said is....you have to know what constitutes a good guitar tone before you can CREATE a good guitar tone.
You can have the most powerful gizmo in the world that can give you everything....and it won't help you one bit if you don't have a clue as to what good tone is. This is where people constantly fail not only with the Axe, but with other amps, pre-amps, VST's and anything else involving tone creation.
The one thing that you will always battle when using presets is...there are so many variables, most of them will not work for you. The guitar used, the monitors the creator used and most importantly, their "tone fingerprint". I'm sure you guys have heard the story of Ted Nugent and Eddie Van Halen? Ted was dying to play through Ed's amp. So when they met and played with each other, Ed plugged into Ted's rig, Ted into Ed's rig. Can you guess what happened? Ted STILL sounded like Ted in Ed's rig and Eddie sounded like Eddie in Ted's rig. So individual "tone fingerprints" are super important.
The other thing with presets.....most of them may not work in a recording situation or in a band situation. It's not that they aren't good tones. The problem is they were eq'd to be "all alone". When I teach my recording students about guitar tones, one of the things we cover is how to literally look at tones. Your "all alone" sound can be whatever you want as long as it's you playing all by yourself. 9 times out of 10, this tone will NOT work in a mix of instruments nor will it work with a band unless a soundman is tweaking it for you. See this is the thing that can be missed as a guitarist and it happens all too often.
Because a person may not know what constitutes a good guitar tone, they go for the thickest, nastiest tone they can come up with. You just about always fail with that mentality. Sad but true. Guitarists like low end push, which is the worst thing you can add to a guitar tone. The first thing a soundman is going to do, is high pass you to remove that blanket of ooooooooosssssssh that is going on behind your sound that you aren't aware of that is also stepping into bass guitar territory. We have to be VERY careful of low end at all times ESPECIALLY with high gain tones.
As soon as you start chugging chords and hear a whoomfing sound or feel the bass push, you're using too much low end....trust me on this. Bass in a guitar tone should be heard more than felt if you like a bassier tone. Stay away from anything under 80 Hz if you can help it and try high-passing in that area or even up to 100 Hz. Me personally, I see no need to have any low end under 100 Hz but I HAVE been successful with slight harmonics in the 80 Hz range. But seriously, high pass that low end away. Start at like 80 Hz and keep high passing going up until you hear the blanket of low end mud leave your tone. Then gradually go back down in frequency to add a little back in just until you have enough so the tone isn't paper thin. Check your chugs and make sure you're not whoomfing and you should notice a huge difference.
With mids, too much mids (when you are going for a thick sound) can get too congested and they can totally bury your tone. Good places (just as starting points for you) to control low mids and mids for guitar are 320 Hz, 640 Hz and 860 Hz. These will give you thickness when used correctly or they can totally mud you up if you use them excessively. Playing with each one will show you how they can affect your tone. They can also be removed a bit to help a tone that is too congested to cut through the mix. So try messing with them to see how the interact with your core sound. The low end and mid range tips I've given here alone can help me get a good tone out of just about anything really.
Highs will always be subjective because our hearing differs from person to person. I personally control highs in my tones from 3k to 6k. At times I've added a little 10k with a tight Q for some air or "sizzle" so to speak. It depends what you're going for. Low passing is also really great for controlling the amount of sizzle you get in your tone. Try low passing starting at 12k and keep going until your tone warms up and is no longer abrasive and harsh/trebly sounding. This is a really good way to fix things fast if you're in a hurry and it can be a permanent fix as well.
Gain is another thing that can kill you. If you are a gain whore, your best friend will be a compressor because it will still allow you to have gain/sustain but it will stop the gain from soundinglikearunonesentencelikethisonehere. LOL! Ever hear a dude with too much gain chug chords? Instead of that distinct "chunk chunk chunk" sound...he gets "yug yug yug" (I'm talking to you in guitar syllable language now...so go back and say those words...lol...notice how "chunk" is brighter and more percussive than "yug"? Get it now?) that is lacking a percussion pick attack. It just sounds like a bunch of gain that doesn't breathe. You know the sound I mean.
So controlling gain is a MUST because it can be the death of you. But with a compressor, it will tighten up the gain and allow the sustain to be there which is a good thing. You don't want the compressor to clamp down too hard or it will give you a pumping sound...but you want it to at least chop off a few dB's of gain if you are a gain whore. The difference without the compressor would be, the gain would just be gain without texture...without the ability to breathe. Those that don't use loads of gain won't have to ever worry about this...but we metal guys have to be concerned because it CAN and WILL make a difference for the better when you get things just right.
As one of the posters in this thread mentioned, the Axe can be as basic or as advanced as you want it to be. Just keep in mind, none of that matters if you don't know what to listen for or don't know how to achieve a good tone. Don't feel embarrassed by that if you happen to fall into that category. My entire life as an engineer and guitar player....has been about learning what to listen for and how to listen for it. Some people are gifted and just know good tones and can create them. Others know good tone when they hear it but don't know how to achieve it. The good news for those people is...we have some pretty awesome multi-tracks available on the net that will give you a VERY good representation as to what your hero's sound like in a studio situation without being mastered.
A lot can be learned from those types of muti-tracks, so search for them. You'll be surprised at how little gain your favorite guitarist may use and how little bass is in their tone....or how little low end is actually in a bass guitar for you recording guys. We simply need to be taught what to listen for and what makes it even more challenging is, once you have the tone you want for recording, you have to try and nail it through your amp/cab! Hahaha! But it should be a good challenge, not something that annoys you. If you do find some of this stuff nerve-wracking to the point of frustration, take a step back and just work on your axe with the stock stuff using the amps, eq stomps and compression.
As for the IR's...I've worked with so many of them, it's crazy. I'm a beta tester for quite a few companies so I have a pretty vast IR library. Though there are some great ones, if you know how to deal with tone, you should be able to come up with something acceptable using any IR you encounter. The key there...you have to know how to get good tones to begin with. I haven't even loaded up any of my special IR's into my Axe yet because I'm completely happy with the ones that came with it as well as the IR's I have created myself. I'm totally content other than I really wish the Axe had a 12AX7 pre tube.
Anyway, sorry to be so long-winded but my hope is that those of you that may be having problems may take a few steps back, forget all the high tech stuff the Axe can do, and just work on tone identification as well as how to achieve good tone. When you know what to listen for and how to listen for it, everything you are struggling with now goes away. One of the coolest things we have in the Axe is that tone matching feature. It can really teach you what is and what is not in a tone as far as eq goes. For some of the tones I've matched, it was a rude awakening for me as well. Some tones are terrible by themselves, but put them in a tune with other instruments, and magic happens. Unfortunately that's how it goes in this field...and it's also why we have automation. LOL!
Merry Christmas everyone...and best of luck.
