If I upgrade to FW 9.01, how will I replicate my high X-Former Grind setting?

raymitchell

Member
I wanna ugrade to 9.01 but, I tend to go for VERY upfront, very 'ear to the grillcloth' types of tones. Recently, and thanks to a much appreciated tip from Cliff, I've been cranking the X-Former Grind up quite a bit to get my sound to be much more present and WAY more defined pick attack-wise. I see that in 9.01 X-Former Grind has been removed in favor of the new Speaker Comp control which, I'm sure is wonderful in its own right for lots of tones but, I'm not trying to create 'warm, creamy, EVH/Petrucci/insert famous player here types of tones. I literally want my main heavy sound to bite my head off (in a musical/not box of bees way).

How am I gonna get there if I ugrade to 9.01?

P.S. I'm sure I'd love the new Speaker Comp parameter with cleans and leads and mild breakup tones, but X-Former Grind being cranked literally saved me with most every high gain crunch sound.

Thoughts?
 
I had the same issues, and for the first time ever highly considered reverting back to 8.01..
So far I have re-programed 45 presets with 9.01 and to replace all my heavy settings on Xformer Grind, I did a few things...
It's not going to be the same as Xformer Grind however, and it will be a bit more complicated.. But you can at least bring back some of that bacon sizzle of the missing Xformer Grind..

Here's what I did:
I added Dynamic Presence (as needed) this brings back some of the crispy bacon sizzle highs, but it's not as nice as the Grind was.. I also adjusted and boosted the Xformer High Frequency, and decreased Xformer match...
These things all helped "simulate" the tone I once got from Xformer Grind, but they still aren't the same as Xformer Grind..

I don't understand why Xformer Grind was removed, but I will mourn it greatly. :sob:
 
@FractalAudio - any advice or guidance on my X-Former Grind worries? It really makes a tremendous difference for me when cranked up quite a bit and really brings out bite, liveliness, and overall aggression. X-Former Grind does things that eq and IR selection alone can't do. For me it is like the difference between listening to a cab/speaker off axis vs. kneeling in front of the cab and listening to it straight on.

I'd like (LOVE!) to update to 9.01 but, not at the expense of losing X-Former Grind. For me, it's the secret sauce for a highly aggressive guitar sound.

I've never had trouble getting great clean or mild breakup tones with the Axe Fx. My struggle from day one with the Axe Fx has always been in getting really heavy/aggressive tones (the tones I need the most) and X-Former Grind saved the deal for me.

How can I get there if I upgrade to 9.01? Is it even possible? Am I just frozen out of updates due to my dependency on X-Former Grind?

Thanks for any help or guidance,
Ray
 
Back
Top Bottom