incoming Axe III - best practice

Chewie5150

Chewie5150

Fractal Fanatic
My Axe III is out for delivery today! while I am very excited and anxious to get into the new unit, I am also feelin a bit overwhelmed with the idea of starting over. I have all my great presets , many of them the packs I bought from Fremen. I got wondering what the common approach was here in terms of transitioning from the II to the III?

Just start from scratch? buy new 3rd party presets? connect my Axe II at same time and recreate my fav /go-to 20 presets on the Axe III

What have you guys found effective?
 
Chewie5150 said:
My Axe III is out for delivery today! while I am very excited and anxious to get into the new unit, I am also feelin a bit overwhelmed with the idea of starting over. I have all my great presets , many of them the packs I bought from Fremen. I got wondering what the common approach was here in terms of transitioning from the II to the III?

Just start from scratch? buy new 3rd party presets? connect my Axe II at same time and recreate my fav /go-to 20 presets on the Axe III

What have you guys found effective?
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well, all I have to say is that I was in the same boat as you. The axe 3 is somehow different than the 2. I transferred my favourite presets from the two to the 3, but found them not working. The axe 3 is simply on a new level and sounds much more “alive”. It even took me some getting used to. I’d say get some of the presetsthat are available from the site. Leon has great free presets and Burg recently shared a great dumble preset. I bought a bunch of Fremen packs straight away too. Now I am in the process of reading the manual, watching videos on youtube about “how to” and working my way through the factory presets. Some presets make you want to play for hours,so it will take sometime.
enjoy!

Harm
 
Fortunately I'm very comfortable with the II so not like I'm starting from ground zero though I know there are a lot of new features in the III. I have been watching Leon's Youtube channel for sometime. Great vids for sure. The new USB routing in FW 15.0 is huge! also looking forward to larger preset capacity as when i had my JP15 piezo presets with two signal chains going, I was maxing out fast.
 
Backup then load FW 15.*!

I also recommend getting to know the III on its own terms. The factory presets are a start (there's a lot of them), but starting with an empty preset with AMP -> CAB (and maybe a little reverb) and simply scrolling through amp models will show you the range and richness. You'll probably get stuck on many different amps for hours.
 
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Biggest usage differences from the II to the III are the IN and OUT blocks, Cab block, USB I/O, and the FC Controllers.

On the II, the IN and OUT blocks are automatically part of every preset. On the III, you have to manually place the IN and OUT blocks that correspond to the jacks that you are using. There's more I/O on the III, so you have 4 IN and Out blocks each to pick from. The II used the FX Loop block to allow connection to input and output 2. On the III, there is no FX loop block and you use separate additional IN and OUT blocks instead.

The Cab block also got a pretty drastic overhaul in the III, so you can mix up to 4 cabs per cab block.

USB I/O is completely overhauled too. You have 8 in, 8 out via USB on the III compared to 4 in, 2 out on the II.

The FC Controllers setup is completely different from the MFC-101. All FC config is handled on the Axe III, not the FC itself. The MFC-101 was a stand alone MIDI controller, so it had its own configuration and setup.
 
I came from the AX8 to the Axe III and I basically started over. I really didn't find it that much of a challenge adapting to the new parameters and tweaks to the workflow (FC Controller). If you have a lot of presets starting over may be more of a challenge. Maybe check with the vendors and see if they have any 'upgrade' options from the Axe II presets to the Axe III. I'm leery of converting presets, seems like a few users have issues arise when using them, especially if there are modifiers.

Before purchasing any new preset packs, I'd suggest going through the free ones offered as mentioned as well as auditioning the factory presets. While some are similar to the Axe II/AX8, they do sound quite different and there are some new ones specific to the Axe III.
 
When I went from the II to the III I tried converting my presets with Fractool, but it didn't take me long to decide I was better off starting from scratch. For one, many of my presets were built before I had much knowledge about things like parallel vs. serial routing, and also the amps and effects in the III just sound better so I was better off revisiting everything. In a lot of cases I used different amps/cabs/effects than I was using on the II. Also, since I was migrating from the MFC-101 to the FC-6, I had to re-think my whole live playing approach. With the II, I often took a stompbox approach for adding/bypassing effects, but with the III I use scenes to do that instead. Having 4 channels for almost everything instead of just X and Y opened up a ton of new possibilities, too. There were cases where I was using a drive to change an amp's tone, and I found I preferred just creating a new channel of the same amp, but driving the amp itself harder instead. The end result is that I do less tap dancing at gigs, and make fewer mistakes when hitting switches. Overall, it just made sense to me to just bite the bullet and start over. I'm very glad I did.
 
I got everything setup. Axe edit 3 installed, updated to FW 15.0 quickly went through the global settings. Dialed in the 5153red and holy mother of holy god! I wanted to post my first initial impressions as i was just playing through the II yesterday. I think what I noticed more than anything are the effects. They sound and feel next level and I know thats not my brain telling my ears what I want to hear. Secondly, it takes me only a minute or two to dial a great tone. Stock settings on blocks get me 95% there. I don't think I'll be deep diving anymore; perhaps just the odd snorkel excursion. Thirdly, the amps sound and feel so much more alive. Maybe that's my brain jerkin me off but I'm positive there's some magic juju happening here. Thats me playing around for 30 minutes. Visceral reaction. Well done @FractalAudio . You have won this round once again. Also first preset I imported was the Eddie patch from @ProgressiveRocco. I'm pretty sure its just gonna be this preset for the next 2 hours. Grinning from ear to ear. Next big presets I will be trying out will be the Petrucci Mimiq (cooper Carter?) that i was reading about few weeks ago.

I'm a believer. again. always was , but again.
 
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Chewie5150 said:
I got everything setup. Axe edit 3 installed, updated to FW 15.0 quickly went through the global settings. Dialed in the 5153red and holy mother of holy god! I wanted to post my first initial impressions as i was just playing through the II yesterday. I think what I noticed more than anything are the effects. They sound and feel next level and I know thats not my brain telling my ears what I want to hear. Secondly, it takes me only a minute or two to dial a great tone. Stock settings on blocks get me 95% there. I don't think I'll be deep diving anymore; perhaps just the odd snorkel excursion. Thirdly, the amps sound and feel so much more alive. Maybe that's my brain jerkin me off but I'm positive there's some magic juju happening here. Thats me playing around for 30 minutes. Visceral reaction. Well done @FractalAudio . You have won this round once again. Also first preset I imported was the Eddie patch from @ProgressiveRocco. I'm pretty sure its just gonna be this preset for the next 2 hours. Grinning from ear to ear. Next big presets I will be trying out will be the Petrucci Mimiq (cooper Carter?) that i was reading about few weeks ago.

I'm a believer. again. always was , but again.
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I came from owning a II for like 5 or 6 years to the III and it is really on a different level. And FW 15 is unbelievably good, so very dynamic, thump, tone and feel. Very alive. I tried translating the II presets I had but that didn't really work as well as rebuilding them in the III. I just used the same parameters from the II (basic, not advanced) to input into the blocks on the III and that worked well. What I've found is that you don't need to change advanced parameters, just the basics to sculpt tone. BMTP and depth, in/out EQ, saturation settings, gain enhancer, and not much more. Have fun!
 
Start with the knowledge you already have, but don't try to bring your presets over. Rebuild them. You already know what amps you like, the factory cabs are all there and any you purchased can be imported to the III. You won't need to tweak as much either as you can live on the authentic page and get great sounds 99% of the time.

Channels was the biggest game changer from the II to the III for me. Especially with the improvements to the switching times. The drives, while always good in the III's lifetime are also pretty amazing now too.
 
One thing you might try is to migrate via FracTool to at least keep your layout and signal flow, but plan to rework things - especially the Amp and Drive blocks, but also other blocks that have had a reworking like Phaser, etc.

When I got my Axe Fx III there was no way to convert and I think Axe-Edit wasn't even there yet, so it was all manual entry ;)
 
Quick question for anyone who is connecting Axe III to powered monitors like CLR's (what I have) I understand Output 1/2 on the Axe default to -10dbu. Should i adjust this to +4dbu on the output connecting to my CLR's? (connected via XLR)

also, I have Output 1 from Axe > apollo x6 interface (connected via XLR (axe) - TRS (apollo). Perhaps leave at -10dbu here?
 
Peromustejn said:
I came from Kemperland where buying commercial profiles is a must. On the axe is surprisingly easy to create good sounds. Don't worry. Read the manual and watch some Leon Todd videos and you will be rocking in no time.
Welcome aboard.
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Same here. Much easier to get great tone quickly compared to the Kemper.

I would advise to start making simple presets and, enjoy the amazing amp models and build on from there.
 
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