State of Epicicity
Fractal Fanatic
Update: I finally figured out how to mitigate the harshness this guitar exhibits in the bridge pickup: raise it!
I don't like my pickups high usually. There's something about the softness of the attack with a low pickup that call to me, so that's my go-to setting. But I had the idea just to raise both the bridge and neck Saturday Night Specials I installed to this guitar, and it totally worked! What's funny is it went from me having the I/O Input 1 level at around 90% with the pickups low to 9.8% with the pickups high; that level of difference kind of shocked me.
This makes totally sense to me too, because I would imagine the very idea of a superstrat is to have a hot pickup really close to the strings, and let that high input do the work on a plexi or whatnot. These Saturday Night Specials are not particularly hot compared to what's available these days, but they just sound good no matter where you set your volume and tone pots on your guitar; i.e., they're versatile as f**k.
This occurred to me to try when I was posted about how other people's presets always sound like dogs**t with my setup, and, slow to catch on as I am, it dawned on me that the dullness (that I like to call warmth haha) that I purposely seek in my pickups probably makes my guitar sound unusual, especially since it is built solely for 80s shredding. Well, I love shredders, but I love vintage tones. Anyway, I thought maybe I'd try getting the intended bite, so to speak, of a superstrat on my superstrat, and just see how it sits with me at this point. These pickups are so glorious, I can't see it getting in the way of their versatility.
Right away I started modding the 800 Mod, paradoxically, in front of Factory IR Bank 1, #811, 2x12 Brown Super 57 A, and I am getting this thing to go from raging angry to dirtier clean and beautiful just with the tone knob. For the first time I'm posting my preset in case anyone gives a damn to give it a go.
I feel like a dunce having used EQ to mitigate the harshness for so long, when all I had to do was to recognize that these superstrat guitars are built to be hot. And the other thing is, especially with the Axe FX III, you can make a hot output guitar still get vintage tones. I hope this helps others with my medical condition of playing with vintage blinders on haha.
Edit: I am getting this thing to go from raging angry to dirtier clean and beautiful just with the volume knob on my guitar, not the tone knob.
I don't like my pickups high usually. There's something about the softness of the attack with a low pickup that call to me, so that's my go-to setting. But I had the idea just to raise both the bridge and neck Saturday Night Specials I installed to this guitar, and it totally worked! What's funny is it went from me having the I/O Input 1 level at around 90% with the pickups low to 9.8% with the pickups high; that level of difference kind of shocked me.
This makes totally sense to me too, because I would imagine the very idea of a superstrat is to have a hot pickup really close to the strings, and let that high input do the work on a plexi or whatnot. These Saturday Night Specials are not particularly hot compared to what's available these days, but they just sound good no matter where you set your volume and tone pots on your guitar; i.e., they're versatile as f**k.
This occurred to me to try when I was posted about how other people's presets always sound like dogs**t with my setup, and, slow to catch on as I am, it dawned on me that the dullness (that I like to call warmth haha) that I purposely seek in my pickups probably makes my guitar sound unusual, especially since it is built solely for 80s shredding. Well, I love shredders, but I love vintage tones. Anyway, I thought maybe I'd try getting the intended bite, so to speak, of a superstrat on my superstrat, and just see how it sits with me at this point. These pickups are so glorious, I can't see it getting in the way of their versatility.
Right away I started modding the 800 Mod, paradoxically, in front of Factory IR Bank 1, #811, 2x12 Brown Super 57 A, and I am getting this thing to go from raging angry to dirtier clean and beautiful just with the tone knob. For the first time I'm posting my preset in case anyone gives a damn to give it a go.
I feel like a dunce having used EQ to mitigate the harshness for so long, when all I had to do was to recognize that these superstrat guitars are built to be hot. And the other thing is, especially with the Axe FX III, you can make a hot output guitar still get vintage tones. I hope this helps others with my medical condition of playing with vintage blinders on haha.
Edit: I am getting this thing to go from raging angry to dirtier clean and beautiful just with the volume knob on my guitar, not the tone knob.
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Yeah, I'm totally bare bones. I treat the Axe FX III like it's a pile of amps (ready for modding) in a vast hallway of cabinets; that's it haha. I don't give a s**t about effects, other than drives, which I use sparingly. I once read an interview in which Paul Gilbert talked about using just one tone and his volume knob on his guitar for everything he does, and that really stuck with me, in an obsessive kind of way. I go between creating tones like that, where you're meant to use the volume knob(s) on your guitar extensively, to presets with eight different dry tones (usually two amp blocks with a multiplexer and extensive scene controller usage to have a completely gapless preset). I do love hearing players who use effects well, and I think it's awesome to hear what creative things people do, but for me, I just like the raw sounds. I love this very 70s drum ideal of very dry, very in your face, but still warm (not that the preset I posted was particularly warm haha). For that preset, I just modded the speaker impedance, transformer match, negative feedback, and, hell, I can't remember what else.
