Purchased Patches

but it can be rendered irrelevant in this context: If I listen to Marco Fanton's unpostproduced lossless sample clip for patch X thru my ABC monitors/room, then I play guitar using the exact same patch X thru my ABC monitors/room @ same Axefx global settings, and wonder why I don't sound like Marco, there is only one answer possible: hands/guitar - regardless of whather my monitors are good/bad calibrated or not.
yes thats another dimension to it. what i meant was having a closer to what you hear in mix is very important, need not be completely flat but should be kinda close. to what it sounds when recorded and heard on a variety of good speakers/headphones, without skewing the sound extremely like how certain people always complain having a blanket on the sound and then make extensive cutsfor it to soundgood.
 
Paid presets are one of the biggest scams available for purchase to us musicians in the modern era.

Okay, now that I've got you upset, angry, or otherwise riled up and emotionally invested in my post due to my unrestrained hyperbole, here's what I mean: Of course they're not actually a "scam," but in a way they are - only, the one fooling you is yourself, thinking you can cut out the time and expertise required for a tone that you are personally satisfied with, electrified by, and emotionally connected with.

As others have mentioned, you can learn a lot from the way someone builds a preset, so paid presets aren't a complete waste. But unless they built it using your ears, your fingers, your guitar, and your playback system, it's not going to sound the same and, were they in your shoes and heard & felt what you're hearing and feeling, they likely would have tweaked things differently.

The long of the short of it is that you just need to learn to make your own presets. Don't expect perfection right off the bat; scroll through the factory presets (Fractal being the ONLY company who has actually useful presets) and find something that gets close and hone it from there.

Source: someone who's spent hundreds of $$ on paid presets in the past and doesn't use a single one - pure or altered - in my live set of almost 200 cover songs or dozens of personal songs.
 
Paid presets can be a huge time saver if you're wanting to cop the vibe of a particular song. I'm still using modified versions of paid presets too many years on now that I can't even put a number on it. Having someone with an incredible ear dial in the effects for a particular song is huge for someone who might spend days trying to do it without any luck. There are some preset makers who's presets are unusable for ME, but other gush about them, they're obviously not junk. IF you want either a short cut or a learning tool, you have to be willing to try different peoples presets and see if they work for YOU. @ProgressiveRocco and @Moke translate beautifully for ME. @yek and @Burgs provide amazing presets for free that work great for ME. I've learned too many tricks to mention from @2112 .
 
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I'm mostly disappointed with downloaded presets as well but I know why. 1) I played through headphones and they don't. 2)Their presets are made to be used in a band or with backing tracks and I do neither. They do make great "get you in the ballpark" starting points though.
 
Every industry has its share of sketchy companies and individuals, but a couple of folks name checked in this thread - @fremen and @austinbuddy specifically - aren't them. I don't buy presets but hanging around here makes it obvious that those guys put in hard work to create quality products that many serious guitar players like. I think the pejorative language towards them to be inappropriate and counter to the spirit of this discussion.

Even if you don't instantly get the sound you want with someone else's preset:

1) Working with someone else's preset can give you a new angle on how to approach certain types of sounds
2) Examining a complex, well-built preset can teach some folks (like me) cool ways to use the AFs grid block
3) Sometimes you can use them as launching points for sounds you never thought of

Or, I don't know, maybe they sound bad because you suck. If you bring her home, put on Barry White, and still can't seal the deal, it ain't Barry's fault.
 
I get the idea of buying presets, and there are a lot of sounds that I would just buy a preset for if I wanted them for some reason.....anything gilmour-y, anything that fits into prayer & worship...but I don't see myself using them.

But, as for my core sound....not so much. I listened to a handful of factory sounds, got sick of it, and started with the first empty preset slot...and built it up basically the way I would build up a traditional rig. It's still going through tweaks and probably will for quite a while. But, I'm very happy with it.

I might be a terrible guitarist, and I'm probably doing things dumb ways. But, nobody can build a setup that sounds like me the same way I can.

If I can figure out how backing up all the things works, I'm probably going to blank it's memory and just have my presets. But, it's not a priority. They're not hurting anything just sitting there.
 
I get the idea of buying presets, and there are a lot of sounds that I would just buy a preset for if I wanted them for some reason.....anything gilmour-y, anything that fits into prayer & worship...but I don't see myself using them.

But, as for my core sound....not so much. I listened to a handful of factory sounds, got sick of it, and started with the first empty preset slot...and built it up basically the way I would build up a traditional rig. It's still going through tweaks and probably will for quite a while. But, I'm very happy with it.

I might be a terrible guitarist, and I'm probably doing things dumb ways. But, nobody can build a setup that sounds like me the same way I can.

If I can figure out how backing up all the things works, I'm probably going to blank it's memory and just have my presets. But, it's not a priority. They're not hurting anything just sitting there.


FractalBot- Export all settings and presets. Super simple.
 
Patches that you buy are mostly not going to sound the same through your rig with you playing . They shouldn't be sold IMO they are not fit for the purpose . The ONLY way they would work is if whoever was programming it came to your rig and programmed it with you playing. If someone tried to sell you the settings of EVH's Marshall on VH 1 telling you that "this IS the tone" you would rightly tell them to go away and this is even less likely to sound as intended.
 
I'm sure that someone has already pointed this out, but I haven't read the entire thread ....

My success on using patches of others directly depends on the difference in my monitors compared to whoever built the patch initially !

F.ex. .... I don't have any problems w/ Leon's ( @2112 ) presets ! I'm guessing that it's because my monitors are ( at least ) in the same ballpark as his ( I think he primarily uses Adam A7X's ? ) ....

So ..., my advice would be to see if you can find out what monitoring system was used in the preset construction ? Then try to determine how similar, or different your own monitoring system will be ?

GOOD LUCK !
 
Here's another one that translated very well to my playback system .... I don't know exactly what @ProgressiveRocco monitors with ( ? ) ..., but it wouldn't surprise me if it's Adam A7X's ( or something very similar ?

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/dokken-back-for-the-attack-tone-w-patch.178899/

I didn't use the exact same IR ..., and I have a PAF style pickup in my main guitar ( so I had to increase the gain to match the JB in his guitar ).

Other than that the character of the preset is right there !
 
Paid presets are one of the biggest scams available for purchase to us musicians in the modern era.

Okay, now that I've got you upset, angry, or otherwise riled up and emotionally invested in my post due to my unrestrained hyperbole, here's what I mean: Of course they're not actually a "scam," but in a way they are - only, the one fooling you is yourself, thinking you can cut out the time and expertise required for a tone that you are personally satisfied with, electrified by, and emotionally connected with.

As others have mentioned, you can learn a lot from the way someone builds a preset, so paid presets aren't a complete waste. But unless they built it using your ears, your fingers, your guitar, and your playback system, it's not going to sound the same and, were they in your shoes and heard & felt what you're hearing and feeling, they likely would have tweaked things differently.

The long of the short of it is that you just need to learn to make your own presets. Don't expect perfection right off the bat; scroll through the factory presets (Fractal being the ONLY company who has actually useful presets) and find something that gets close and hone it from there.

Source: someone who's spent hundreds of $$ on paid presets in the past and doesn't use a single one - pure or altered - in my live set of almost 200 cover songs or dozens of personal songs.

Haha! Truth. :)

But we live in an era where some want all the work done for them. Not like we need to
have any skill or knowledge ourselves. Just Goggle it. Presto!

Then, when the "answer" someone didn't work for is not their answer, they can go on
the Internetz and flame post about it. Trash!!! ;)
 
OP, the fact that so many people have jumped in here to try to help you despite the fact that you badmouthed some of the most respected members here, just goes to show how polite and tolerant most of the people on this forum are.
...The ONLY way they would work for me is if whoever was programming it came to your my rig and programmed it with you me playing...
Fixed that for you. Based on the amount of positive feedback many of the preset sellers get on their work, I'd say your original statement is misguided, if not patently incorrect.
 
As the main defender for over a decadeof the "factory Presets". I look at some of the PAID presets the same way. If they are well done and thought out, you can tweak them to fit your rig\fingers\etc, etc.
On e thing left out of this conversation is, we, being the folks on this forum, I believe are ALL using pretty much the same product as our base hardware, be it II, FM9, FM3, A8, etc, etc. So i really is NOT that far fetched that you may be able to tweak paid prtests to yourr liking and style.
That said, ATM, I am NOT using any paid presets even though I havebought them in the past and not that long either. So, who is to say?
 
I don’t know, I sure have enjoyed some of the presets I’ve tried from Mark Day, Rocco, Leon, Burgs, and Fremen……just sayin’. :blush:
Yes I let them talk, with all the good feedbacks I had about my work I m not sure that’s not possible to do things that works good everywhere . again a few days ago …
I agree you need probably a quick set up with the gate or the gain ? But if they are well done … when you test your presets with 10 guitars, flat monitors … people got less surprises . Many people are happy with commercials presets . If it was not the case I didn’t spent so much time doing them …..
again a few days ago …
532D47DB-6276-4905-8355-2663A347F666.jpeg
 
FractalBot- Export all settings and presets. Super simple.
I did see that but couldn't figure it out from poking at it. But, that's normal for me...I get complex things relatively easily and have problems with any software made to be easy. I'll RTFM at some point.

Haha! Truth. :)

But we live in an era where some want all the work done for them. Not like we need to
have any skill or knowledge ourselves. Just Goggle it. Presto!

Then, when the "answer" someone didn't work for is not their answer, they can go on
the Internetz and flame post about it. Trash!!! ;)

To be fair, once you have some critical level of requisite domain specific knowledge, it's amazing what you can figure out and then speak intelligently about from a few minutes of research. IOW, if you have the big picture, it's often quick to fill in details.
 
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