laxu
Fractal Fanatic
If you find multiple preset packs to lack "chug" or "balls" then the issue most likely is not the presets but your own setup. Room issues, output system used, not playing loud enough are common reasons why people have less than stellar experiences with modelers.I found Austin Buddy's Naked Amps pack to be a waste as well. I'm done buying patches. They all lack that "chug" or "balls" for lack of a better term. To me they sound like crappy practice amps and get harsh when volume is remotely high.
I'm honestly overwhelmed by the # of Amps and Cabs which is why I started buying packs. I know very little about cabs since I went from owning combo amps to the Axe. Is there a way to narrow down the IR list so I'm not scrolling through thousands of cabs?
If you are coming from combos then your point of reference is most likely cabs blaring at your knees. Your knees have very bad hearing so a lot of that high end you would hear if you had your ears at the speaker level would be lost. So now you have fullrange monitors on your desk, at ear level, reproducing the sound of a miced cab and then wonder why they sound so much brighter.
For picking cabs, it's a lot of personal preference involved and the best way is to just try thing out. You don't need to try every possible mic but just try a few to get an idea of the cab flavor. For the tones you seek you can probably exclusively stick to the 4x12 cabs.
The ones with a 313 mic are often a great starting point where just that single IR will sound pretty nice. Otherwise try building a combination of two IRs where you have two different mics, maybe even different cabs. My go-to is a 57 + 160. The SM57 provides high end detail and the M160 fills in the sound, making it beefier. Add a bit of low cut to 80-100 Hz to reduce muddy frequencies and adjust high cut to taste. For an experience more like hearing a cab on the floor, try putting high cut somewhere in the 5-7 KHz range and experiment with the slope values.
With digital modelers the cab sim setup is extremely important and you will probably spend more time messing with that compared to messing with the amp settings.