Patch sellers that post here often seem to be pretty active as forum members and help with advice etc (i.e. I'm reminded of Moke's great tip on preserving input impedance by moving blocks further down the chain up/down a row to be in line of sight of the input block). Not sure anyone get's rich or can make a living doing these patches (I suspect it can be a labour of love given a lot of the sellers redo previously sold patches for customers after a big fw drops).
Thanks Mr Mud/NPK for the Marshall sample (see
post above) - sounds good. So as an example of how a 3rd party patch can be useful even if you tend to do your own, I'll use this one:
- Out of the box it sounded good with SG Standard monitored thru Yamaha HS8s - good for me means: not too dark / I could hear+feel the sizzle which I like and the balance of sizzle/growl/oomph was even on the distorted scenes. The clean scene is bright which I also like.
- The advanced settings were pretty stock to reset values on the amp block but, on the distorted scene it makes use of the cut parameter on the ideal page which makes the overall tone a tad brighter with my guitar - I have tended to push treble/presence to add brightness but may start using the cut switch more as I like what it does here in comparison.
- The drive (808) is a good choice to get an 80s Marshall into hi-gain - the drive/amp tone in the hi-gain scene sounds like one amalgamated hi-gain tone which is great, as opposed to the sound of a gainy amp tone with a boost in front if that makes sense - getting that consistency has also been a struggle for me at times dialing in my own.
- The cab block has a rear capture mixed in - I've generally shy'd away from using these as I don't know what I'm doing with them but here it seems to help with keeping the warmth that may get a little scarce for those that like a sizzlier top end on higher gain patches.
So, as has been my experience with other 3rd party presets I've bought/received, using them enough to understand their construction can often provide some good ideas going forward with tweaking on my own. I've not bought a whole lot of patches but have a couple of packs and feel that I have gotten my $ worth in this way.
Edit- re fx - this one seemed to be focused on the amp sound so I ignored the fx other than comp/drive/eq. For fx patches, I'd like to see more sellers building patches the that showcase typical fx that modeller users may tend to struggle with emulating (ie specific flanger flavours (evh comes to mind like used a lot on Fair Warning), rotary (ie Frampton mid gain with rotary), delays (the edge) ...).