Really need help and it should be easy for you.

G

GuitarJunkie

New Member
I have had the FRactal FX III Mk2 for exactly 3 years. Don't judge me, I am serious about the help I need, but the only good sound I was able to get out of it was one Brown Sound I found on the web (Mark Pritchard) but I had to change many things and finally got lucky and made it sounds good. No sound from the original presets sound good, but I love the way it sounds on YouTube, and when I take a preset from somebody it doesn't sound like them. I am at a point where I think my unit has had a problem since the beginning or there is something in the setup that is wrong. I updated it whenever there was an update. I have HS8 Yamaha speakers with the HS8 sub. Sometimes I would use my headset which is an Audio-Technica 50MX. The brown Sound I like is good on the speakers but weird from the headphones. I had to copy the patch I liked (Brown Sound) and tweak many things to make it sound great from my headphones.

I need help because I'm thinking of selling it and going back to amp. I only play at home but used to play lots of clubs for over 20 years. I'm thinking at 20 or 15 watts amps like 5153 or Friedman. By the way, I tried the Neal Shon gift tone that sounds amazing on YouTube and it sounds so bad here.
I have a Gibson CLassic 2015 and an Ibannez RGR5220M.
 
Last edited:
Sounds like your issue is just with the headphones?

My friend had suggested to me trying some open-back headphones and imo those are WAAAAY better for playing through the headphone output of the Axe FX. I've got a pair of Sennheiser HD 560S headphones and imo they sound amazing. Much more multi-dimensional playing experience compared to playing through my closed back Audio Technicas (don't remember the model number but I think they're comparable to yours).

This is an old listing but Sennheiser has a certified refurb store on eBay and you could get them pretty cheap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/374452356483
 
It's probably a combination of your speakers and where they set in your room.
I started with a single HS8 Yamaha and wasn't happy with any presets unless I did a lot of tweeking.
When I got my first powered wedge, most presets now sounded great. That was a Xitone, which quit on me.
I now have an EV powered wedge that sounds great. I have it sitting a few inches from the wall so I increase the bass about 3db to even things out.
 
GuitarJunkie said:
The brown Sound I like is good on the speakers but weird from the headphones. I had to copy the patch I liked (Brown Sound) and tweak many things to make it sound great from my headphones.
Click to expand...
Headphones are great for initially setting up a preset until you need to set the gain or EQ it.

A big part of the sound of a rock guitar is the sound from the speakers hitting the strings and looping back through the pickup into the amp and back to the speakers….

Using headphones, or running at too low of a volume, breaks that acoustic coupling so the preset sounds empty, or weak. Then people turn up the gain and adjust the EQ, and then eventually play with speakers in a situation where the acoustic coupling does happen, and there’s way too much gain and the frequency response is out of whack, with too much bass and/or treble.

Using very flat headphones at a fairly loud volume helps somewhat, but still some tweaking must be done to compensate for the coupling and the added gain and mids caused by it. Having a treated room with good quality studio monitors that you trust is probably the best solution because you can go back and forth.

We keep a quiet house so the majority of my modeler use is with headphones. When I take the rig out I begin adjusting my sound as soon as possible, before I work with the FOH so I don’t have to make changes later. The changes I make get saved and I don’t try to reverse them later.

Some people have duplicate presets for home and stage/recording, some include a GEQ or PEQ block at the end of the layout before the Out block, or use the global EQs for each OUT on the modeler. Experiment and see what feels good for you.

Read “Headphones and In Ear Monitoring (IEM)” in the Wiki, as it talks about the issues and how to deal with them.
 
You need to create your own presets from scratch - matching your gear and your play. At least your basic sound with amp, cab and rev. Effects can be copied to it from patches you buy, but never the amp/cab sound.

It's easy to get your own sound: Just put a looper in front of your patch, play what you play, loop, and then try different amps and cabs. Especially the cab is important too. Use high and low cuts in the cab block.

To make it perfect: Study Yeks amp guide available on this forum for better settings. But most of all: try out, experiment and keep what you like. I never expected to mainly play the four amps I play today, but they just sounded as I liked. I discovered some amps by trial and error, after having tried to build the perfect clone of a given amp for years. Get rid of fixed beliefs and just trust your taste.

The Axe is not a plug n play tool.
 
macky7tyseven said:
You need to create your own presets from scratch - matching your gear and your play. At least your basic sound with amp, cab and rev. Effects can be copied to it from patches you buy, but never the amp/cab sound.

It's easy to get your own sound: Just put a looper in front of your patch, play what you play, loop, and then try different amps and cabs. Especially the cab is important too. Use high and low cuts in the cab block.

To make it perfect: Study Yeks amp guide available on this forum for better settings. But most of all: try out, experiment and keep what you like. I never expected to mainly play the four amps I play today, but they just sounded as I liked. I discovered some amps by trial and error, after having tried to build the perfect clone of a given amp for years. Get rid of fixed beliefs and just trust your taste.

The Axe is not a plug n play tool.
Click to expand...
I disagree-Many, many of the factory presets sound fine-listen to cooper carter. So SOMETHING is wrong. Making his own is NOT going to fix the issue if all the factory presets sound terrible-Your post is misinforming the OP. Never use the amp\cab from a factory or purchased or GOT preset? Uh, nope!
 
macky7tyseven said:
You need to create your own presets from scratch - matching your gear and your play. At least your basic sound with amp, cab and rev. Effects can be copied to it from patches you buy, but never the amp/cab sound.

It's easy to get your own sound: Just put a looper in front of your patch, play what you play, loop, and then try different amps and cabs. Especially the cab is important too. Use high and low cuts in the cab block.

To make it perfect: Study Yeks amp guide available on this forum for better settings. But most of all: try out, experiment and keep what you like. I never expected to mainly play the four amps I play today, but they just sounded as I liked. I discovered some amps by trial and error, after having tried to build the perfect clone of a given amp for years. Get rid of fixed beliefs and just trust your taste.

The Axe is not a plug n play tool.
Click to expand...
The Axe is absolutely plug and play IME lol. There's so many presets I don't even tweak because they just sound good off the bat. Usually presets sound bad because I try to tweak the specifics way too much, if anything. You can absolutely just use an amp and cab block, and get a fantastic sound.

Compared to something like the Helix where almost every preset was unusable because the cab sims were trash. Basically every preset needed adjusted then.
 
On the note of those headphones. I have that pair and I will say i don't care using them for Axe Fx. What you're playing through is half the equation there but you have the Yamaha HS8 which are pretty decent monitors and others have commented using those with good results...
 
these kinds of threads are not easy, because we don't know what you're hearing and what your preferences are. your setup could sound perfectly good to someone else.

have you played a regular amp and cab in the room you're using the Axe, and did it sound ok?
 
Have you tried Burg's Van Halen preset?

https://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=9022

I tried a lot of different headphones that did not sound good with the Axe FXIII.
I ended up using the Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro headphones. They work great with the Axe FXIII.

Your Yamaha HS8's are good speakers and are probably not the problem.

I'd use the Gibson for the brown sound, not the Ibanez guitar.

The biggest problem I have had in the past is choosing the right IR or dialing in the right dynacab settings.
The wrong IR or dynacab settings will make any preset sound terrible, no matter what you play through.
Using the right IR is the key to getting a good sound.

Any preset you get from Youtube (or others in general) will not sound the same for you, unless you are using the same guitar and pickups that the person who made the preset used.

I wouldn't sell the Axe FXIII. It works great with real amps. That's the way Steve Vai uses his.
 
I'm also a believer in creating one's own presets from scratch over trying to chase sounds from YT since your hands / guitar / room will not likely sound like anyone else's. Experiment with amp/cab only to start as mentioned above. IMO the most direct way to match someone else's sample tone is to get the related DI and preset from that person in addition to the sample clip heard, so that the specific tone can 1st be replicated within the users' own setup / rig and taking his/her own hands / guitar out of the equation - once that tone replication is confirmed (and gotten the obsession that there's gotta be something wrong with the modeller instance out of mind), substitute in the user's own hands / guitar and work on getting that tone closer to the reference initially reproduced locally (given guitar and hands differences, sadly, it may not be possible, but because the actual tone can be reproduced with the obtained DI, there can be not doubt (or excuses) as to why).

You could also try posting a DI of your own playing here along with reference tone of what you are looking to replicate, and some one may be able to dial a preset in for you using your DI. Posting the DI is key (imo as or more important than posting the preset), but both, along with a reference target tone is best.

I don't think there's any such thing as "plug and play" beyond ballpark example patches wrt to matching guitar tones across different players in different rooms with different guitars in their hands even when using the same modeller, preset and monitoring - takes effort + method.

Edit: The above is a lesson I learned some time ago here when LT graciously provided a DI to us along with matching preset + sound sample. I keep that and reamp that DI through the preset every once in a while to remind myself that, 1 - yes, my Axefx will def produce that type of sound, and no, my guitar is not the same as his, and no, I will never be able to play like LT, so no, I cannot match that tone, even tho no, there is nothing wrong with my Axfx or my monitoring. It shows me that this type of methodology works at least to get to the bottom of where differences are coming from and hopefuly works to bring a player close to a target tone. Probably not financially viable but I dream of a database of DIs with matching preset and sound samples that can be searched by: Genre/Style, Tuning, Guitar Type, Pickup Type, Pickup Selection, Amp Type, Amp Channel, Cab, Mic.... This would help tremendously in terms of helping modelling users replicate / reproduce tones they are after locally and then try to replicate them with their own hands / guitar - but even with something like that, there are still probably 100s of guitar / hands variables that may not be accounted for that could throw the sound off (strings, pick, electronics, pup position, action, ... ... ...
 
Last edited:
I have exact same monitor and sub setup and Sennheiser HD600 headphones. No complaints.
I use a lot of factory and also aftermarket presets.
The Yamaha monitors can be bass heavy IMO if not placed correctly or setup correctly. Move them away from the wall as they are rear ported and stuff the ports. Make sure your sub is not blending in at too high a frequency and the sound level on it is not too high. Try it without the sub.

Take a look at this thread. Try a lo and hi cut on your CABS in the factory presets.

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...r-live-performance.200541/page-2#post-2502569
A lot of the factory presets can sound a little flubby on low end with humbucker guitars IMO.
Use the amp Lo cut in addition to the CAB EQ.

Austin Buddy is having a sale right now on his LIVE GOLD and NAKED AMP entire preset packs. Pick either one. Both about as good as you can get. If you can't find something in there you like not sure what to say. Maybe the AXE FX3 is just not for you. It happens.
Sell it and try something else.
 
GuitarJunkie said:
I have had the FRactal FX III Mk2 for exactly 3 years. Don't judge me, I am serious about the help I need, but the only good sound I was able to get out of it was one Brown Sound I found on the web (Mark Pritchard) but I had to change many things and finally got lucky and made it sounds good. No sound from the original presets sound good, but I love the way it sounds on YouTube, and when I take a preset from somebody it doesn't sound like them. I am at a point where I think my unit has had a problem since the beginning or there is something in the setup that is wrong. I updated it whenever there was an update. I have HS8 Yamaha speakers with the HS8 sub. Sometimes I would use my headset which is an Audio-Technica 50MX. The brown Sound I like is good on the speakers but weird from the headphones. I had to copy the patch I liked (Brown Sound) and tweak many things to make it sound great from my headphones.

I need help because I'm thinking of selling it and going back to amp. I only play at home but used to play lots of clubs for over 20 years. I'm thinking at 20 or 15 watts amps like 5153 or Friedman. By the way, I tried the Neal Shon gift tone that sounds amazing on YouTube and it sounds so bad here.
I have a Gibson CLassic 2015 and an Ibannez RGR5220M.
Click to expand...
There are quite a few threads on here where someone newly surfaces or joins the forum in desperation while considering alternatives. To the "it should be easy for you" part, therein lies my confusion about many of the threads. Most here don't have a hard time dialing in fantastic tone, and so we scratch our heads thinking about the zillion variables we may be taking for granted. Have you looked through the forum for any of the other similar threads? Pretty much the same questions and suggestions get asked/presented, and it might help you frame your question a little better so folks can actually help? As has already been touched upon, sound samples and patch files are generally required for any serious diagnosis. Good luck!
 
Last edited:
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...le-question-before-i-buy.147682/#post-1745973

2019: you said "I'm ready to buy a FxIII. I have some question to ask. Since I only play in my room and rarely with the band, I would like to know if it's possible to play with earphone? Would it sound ok?"

2023: "Sometimes I would use my headset which is an Audio-Technica 50MX. The brown Sound I like is good on the speakers but weird from the headphones. I had to copy the patch I liked (Brown Sound) and tweak many things to make it sound great from my headphones."

Sounds like the issue you are having is from the headphones and you say you rarely play with a band, so look into using a different EQ curve on the cans. Some headphones are quite revealing, so good playing is rewarded and bad playing is punished more than traditional headphones. There are some issues if you're relying on headphones for monitoring/mixing and why I use Focal 3-way monitors, but that's a longer reply. Good luck.
 
1. Post the preset.

2. Post a sound clip.

Without those two things it is a very frustrating experience. People will (and already have) bent over backwards to help but it quickly becomes pointless without something to work with.

Posting presets is easy and really should always be done in the first post. For the sound clip I use reaper but you could record with a phone if you have to.
 
Wow, thank you for so many good answers. Tomorrow I will post a sound clip. I'm listening to a movie with my girlfriends but just passed by to see.

I'm sure there is something wrong because I love the Axe-Fx when I listen to it on YouTube. Tomorrow I will post a recording. You will see it is not normal I'm pretty sure.

THank you so much.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom