musicman0001
Experienced
Hi All,
This is related to presets and settings that I had for my studio and frfr setup for HOMERECORDING and playing with FRFR speakers to get more Uhmph in mij sound when I worked with my AXE FX 2 setup. After receiving my AXE FX 3 I did not get a nice vibe from the factory presets. Which was strange as so many people were so positive of the sounds etc.. I was so happy with all my sounds I created with the AXE FX 2 MKI that I made to get my tone and sound and in line with specific songs etc...
My Setup:
Komplete Audio 6 (Native instruments)
Adam Audio T7V
Axe FX 3 MK2 Turbo (with FC12) replacing the FX2 MKI
(Spotify and You Tube - Backingtrack or play-along)
Cubase 11
I took away the Headrush for now as I now it's coloring the sound and is bass heavy. The adams are for now my reference speakers. Later I will match the Headrushes with my setup. As I really liked the Umphfff from the headrush. But it's NOT a good reference to start with!!!!
What I noticed very quickly was that my tones and setup was in time set up for my HOME playing guitar in a small room with ears close to studio monitors. And lately (last year) I started to use 2 Headrush 108. But after receiving the AXE FX 3 none of my sounds where OK and also not the factory presets. See my review - click this link -
So I started a different approach and did a full reset of everything and make my setup from scratch with the presets as reference. As the presets where lacking some gain and always sounded very very dark to me. The clean sounds where quite OK, but the breakup sounds and the high gain sounds never really worked as it was really dull and almost no gain. It was really missing gain and uhmp for rythm and I always needed to use booster or pedals to have that extra that was missing.
Besides this I also noticed that I needed to do a lot of tweaking to presets and had problems with phasing. And also the reverb and delay settings were allway's something I needed to fix for every songs and sound.
What did I change :
BUT: now i'm really enjoying the factory presets way way more. And the gain seems to be much better. So now it's a basis for my sounds whioch was never there before from the factory presets.
First findings:
Although I'm not 100% ready as there is still some gainstage difference (But I have only used a strat with humbucker that can also switch single coil).
Maybe I'm now too used to the previous sounds or my guitars are set wrong or not OK to use with a particular the presets
Some thoughs for further expirimenting to see what the gain issue is:
Cheers,
Musicman0001
This is related to presets and settings that I had for my studio and frfr setup for HOMERECORDING and playing with FRFR speakers to get more Uhmph in mij sound when I worked with my AXE FX 2 setup. After receiving my AXE FX 3 I did not get a nice vibe from the factory presets. Which was strange as so many people were so positive of the sounds etc.. I was so happy with all my sounds I created with the AXE FX 2 MKI that I made to get my tone and sound and in line with specific songs etc...
My Setup:
Komplete Audio 6 (Native instruments)
Adam Audio T7V
Axe FX 3 MK2 Turbo (with FC12) replacing the FX2 MKI
(Spotify and You Tube - Backingtrack or play-along)
Cubase 11
I took away the Headrush for now as I now it's coloring the sound and is bass heavy. The adams are for now my reference speakers. Later I will match the Headrushes with my setup. As I really liked the Umphfff from the headrush. But it's NOT a good reference to start with!!!!
What I noticed very quickly was that my tones and setup was in time set up for my HOME playing guitar in a small room with ears close to studio monitors. And lately (last year) I started to use 2 Headrush 108. But after receiving the AXE FX 3 none of my sounds where OK and also not the factory presets. See my review - click this link -
So I started a different approach and did a full reset of everything and make my setup from scratch with the presets as reference. As the presets where lacking some gain and always sounded very very dark to me. The clean sounds where quite OK, but the breakup sounds and the high gain sounds never really worked as it was really dull and almost no gain. It was really missing gain and uhmp for rythm and I always needed to use booster or pedals to have that extra that was missing.
Besides this I also noticed that I needed to do a lot of tweaking to presets and had problems with phasing. And also the reverb and delay settings were allway's something I needed to fix for every songs and sound.
What did I change :
- First of all I changed the output settings of the Adams for more DB's and set the Komplete Audio at noon.
- Have the out1 set to around 2 O'clock and started matching the adams and the guitarsounds to have the factory-presets in line with spotify
- Then I put out1 of the AXE FX 3 to the (line) input of the Komplete Audio and match Db's and sounds for spotify
- I.e I did not find any coloring on the output to the speaker other then some almost not noticable volume change
- Now I have both up and woking and I can choose any setting and still will sound the same
- Komplete Audio has monitor setting: So even though signals are the same for listing to music I still can change settings to have the audio coming out of Komplete Audio (PC driver) and have the volume of the AXE FX controlled by the Volume of the Monitor side of the Komplete audio.
BUT: now i'm really enjoying the factory presets way way more. And the gain seems to be much better. So now it's a basis for my sounds whioch was never there before from the factory presets.
First findings:
- Less tweaking as the Turbo is nice in the mix
- Less phasing issues with reverbs, delay's, but specially EQing and Enhancer Block
- The sounds are more usable in other backing tracks as well (which was never the case before for me with axe fx 2)
- To have things more lined up, there is less Fletcher Munsson (Note: I talk about HOME usage, NOT LIVE usage!)
Although I'm not 100% ready as there is still some gainstage difference (But I have only used a strat with humbucker that can also switch single coil).
Maybe I'm now too used to the previous sounds or my guitars are set wrong or not OK to use with a particular the presets
Some thoughs for further expirimenting to see what the gain issue is:
- +10 DB on the Adam is not OK and other settings can be also not OK (So I will experiment with that) -> AXE FX3 is on -10DBV
- Having some DI's and reference sounds traded with others to see if the HOME studio set up can be improved
- I changed lot's of time also the pickup positions, so I have to see if that changes anything and if gain on the PU's is the cullprit
- I can choose from :
- Les Paul (James Tayler Variax) with PRS PU's
- Blade California with Levinson PU's (Stratocaster)
- Musicman Steve Morse YTD with floyd rose
- Schecter Diamond 7 string
- I can choose from :
- https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/flattening-the-headrush-curve.175796/page-2#post-2200864
- https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/headrush-108-frfr-flat-setting-block-eq.180101/#post-2200015
- Anyone else miss some balls in the factory presets and if NOT: what is your setup?
- Looking forward to any inspiring idea's and tips to improve, but for now it's way better then before.
Cheers,
Musicman0001