Seeking Advice - Redesigning My MFC-101 - Pedal Board Needs

[Warrior]

Hey Folks,

I’ve gotten caught up in trying to get the most out of what my Axe-FX has to offer instead of tailoring it to fit my true needs.

On one hand, the Axe-FX, and it’s awesome capabilities, has created a monster that has become inspired to delve into and explore so much more just because I can.

On the other hand, this has caused me to lose sight and focus on the task that’s just ahead of me and, as a result, I get lost in my rabbit hole and go nowhere.

That being said, I’m sidelining 2 of my expression pedals that were sitting there while I tried to invent ways to use them.

Not that there aren’t a million ways to do so – just not for me right now.

I now have:

Pedal 1 dedicated as a Wah

Pedal 2 dedicated as anything else I need it to be – most likely use will be mix control for delay, but…..

I realize the sensible response would start with…. “Your set-up will be defined by what your needs are”.

I don’t have an album for release & I’m not in a band at the moment doing specific sets so there’s no “specific need” defining my set-up other than making it a kind of universal set-up.

Think of a rig that Joe Bonamassa, Robin Trower and Eddie Van Halen combined together might have. Sprinkle in some George Lynch too. In all honesty, I'm really trying to get back to my roots which is blues rock/blues at it's core and I think I need to set some boundaries or I will forever be lost in the rabbit hole.

I am looking for advice on:

Question #1 - How to set up my pedal board for a more minimalist approach where I can switch from one amp to another without affecting the effect/drive blocks that happen to be on at that time.

If I’m correct, that would mean not using “Scenes” and instead using an IA as an “Amp X/Y” switch, correct?

Of course, I can use scenes when I want to jump to something specific.

Question #2 – I have 4 external switches that I set up for selecting scenes 1-4. I am assuming (based on #1) that scenes would not be an intregal part of my configuration and I’m trying to determine how I can best use these valuable resources.

If they had LED’s in them, that would be a no brainer.

Any ideas?

I appreciate any input you can provide.

 

[Tahoebrian5]

I'm in the same boat, planning to revamp my mfc button setup. The problem is if I get too complicated I forget what is where so I'm thinking of getting an external switch setup for 4 or 5 scenes which are my main sounds, then use the Mfc buttons for individual IA's. My thought is if my main scenes are on a seperate external piece, than there is less to look at and easier to remember which button to push in the heat of the moment.

 

[Warrior]

Not a bad way of thinking about it but if you have say "Scene 1" as your crunch tone, "Scene 2" as your lead tone and "Scene 3" as your clean tone, then you are still committing to not having a certain effect/drive block on (potentially) when you switch blocks.

If I am using a "phaser" & "delay" in a crunch tone during an improvisation and want to switch to a clean tone but leave the "phase & delay" on, a scene most likely wouldn't work unless I had one set up for that very scenario - which is not practical unless if done on the fly.