That ‘why make it so complicated’ moment

G

GraemeD

Member
I’ve had my FM9 for a month now, with all the big ideas for the next gig and what I dreamed about doing. Preset for each song, using the setlist and sounding awesome. With people saying, ‘Wow! That sound in incredible!’ after the show.

Time ticking down for the first gig using it and tried to run through the set…
Using a mixture of headphones (giving me more treble in my ears) and a single monitor (to pretend its a guitar amp) placed in the corner of the room to limit little hands mucking around with it.

Levels were not as consistent as I though, sounds not sounding what I had in my head.

With the gig tomorrow night, I decided to create a preset. Cooper Carters masterclass giving me those gems of information that I should have thought of.

Less than 20 minutes went by, cranked my monitor, told the kids, ‘Take a listen to this!’. One approved and the other continued lying face down on the floor for no reason.

I am even more excited to use this preset. It was everything I’ve been wanted to get soundwise and translated between my Strat and LTD Phoenix with active pickups.

The process of trying to create a preset for every song gave me an opportunity to find a good process creating presets from the ground up.

Sorry for the rambles to nowhere but I just wanted to share a month of learning and not doing things right resulted in a preset that I will gig tomorrow night instead of 32 different ones.

It may be a different story tomorrow.
 
"Preset per song" is still a good approach for some goals, like a set tempo per song, or call up notes on a table through MIDI, or having dedicated scene titles.

But it must be manageable and therefore requires (IMHO) the use of "global blocks", which are supposed on the Axe-Fx only, alas.
 
I do a bunch of research and experimenting at home trying to create the perfect tone for the songs and then when I go play with the band I mostly end up using my basic clean breakup sound, one dirt sound, and one lead sound that's just +2 dB dirt scene with a delay on. Of course I have a few more special sounds for specific songs but that's also just different effects on same basic preset.
 
yek said:
"Preset per song" is still a good approach for some goals, like a set tempo per song, or call up notes on a table through MIDI, or having dedicated scene titles.

But it must be manageable and therefore requires (IMHO) the use of "global blocks", which are supposed on the Axe-Fx only, alas.
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I still have the plan to do a preset per song but think my inexperience using the FM9 really stood out with the time I actually had.
Last modelling device I had was the blue Boss ME-50 which doesn’t come close.
 
kvik said:
I do a bunch of research and experimenting at home trying to create the perfect tone for the songs and then when I go play with the band I mostly end up using my basic clean breakup sound, one dirt sound, and one lead sound that's just +2 dB dirt scene with a delay on. Of course I have a few more special sounds for specific songs but that's also just different effects on same basic preset.
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We haven’t been able to have a rehearsal together because of the other members doing things so this is going to be to interesting.
Was thinking about trying in ear monitoring but it might be too many firsts in one go
 
A word of caution...

Putting a loudspeaker in a corner is a recipe for a very boomy speaker. If you dial in your tone to make that boomy speaker sound good, you might find that you've taken out so much low end that there's not enough of it when you get to the non-boomy venue.
 
When setting levels for each preset, I use the level meters in the OUT BLOCK, but……I always play the same chord for each preset, for example an “A” chord when setting levels in presets and scenes. Do not play the song the preset is made for. Worst thing you can do for setting levels for a gig.
 
GraemeD said:
We haven’t been able to have a rehearsal together because of the other members doing things so this is going to be to interesting.
Was thinking about trying in ear monitoring but it might be too many firsts in one go
Click to expand...

Definitely take it incrementally, and don't go too crazy just because you have the capability to. I use my FM9 most of the time with my own "dad band," and run maybe five presets to cover the 40 or so songs we do. And even at that, I'm running the same cab in all of them, and mostly the same amp to varying degrees of gain. It makes things much easier to find a core sound that blends well with everyone else (I'm playing with a second guitarist and keyboards).
 
Thank you for all your information.

Sound check done and the audio engineer and band love what I’ve brought to the table. 40 minute and it’s showtime!
 
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Master of Nothing said:
When setting levels for each preset, I use the level meters in the OUT BLOCK, but……I always play the same chord for each preset, for example an “A” chord when setting levels in presets and scenes. Do not play the song the preset is made for. Worst thing you can do for setting levels for a gig.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I could see this holding 💯 true for rhythm, but for songs that I predominately have single note lead lines, I absolutely have to use the context of the song parts to level - big open chords on those would explode and cause me to drop it so low the line would get lost in the mix. To each his own =)
 
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GraemeD said:
this preset. It was everything I’ve been wanted to get soundwise and translated between my Strat and LTD Phoenix with active pickups.

The process of trying to create a preset for every song gave me an opportunity to find a good process creating presets from the ground up.
Click to expand...
I'm more the one who uses a preset for the entire show. ;)
 
shmaque said:
Interesting. I could see this holding 💯 true for rhythm, but for songs that I predominately have single note lead lines, I absolutely have to use the context of the song parts to level - big open chords on those would explode and cause me to drop it so low the line would get lost in the mix. To each his own =)
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This. Context is important. I want to level my lead tone a few dB hotter than my rhythm tone.
 
So… another update here.

Gig tomorrow and I’m going by the setlist/song list and think I’m fairly happy with the sounds and levels.

Used the single preset and copied it to the songs and had some tweaking to do.

It will be a first for IEMs. Think it will be better for my ears. Keep the level fairly low. The drummer and I are the only ones not using them, until tomorrow.

So far the only downside to not having an amp on stage, I don’t have a solid surface to put anything.
 
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