What advice would you give me as I will get my Axe-Fx III in a few days?

David777

David777

Member
Hopefully my FX III will arrive this week. I am super stoked to try it out. I actually have gigs on the calendar and hope to use it on 3 gigs in early February.

That being said, here is my profile in a nut shell...
  • I've been playing guitar, lap steel, fiddle, and keys over 50 years. At times did music full time, playing thousands of gigs. Wrote a jazz guitar book that was used at Berklee for awhile. etc.
  • I'm much better at playing my instruments than I am at turning knobs on electronics
  • I'm the kind of guy who will read the entire 114 page manual and make notes - and then likely use the factory pre-sets
As the FX III is a major investment for me, I want to really utilize it's capabilities - mostly for live gigs and for recording (directly into my computer - I'm using a Fireface UC directly into Logic). A lot of my live gigs are solo guitar, and/or solo lap steel. Other gigs (pre-COVID and hopefully post-COVID) are will full bands.

Do you have any advice for me as to where I should begin in exploring the capabilities of the AXE III? I'll probably start out trying out the myriad of pre-sets.

But I'm really curious about the best way to....
  1. Create your own settings
  2. Find and use patches created by others
  3. Saving my top 10 settings so that I can get to them quickly. Guess I'll need a foot controller to change settings mid-song. Which controller?
  4. Best way to connect to computer for recording (I have a Fireface UC & Logic). Should I connect XLRs into the Fireface? USB?
  5. For gigs with full bands, I'm thinking I'd go out the Axe III in stereo straight into the board via a couple direct boxes, and also run out in stereo to a couple Bose SP1's that I'd use for monitors. Going direct into the board I don't trust the sound men in some of the venues I play to get my volume up in my monitor to where I can hear myself.
  6. For my solo gigs I use a couple big Mackie powered monitors with Bose SP1's for monitors. How big of a difference will it make to replace the Mackie's with FRFR speakers?
Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice you can give an old relic like me who has spent more time turning tuning keys vs. turning knobs on electronic processors!

David
 
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I would rely on the Axe Edit interface to tweak parameters and make presets. It's easier and more intuitive IMO versus using the front panel of the Axe III. There are also lots of Youtube videos from the experts on the Axe III. The Axe Edit software will also connect you to the Axe-Change where you can download presets that other folks have made.
You'll connect the Axe via USB to your computer to use Axe Edit and direct record straight to your DAW software. You won't need direct boxes for connecting to the board when you play live. You have multiple outputs that can be configured in a number of different ways to do what you're looking for.
 
For a foot controller, since they are built for the Axe, I would definitely go with a Fractal FC-6 or 12, depending how much room you will have on the floor.

If you dig the sound of your Mackies and they get loud enough for you, stick with them. If you need more volume, you could step up to a pair of CLRs or Xitones for that, as they are two popular choices, around here anyway.
 
If you want to get up and running quickly I'd suggest browsing the factory presets and then tweaking from there as necessary. That will save you time since you won't have to sift through IRs or amp models to get off the starting line.

I suspect that you have a general preference on the type of amps you like since you've been playing for many years. If you want to build a preset from the ground up (which I do suggest as the best long-term solution) then start with an amp that is similar to what you have experience with.
 
There’s so many options available to craft sound with the AXEIII, but just reading the manual reduces all the guessing and the second guessing. It’s always better to know if an option exists and what that option actually does, over guessing how best to utilize options, or not knowing that options exist.

I might have tossed the thing in the trash if I hadn’t read the manual, myself. Insane amount of options. I don‘t have the mentality to mess around too much in guessing what something might or might not do, and the manual puts everything into focus enough to get a good sound very quickly. If something is bugging you, knowing if there‘s an option to help iron that issue out and how to utilize that option, quickly, is gonna help you avoid any amount of headaches.
 
Remember this: even if you only use 1 preset, you are using it as intended: to make music.

I suggest keeping the manual open (its a file) as you build your first few presets and watching Leon's tutorial videos for any sounds you may be after.

2. Axechange.

3. Highlight presets in axe edit using the "assign colour" function, and group them together. Fractal FC works, there are other options too.

4. USB from axe fx.

5. You shouldnt need DI boxes, just plug into the proper rear outputs (make sure these are in your preset!).

6. Your mackie's probably are FRFR's - check the specs.
 
David777 said:
Hopefully my FX III will arrive this week. I am super stoked to try it out. I actually have gigs on the calendar and hope to use it on 3 gigs in early February.

That being said, here is my profile in a nut shell...
  • I've been playing guitar, lap steel, fiddle, and keys over 50 years. At times did music full time, playing thousands of gigs. Wrote a jazz guitar book that was used at Berklee for awhile. etc.
  • I'm much better at playing my instruments than I am at turning knobs on electronics
  • I'm the kind of guy who will read the entire 114 page manual and make notes - and then likely use the factory pre-sets
As the FX III is a major investment for me, I want to really utilize it's capabilities - mostly for live gigs and for recording (directly into my computer - I'm using a Fireface UC directly into Logic). A lot of my live gigs are solo guitar, and/or solo lap steel. Other gigs (pre-COVID and hopefully post-COVID) are will full bands.

Do you have any advice for me as to where I should begin in exploring the capabilities of the AXE III? I'll probably start out trying out the myriad of pre-sets.

But I'm really curious about the best way to....
  1. Create your own settings
  2. Find and use patches created by others
  3. Saving my top 10 settings so that I can get to them quickly. Guess I'll need a foot controller to change settings mid-song. Which controller?
  4. Best way to connect to computer for recording (I have a Fireface UC & Logic). Should I connect XLRs into the Fireface? USB?
  5. For gigs with full bands, I'm thinking I'd go out the Axe III in stereo straight into the board via a couple direct boxes, and also run out in stereo to a couple Bose SP1's that I'd use for monitors. Going direct into the board I don't trust the sound men in some of the venues I play to get my volume up in my monitor to where I can hear myself.
  6. For my solo gigs I use a couple big Mackie powered monitors with Bose SP1's for monitors. How big of a difference will it make to replace the Mackie's with FRFR speakers?
Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice you can give an old relic like me who has spent more time turning tuning keys vs. turning knobs on electronic processors!

David
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Get an FC (or two 😁) - they can do a lot and are integrated very well with the AxeFX3.
20200920_162326.jpg


For building your own presets: it is often advantageous to think less in terms of pedalboard/stompboxes and more in terms of what change(s) in sound/effects/level do I want to achieve. Much can be achieved within a single preset, which means faster and more seamless switching of sounds.

A whole lot can be done with a single button tap. 'Fred Astaire of the pedalboard' can finally retire....

A whole lot can also be done (and smoother than a baby's bottom) with controller pedals like the EV1/EV2 or similar other-brand units.

As an example: I have three EV2 pedals and a Mission wah controller in my rig, and they all get used. I have dedicated volume controlling a VolPan block in every preset after the amp/cab, dedicated wah in every preset, and two expression controllers. One is set up to tweak the delay/reverb wetness to suit the room. Number 4 is my workhorse. I have many presets set up so that I can get three different zones in the control pedal travel, the last (toe down) being the lead sound. On one, I even managed to eke out four zones to get the four sounds needed for that song. A few simpler ones only have two zones. This can all be achieved via tweaking curves in the modifier pane to make knobs twirl on command in the amount, direction, and portion of pedal travel desired. @NDESMAREST put out a video sometime in summer 2019 that demonstrates it, and got me started down this path. The controller method literally morphs your tone/effects smoothly from one sound to the other(s) with no jarring sudden change like stomping on a button.

Many of my presets are song-specific, but I have a few 'kitchen sink' templates that I can use which have enough flexibility to play an entire gig with.

Do read the manuals. Some things may bounce off initially until you have the unit in hand and can see and interact with what the manual is saying.
 
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Read the Owner's manual, front-to-back several times, to familiarize yourself with what's in it and what the unit can do. Then run through the other associated manuals similarly, starting with the Blocks Guide. All the rest are linked inside the Owner's Manual and the Blocks Guide.

Fractal doesn't design lightweight interfaces; They offer deep editing in the amp, cab, and effect blocks, and you're basically looking at a recording studio, amplifiers and myriad of effects with all their knobs and hardware modifications that people do to them, so it can take a long time to start to crack the internals of the system but that's where the magic lies. And, reading through the manuals will give you ideas of where to look when you have questions, which is a lot faster than asking on a forum.

Yek, who is one of the community members, has done an awesome job with the Wiki, which is extremely useful as he's gathered information from the Fractal team and presented it in digestible articles; Like the manuals, I highly recommend perusing them periodically because they are full of great tips. Every article in the Wiki is worth rereading many times because they're so good.

The tech notes, at the top of the forum, are also great sources of information, tips and techniques that come directly from the designers - they're scary smart and very focused on what makes a modeler such a great tool. If your eyes start to glaze over because of terms, keep reading and see what you pick up. Over time you'll make more and more sense of it.

Listen to every factory preset and its scenes and look at the channels on the blocks. You're going to feel like you've hit a brick wall periodically, but don't feel afraid to dig into a preset and its blocks to see how they did something, and try adjusting the settings, but, before you do, copy the preset to an empty slot so you can compare/contrast to the original. Which ties to...

Create a backup of the device right away. Backups are your friend because you WILL eventually make a change then accidentally screw something up and not remember what you did and then overwrite the preset and regret it. You can always reinstall the factory presets and start over but that's a pain. I back-up liberally then compress that backup and let one of my cloud archiver apps grab it and store it safely. I also have that folder automatically backed up to a separate disk so it's in three places quickly. It's just good data safety.

I've been playing with modeling technology for a long time, and they are much different than their analog amp and pedal counterparts. Even the most simple modelers are complex under the hood, and Fractal gives you access to that complexity if you go looking, so be patient with yourself and play with the factory presets and explore. You can't break it by turning knobs and experimenting, and, if you made your backups, you can quickly revert and take another run at it.

Modelers are not designed to create the mystical "amp in the room" sound, instead they're the sound of an amp and closely-miked cabinet in a studio or what you'd hear from the front-of-house system in a club or arena, or if you stuck your ear directly within six inches of a speaker. To tweak my sound I use three different brand over-the-ears headphones and some earphones, all are good to excellent quality that you'd find in studios. Then I use my FRFR cabinet to do final EQ adjustments. Volume is important because of the Fletcher Munson Curve - look it up if you don't know what that is. Cranked amps in a room are fun, and so is a good modeler through a FRFR cabinet that is turned up. In either case the guitar comes alive and the acoustic loop between the guitar and amp kicks in. I really like the sound I'm getting and look forward to being able to play out again with my modeler once we're free to. If you insist on the "amp in the room" experience, the manual, wiki, and tech notes talk about how to approximate whatever your concept of it is using a solid-state amp and a real cabinet, but you'll be tossing away part of what makes a modeler so powerful, which is the ability to sound like any amp combined with any cabinet with the push of a switch.

Full Range Flat Response (FRFR)
 
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There seems to be two different reactions when players have gotten an AxeFX:

“Holy shit, this thing is GREAT!”

And

”I’m kind of disappointed with the factory presets and am not hearing this amazing sound everyone else is. I hope I’ll be able to get a good tone out of this thing.”

I was in the latter group, but it was just a difference of guitars/pickups. Once I plugged a single-coil guitar into it, I heard the good stuff. While you can really go crazy with parameters and tweaking, you certainly don’t HAVE to. Most of my presets are fairly basic and I can accomplish everything I “need” with a good IR and EQ’s in the amp block, everything after is just icing on the cake.
 
David777 said:
  1. Best way to connect to computer for recording (I have a Fireface UC & Logic). Should I connect XLRs into the Fireface? USB?
  2. For gigs with full bands, I'm thinking I'd go out the Axe III in stereo straight into the board via a couple direct boxes, and also run out in stereo to a couple Bose SP1's that I'd use for monitors. Going direct into the board I don't trust the sound men in some of the venues I play to get my volume up in my monitor to where I can hear myself.
Click to expand...
Use USB or S/PDIF and AES/EBU to record as it keeps the sound in digital form. See pages 18 and 70 in the manual.

The manual and wiki entries have diagrams that describe many different topologies. The unit has lots of different outputs so you can mix and match easily. See page 23+ in the manual.
 
I never took any tutorials, but my advice is this:

Read the manual, understanding the Fractal terminology. Preset (AKA patch in other schemes), Block (might be an effect, an amp, a cab IR, or some even wilder stuff like a synth or a multiplex switch, but building blocks that make a Preset), Channel (all blocks can channel switch to be a different version of themselves, generally 4 channels per block), and Scene (every Preset can have 8 Scenes, with different bypass states and Channel selections for the Blocks that are in it [active or not], as well as level control, and some deeper stuff if you need it, but not if you don't).

Use Axe Edit. The front panel is OK, actually quite good, but there is so much more at your fingertips with a computer interface.

Keep it simple. Although the paragraph above seems complex, you don't need it all. Rather than starting with factory presets you can build your own with one amp model, one cab, maybe a reverb too, straight to an output and it will sound awesome. Then set the amp input, and overall output level and you will have a great sound.

Don't get too involved in trying different speaker cab IRs early on. The factory ones are really good now, and can be rabbit hole you don't emerge from within months, if not years, especially if you start trying 3rd party. Do it by all means, but save it for later.

Don't worry too much about the first factory preset you land on. Pretty sure it's still a tweed Fender Bassman. Works great with some instruments, not so well with others. It's very authentic, but may not be to your taste. Don't worry about that and move on if you can't make it work.

Watch some Leon Todd ( @2112 ) videos. Might not be your kind of music, but he is really good at showing how to build a simple and effective preset.

If it's sounding great, hit "save" before moving on to another Preset! Honestly, I have made that mistake so many times. Conversely, if it's going nowhere, move to another Preset and back again to drop the 1/2 hour you know you just wasted.

Finally, have fun! It will sound great.

The connection technology tends to be straight forward. The switching is really easy, particularly if you get an FC-6 or FC-12. The rabbit holes tend to be more of an issue (particularly when none of us know when the next gig might be; no pressure to perform), but I was not disappointed when everyone was asking me to turn it up a bit louder at the first gig I did with an Axe FX. That one was a II, and I have yet to gig my III, but I know it will be fine.

Liam

P.S. Don't forget to save if it's sounding great...
 
LiamH said:
Don't get too involved in trying different speaker cab IRs early on. The factory ones are really good now, and can be rabbit hole you don't emerge from within months, if not years, especially if you start trying 3rd party. Do it by all means, but save it for later.
Click to expand...

LiamH said:
Watch some Leon Todd ( @2112 ) videos. Might not be your kind of music, but he is really good at showing how to build a simple and effective preset.
Click to expand...
So much yes!

Fractal now pre-bundles IRs from many different big-name IR sources as their stock cabs, so, while I already have the IRs from my previous modelers, I don’t need them any more. There are hundreds of cabinet+mic+placement options to pick from. So, save some money and search through what comes with the unit before you buy something from a third-party, as odds are really good there’s already at least one of what you are looking for.

Leon Todd is an excellent resource. 1++
 
Totally agree with everyone saying to watch Leon Todd videos on YouTube. I have learned SO much from watching his videos, and honestly he just makes great entertaining content anyways.

Also agree with reading the manual and the blocks guide. A lot of helpful information in those!
 
I recommend you just enjoy the amp and cab block only for the first week. These are the core blocks that you should completely understand
before getting lost on all the FX and routing complexities. Input > Amp> Cab> Output. These blocks best exemplify why 98% of us are here.

and BACKUP EVERYTHING EVERY TIME and have MULTIPLE copies!!!

PS Snapshot is your friend.
 
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