What am I doing wrong here?

ryansays said:
Ok thanks for the tips randyman and Genghis! I think maybe I need to just spend more time with this thing just messing with the amp and cab blocks. Maybe my expectations were too high out of the gate but that is based on all the research I did videos of others using it before i bought it. I just know that if i plug into my JCM900 half stack sitting here it's gonna sound decent without tweeking anything so just thought putting up some of the high gain factory presets would be just as satisfying as a starting point. I will try s/pidf and also going straight to the monitors from the axe and see it that makes any difference. I don't know why my earlier reply got deleted. I'm gonna spend all weekend tone shaping so if I get nowhere I'll post a clip.
Click to expand...
FYI, most of my settings that I like are very far from what the factory presets have. Knobs go from 0-10 for a reason. LOL.

The cabinet IR is one of the most important things too, so I'd really start with a basic patch with an amp and cab in the middle of the grid. Dial up whatever your favorite flavor of gain amp is (Marshall, Mesa, Diezel, whatever), and then before you really dig into the knobs on the amp, try out a lot of different cabs. Find a cab with the character you like and then go back to the amp and stick to just the knobs you know. You don't really need to dig into the advanced settings to get good sound. (But nice that they are there for after you get a feel for the basics.) One knob on the amp I almost always have higher than the presets is the presence, but most of my guitars are a bit dark sounding too. I also like to engage the low-cut on most of my gain patches to cut a little lows on the input side.

Also, finding the right balance between preamp gain and power amp saturation can be tricky. For me I have different sweet spots for different sounds. I generally keep power amp master volume lower on rhythms and higher on leads, but depending on the amp it can be all over the place.

One thing I like with the newest update is the reverb at the end of the chain using either Studio A or Studio C to give just a little more room vibe. To me most high gain doesn't sound good with too much reverb, but those two presets are more subtle with a shorter decay time and work for me on high gain., just mixed in pretty low. Again, leave that off until after you have your core tone with just the amp and cab.

And lastly, depending on your preference don't be afraid to use the old trick of a 808 style pedal with the gain on 0 and the level boosted to tighten things up. Works as well in the Axe-FX as it does on a real amp to tighten flub. (Although these days most of my patches sound tight enough without using a pedal in front of the amp.)
 
jlynnb1 said:
your first mistake is sitting it next to a half stack and expecting it so sound the same. it never will. period. what you are hearing from the Axe is the whole signal chain, mic'd and ready for recording/foh....not a raw amp tone blasting out of a 4x12 your standing next to. the only way to compare those tones is to isolate the amp, mic it, then listen to it through the same monitors you are playing the Axe through.
Click to expand...

This x100! It's a two way street. Recorded tone and "in the room" tone are usually very different things. The Axe sounds great recorded direct, but can take some work to get to sound like an amp in the room. On the other side of that coin, trying to capture a real amp and cab's "in the room" tone in a track can be quite difficult as well. A little 5 watt practice amp pushing an 8" speaker can sound huge if recorded correctly, while a blasting 100 watt full stack can sound tiny and weak in a track if you don't know what you are doing. If you are addicted to the chest thumping "in the room" feel of a loud tube amp, FRFR monitors may not be the best solution for you. Try the Axe through a tube power amp and real guitar cabs. It will likely sound and feel more familiar, but the trade off is you will lose a lot of tonal flexibility. For direct recording, the Axe can get scary close to just about any recorded tone out there if you are willing to work at it.
 
My unit sounded crap going direct to my audio interface. I then went axe to mixing desk to audio interface and that solved my problem
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom