What's your Preference, Presets....by "tone" or by "song"?

LZRBeam

LZRBeam

Member
Hi everyone, I'm a long time Standard user with the Behringer FCB1010 controller. I organize my presets based on the tone I want, with 3 banks of 10 presets for each of three different guitars. That gives me 10 immediate choices of tones ranging from clean to raging for each guitar. I also create a bank for each guitar with unique sounds, often with "special" effects for individual songs. I've found this to be pretty flexible, it's simple; and I can easily choose a preset based on the guitar I pick up, and the next song on the set list.

The AX8 will give me a ton more control flexibility that may or may not be useful to me, so I'm considering just upgrading to the AXE II and keep doing what I'm doing. I really want to upgrade my tone NOW, and the AX8 might be a longer wait than I'm willing to accept.

So here's the question....For those of you have experience with both approaches; what is your preference for organizing your presets; by "tone" or by dedicating a preset per "song?"
 
I tend to go by tone, and then secondarily by amp characteristic. Having some ability to tweak on the fly, such as using IA's to turn off delay and such is a big part of my setup as well. I plan to set each preset up with an Scene A/B sound using the X/Y options. The top row in CAPS is the main sound and covers most of the base tones (Clean is a very American clean sound, with some sparkle, VOX is a top boost, my main Rhythm patch is set up where I can basically just change the amp to get the desired character, it's usually on a Mesa or /13 crunchy sound, and Lead is very driven Plexi, or secondarily a smooth Bogner sound. Ambient is a big swell with lots of hold via multi-delay, and the Landau patch speaks for itself)

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It varies. And there are enough preset slots to support many different approaches. First off, I always split things up between humbuckers and single coils. Within that, sometimes I do presets by amp (for example, I have a Plexi 50 Strat preset, a Double Verb strat preset, etc...), some are based around songs and some around artists.

Generally, when I arrange presets for instant access, I want to have clean, dirty, and high gain tones all instantly available. So for instance, I have 4 presets in the AX8 that are duoverb, plexi/buttery, fuzz+plexi, and atomica. The bottom four footswitches will select Preset 1, 2, 3, and 4. The first button on the top row is Amp X/Y or Scene 1/2) the other buttons are for turning off/on specific effects.
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Austin
 
I go by " tone" on 3 channel plus a boost.
1- clean, turn into blues with an o/d
2- soft Marshall ( ac/dc ish ) turn up to pop punk
3- Mesa IIC+ form high gain to liquid lead.
add fx to taste
 
I also use the tone method. I wonder why the combination of tones/presets and the ability to create song-set is not more used than it is.

I dont use it myself because I have a lot of songs that I play in different settings. So I have 10-15 generic tones. that cover all songs and give me the ability to reach MY sound.

That said: I have three or four Song presets IE Still Got the blues and Sultans of swing. I find that songs like that have a "signature" guitar sound. If you are able to get that close. You are half way to playing the song with a "wow" effect.....

Kind Regards

AAEN
 
Playing in a cover band... I have my 5 presets that cover 97% of what we do and a copy of one of those with a song specific effects for the oddballs... I don't concern myself with making sure I'm using artist specific models... I can get where I need with my 5 core tones and pickup selection.
 
Thanks to everyone for the inputs. I'm leaning toward upgrading to the AXE II and continue limping along with my Behringer FCB1010 rather than waiting for the AX8.

Will I regret it?
 
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