What's your process to building a patch?

S

Spaceboy

Inspired
I've been approaching building patches with Axe FX like building a guitar rig. I start with an amplifier and cabinet, possibly an overdrive, and tweak until it's decent. Then, I'll add in whatever effects are desired with proper placement. I can get decent results this way, but I haven't been blown away by anything yet. I've looked at other user's patches, and there are often complicated chains involving parametric EQs after the cabinets, and a combination of wet and dry chains. It doesn't seem like I'm "getting it" after having the Axe FX II for months. I'm trying to get a solid record-quality sound, not the "in the room feel" that most Axe FX naysayers seem to want. I can get usable sounds no problem, but it seems like I had better results using guitar preamps with IRs and DAW plugins than with the Axe FX. It was definitely easier to dial in sounds that sound very good on a recording. I seem to have more trouble dialing in medium to high gain patches, and cleans are incredibly simple to get to sound great.

So, what is your step by step process to building a patch? I'm missing something here, and looking to approach the process from a different angle. I'm open to any other suggestions and tips too.

Thanks.
 
It seems to me that you are pretty much on track with the way many users successfully create presets on the AFX. Where it seems you may be having difficulty is in the "tweaking" aspect of the sounds you are after. There is a lot of help here on the forum for that, but first there are questions that readers will want answered before any advice can have pertinence:

- what guitar?
- how are you listening back to the AFX? Studio Monitors? FRFR speaker system? Guitar speaker cabinet? Please be specific with all of the gear you using post-AFX
- what are the sounds that you are looking to emulate, from what artists, what amps, etc.?

Also, you may want to dive into some of Scott Peterson's tips on how to get that "in the room" sound by using a combination of close and "far field" impluse responses (in a nutshell: cabinet block, stereo cabinet, each cabinet panned Center, and blend the near & far field IRs to taste - no mic used in the cab block).

Beyond that, success with the AFX has a lot to do with experience in general, your "knack" at coaxing tone out of a piece of processing gear, and your knowledge regarding how the various AFX tools and parameters will act to impact the sound you are working on. For some, this is a very simple process, while for others it can be quite evasive.

If you post up a preset .syx file that is representative of what you currently are working on that "doesn't quite cut it", and then post up a description or (better) a recording of a sound you are trying to emulate, then you'll get plenty of feedback and help.

Best of luck!

J
 
I think you're on the right track. FWIW I think I get VERY good 'amp in the room' sounds with the II, but VERY good 'sounds just like the record' sounds with the ultra.

You're after the latter, as am I, and I haven't found that defining moment yet that will make everything sound like it came off a record (had no problems with the ultra - it was perfect for that! ;) ) I am still fooling around with parameters to get that sound, tho the 'amp in the room' sound is there is spades. I'd offer a word of advice tho - don't go setting things up like you did with the ultra, the II is a TOTALLY different beast, and you have to take some time to learn it too, just like the gen1 units.

Some things that might help you with getting that record quality might be to add a compressor AFTER the amp/cab/reverb/whatever as the last thing in the chain, and add a parametric eq AFTER the amp/cab as well, just like you noticed in the presets you mentioned. If you don't know much about PEQ, you can get pretty good results with a graphic EQ as well (GEQ). Also, try turning off the grid conduction, as well as using the combo of close mic'd and far field IR's. You might also want to adjust the proximity control in the cab block till it sounds right, the difference it makes it quite significant. Just a couple random tips off the top of my head, from an ultra user who is after the same in the II...
 
I'm in the same boat here.
thru My Mesa 50/50 out to my Recto 2 X12's it sounds killer.
thru my M-audio Bx5A monitors, it sounds pretty great.
Recorded...................I get a fizz and an "overloaded" type of sound that I just can't seem to shake.
I'm actually going to try and go back to using an M-audio interface to record and see if the USB recoding interface is the problem (that I'm having anyway)
 
This is akin to the blind leading the blind, but FWIW...

I play steel guitar, so very few of the factory presets or presets from the forum are close to any sounds I'm looking for. As a result I've spent time working toward recorded sounds, but I find it much easier to approach a live sound than a recorded sound.

Having said that, I read stuff by recording engineers looking for techniques they use to get a certain sound. Sound On Sound runs some interesting articles on doing a final mix, comparing different approaches and then going through in detail how a pro did it. As a specific example, I've been experimenting with parallel compression since reading about how and why it is done in one of those articles.

I also scour the forum here for tips, and keep notes on ones that might be worth looking into.

Finally, I'm an acoustic guy adding an electric instrument to my arsenal. From playing acoustic for many years I know that a lot--more than most people will accept--of the sound is due to technique. I keep my techie time playing with the AxeFx separate from my practice time, where I concentrate on just one or two presets that evolve slowly.
 
Well I'm far from an expert on patch building because I'm just a dead simple type of guy. I didn't buy the AxeFXII because it had a ton of effects, but because of how it sounds and feels to me.

But basically I start just like you do, with the amp and the cabinet. The only thing that I'll add is a touch of reverb because I'm going to use it on just about everything because I am addicted to it and I know that. Not crazy Dick Dale stuff, just a bit to give it some breathing room.

So with that I start to work on the texture of the sound itself. I have no idea how to describe it, but it's a combination of a lot of things, but it really comes down to how it reacts to my playing and the amount of hair on it. If I want it to be clean with regular playing, but get nasty when I beat on it I tweak to get that response. I'm not overly concerned with the overall tone of it yet because I'll end up wasting a ton of time. I will say that it involves some tone tweaking, but I've really worked hard at moderation at this point in the process. Small tweaks here and there and use the drive and master for most of this. Once it's close I'll go into the dynamics tab and try to get the last bit in place. Typically I'm looking at default for dynamics, 0-3 for the speaker drive and just one click in either direction for the transformer matching depending on whether I want it tighter or looser.

Then I start tweaking the tone more. I know that it probably sounds stupid, but if it doesn't respond how I want it to when I play it I couldn't care less about how it sounds to me. I'll adjust the amp's tone pots a bit, but if I'm going to make sure that I utilize some EQ in there if the texture is right. This is where I tend to suck the most because I always have too much bass, too much treble and never enough mids...without fail. So I have to do this in the context of the mix.

After all of that (which isn't that much) I start to deal with modulation and delays. I'm not big on modulation with the exception of phase pedals which are pretty dead simple. Delays can get complex, but once again it has little to do with the tone and more with what you are looking to do with it.

Definitely nothing really revolutionary I'm sure, but for me it's vital that I get that texture and response down before I do anything else including tone shaping. I mean in a mix you are usually going to EQ the crap out of most tracks regardless of what it is to get the balance right between instruments. You can't EQ the way that it plays in or out in my experience.
 
I just spent some time with Smilefan's patches for V5 yesterday. I'd highly recommend checking them out. I'm somewhat in the boat with the folks who have no trouble getting great live patches, but....

When I was playing Smilefan's patches, the ones that were near anything that I'd actually play tended to have compression and overall, more processing than I'd use. I found a lot of them closer to a recorded version of a sound than what I'd actually hear in the room. You might find some help by simply loading up all 90 or whatever patches he has out there and seeing if any get closer than what you're getting. There are some amazing patches in there and he's clearly a monster at achieving great tones by methods that wouldn't occur to me. I loved the way that he was able to use a lot of effects, but use them in a very subtle way to add atmosphere and texture without swamping the patch with the effects.

Even within Smilefan's patches, tweaking them to be closer to SP's method of using the speaker block had some great results. Patches in general got fatter, more in-my-face and better to my taste.

I wonder if we're sometimes confusing the role of recording vs mixing here. A lot of what becomes a great guitar tone can occur in the mixing/production stage of making a recording. The sounds we hear on recordings are rarely just what came off the cabinet(s) as is. I don't want to use or hear much compression when playing and yet it's an integral part of most guitar sounds (and everything else) at the mixing and mastering stages.

Other than that, I don't go for high gain sounds or anything near it much, so
 
I'd like to point out that the OP has said he is after recorded sounds and NOT the 'amp in the room feel'. Just saying. I like the same thing. From what Cliff said in another thread 5.04 will allow us to tweak out some hi frequencies. I took this like we can adjust things for a more "polished" sound.


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