Burned out

duzie said:
Here’s a positive thought..
At least you have the proficiency to play.
Imagine having option paralysis and the inability to play .
Welcome to my world 😂😂😂
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Dude, you're fucking writing! Don't be hard on yourself. That last thing you posted sounded awesome! If you want to work in some shreddy riffs, then sit there and just focus on them, but it sounds to me like you're well on your way to sounding great.
 
metropolis_4 said:
I know I can build what I need, I’m just feeling tired of the process of building tones for a new show. Maybe it’s time to start saving some presets instead of building them fresh each show.
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WHAT?? o_O

I don't know that anyone can really help you fix this. Seems to me it's something you're just going to have to force yourself to stop doing.
When you want to buy a new car, do you test drive every model?

Zero in on what you like, save a handful of presets with tonal variations, then move on. That's all I got.
 
metropolis_4 said:
It's not a problem with getting the sounds. It's more just feeling burned out on the process of programming everything for a show because there are so many possibilities.
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IMO

Build a few preset templates and save those as templates

Dial in your favorite amps, cabs, and effects and save all those in your block library

If you do that making new presets should only take a few minutes. Open a template, select your favorite blocks, and then make your scenes.
 
EOengineer said:
Ah, I see where things are going awry here.

You should play only Metallica songs.

flying-kiss-ralphie.gif
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In honor of this I took the day off working on show music and spent the whole afternoon playing Metallica :headbang
 
the struggle is real... the thing is, and what I've slowly learned through the years on forums, its so easy to reach out to a community and be helped in both good and bad ways. I admit that forum activity has 100% decided things for me in the past. Learned that, moved on. The struggle that is left resides within myself, and no one here or any other forum can help me with my decisions and tendencies to stay undecided and non productive/creative.

What I do have learned is that option paralysis is real for me. Present me with a box of options and I will never be able to "settle" for a sound/preset/setting that I will fully commit to and be productive/creative with. Sure.. maybe a week or two, then im back into undecided mode.
The HX Stomp is the typical achilles heel for me, has been since 2018. First few years it was a perfect use case between band and home playing.
After becoming 100% home playing its been a struggle. The box has been on pedalboards, desks, floors, drawers, sold, bought again.... and so on. Im slowly coming closer and closer to finally saying goodbye (against my own "never sell your stomp" words). So, still undecided but I have the luxury that I can just walk away for weeks and forget about everything, no band is dependent on me, there's not a bunch of old farts in a rehearsal waiting for me.

I admire those who can "handle" and be creative/productive with these boxes with thousands of options. Then its all great.

Metro: If you gig/rehearse, it's all about forcing yourself to take path and don't sway from that other than the times when you mess around to find inspiration for creativity. Otherwise... stay on the simple, tried, tested, what works will work paths.... Because for those applications these damn modelers are heaven sent. It's about a mindset and goes so much deeper than we think. An amp and a pedalboard is just as good. It doesn't really matter. Its about going with what works for the intended application, and be done with it.

(regarding being done with it.... its way more easy for the indecisive soul to be "done" with an amp and a few pedals......)
 
@the swede totally agree, forums are a double edged sword.

For me (guessing lots of others too), they are a wealth of information and learning about a hobby or passion is a lot of fun. And you’re getting a lot of great advice for free which is awesome. But the flip side is the information overload, especially with so many options, or second guessing things, or GAS, or FOMO.

I found two things help. One is having a clear goal that’s not gear related. Any time I’m working on a song or learning or practicing, I want the gear to get out of the way. Get close enough and move on. Second is to limit options. So that may be gear with way fewer parameters, or if using a modeler run it into a real guitar speaker to cut down on the impulse response rabbit hole, etc.

What is the saying, idle hands are the devils workshop? That’s kind of how I view it. If I aimlessly fire up the modeler (like many days when I have downtime working from home), I’m building presets from scratch and its option overload. If I’m doing a track, I get a tone fast that kind of fits the part I want to play then focus on writing and playing.
 
JiveTurkey said:
Tone-X is gross. Don't do it.
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Is your beef with Tonex specifically or is the objection in response to profiling in the more general sense?

Within the limitations of profiling, I’ve found Tonex to perform really well - despite the dumpsterfire software.

metropolis_4 said:
My thinking on the ToneX was just that I'd want something that gave me the best possible Marshall tones in a compact package. Just 2-3 gain levels of a Plexi to switch between.

I am thinking that I'll probably start building out an analog pedalboard. Then I could have the option of running that into the Axe like you said treating it like an amp. And step 2 would be picking up a tube amp to also run that same board through.
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I own Helix Floor and the Tonex pedal - the Tonex Marshalls absolutely destroy the Helix. I also feel like the Tonex responds to pedals better and more consistent with a real amp.

metropolis_4 said:
In honor of this I took the day off working on show music and spent the whole afternoon playing Metallica :headbang
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This is the way :rofl
 
I feel this post hard - I have an axe 3, QC, tonex, HX, just got rid of a kemper, and a mobile NAM setup and I've used fractal gear since 2016. I'm almost just over the whole thing at this point and want to just plugin one of my amps and like 2 pedals and be done. The only thing that's stopping me is gigging and size/weight/stage volume and setup time. As soon as I start thinking about doing extra lines for FX loop and extra pedals for gates/tuner/etc and miking amps for IEM live, I end up just coming back to using a digital option for speed and consistency. The control we have now is a blessing and a curse. And the worst part is, nobody actually really cares except me and my own headspace - live tone is practically irrelevant in many cases :rofl
 
JiveTurkey said:
said no one ever
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It sucks but realistically if you get it setup how you want you can pretty much forget about using the software on a regular basis and just use it like any other pedal. If your goal is to try thousands of tones and capture a bunch of stuff or tweak then yeah, it's a struggle. There's definitely appeal to just having great tones in a box that doesn't encourage messing around after the fact though - set and forget except for the EQ which is pretty easy to manage onboard.
 
northern_fox said:
It sucks but realistically if you get it setup how you want you can pretty much forget about using the software on a regular basis and just use it like any other pedal. If your goal is to try thousands of tones and capture a bunch of stuff or tweak then yeah, it's a struggle. There's definitely appeal to just having great tones in a box that doesn't encourage messing around after the fact though - set and forget except for the EQ which is pretty easy to manage onboard.
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For me the software was so bad I was put off from buying the pedal. Then I saw some videos of the pedal in operation and noped even harder at the idea of having to adjust any of the advanced options at any point. The separate "USB interface" mode is just so stupid when everything else you just plug in and it works as an audio interface.

It's one of those "stuff in captures you like, only use the knobs on front and you are probably fine" pedals.

And I know that eventually I get bored, or someone releases a "must have" capture or whatever that makes me venture back into the depths of the software.

IK has been kinda quiet recently so I really hope they have taken some of the bad feedback to heart and are redesigning the Tonex software at least.
 
laxu said:
For me the software was so bad I was put off from buying the pedal. Then I saw some videos of the pedal in operation and noped even harder at the idea of having to adjust any of the advanced options at any point. The separate "USB interface" mode is just so stupid when everything else you just plug in and it works as an audio interface.

It's one of those "stuff in captures you like, only use the knobs on front and you are probably fine" pedals.

And I know that eventually I get bored, or someone releases a "must have" capture or whatever that makes me venture back into the depths of the software.

IK has been kinda quiet recently so I really hope they have taken some of the bad feedback to heart and are redesigning the Tonex software at least.
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It's a complete abomination.
 
metropolis_4 said:
I’m setting up gain stages for a show and feeling so burned out on this process. There are so many options…

In my AxeFX:

312 amps - 2 amp blocks = 48,516 amp combinations
65 drives - 4 drive blocks = 677,040 drive combinations

677,040 * 48,516 possible combinations.

Then on top of that amps have at least preamp gain + power amp gain (some amps have 2 preamp gain controls). And I have 3 guitars.

I’m going into option paralysis o_O

I’ve got to get back to thinking about it more like I used to use physical gear, but some of the stuff just doesn’t interact the same way. Especially the way the drive pedals layer with each other and the amp gain. I can’t seem to make it work when I try to go simple :unsure:

Probably just overthinking the whole thing and need to step back.


Fondly remembering using a Tele -> FD2 -> AC30 and not even thinking about this stuff
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I found a single amp I like for my clean, another for dirt, and another for heavy sounds. Every once in a while I will try a new amp for one of the sounds, but have managed to stick with the same basic amps for years at a time. I know this is not everyones experience, but maybe you are overthinking it.
 
Well, what I’m picking up as he wants to channel the show’s vibe through his guitar sounds; philosophically.

Making the presets/sounds design to support the vibe of the show

Working on that takes a little bit of thoughtful consideration about how to get that vibe. Rigs, guitars, changes, consistency.

If I’m reading accurately… :idk

:beer
 
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metropolis_4 said:
So for now the plan is to just start thinking of the AxeFX as my digital Plexi/800 amp
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That's precisely what I do with the FM3 in group situations. At home I may dabble more, but when
I go play with others I know the Plexi/JCM800 will always give me what I want with zero fuss. :beer

It allows me to bypass getting stuck in my head, and considering what else I could be doing, and just play.
 
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