Modeller enthusiasts who can't dial in patches

[jay mitchell]

I didn't start playing until I was 19.

Prior to that, I was into sound design, electronic music, synths, samplers, software....

None of that stuff even existed when I started playing electric guitar.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

None of that stuff even existed when I started playing electric guitar.

 

[la szum]

Actually, the pros of that era are on the same level of the best amateurs now. It's like when you watch 1920s football vs today.

 

[la szum]

If they're making music with 'em, it's doing what it's supposed to do. Anything outside of that is subjective debates about hypothetical guitarists dialing in hypothetical gear. Show me actual evidence that presets had a negative effect on someone's musical output and I'll maybe agree, but as long as people are inspired to play, it's none of my concern how they get there.

So you are saying the Preset Collector, who collects pre-baked presets like a serial killer collects
corpses, is merely a hypothetical construct, and that this person (or persons) does not actually exist??

 

[DrewJD82]

So you are saying the Preset Collector, who collects pre-baked presets like a serial killer collects
corpses, is merely a hypothetical constructl, and that this person (or persons) does not actually exist??

I’m sure some do, but debating how collecting presets affects their ability to dial things in is an exercise in hypothetical speculation on subjective matter. Fuck that.

 

[Rock Chalk]

I like making my own patches......it's one of the most enjoyable aspects of having a modeler. I can't see looking down on someone who chooses to buy some though, or the people who make them.

 

[AutomationBias]

Just to play devil's advocate, is there really a substantial difference between some random dude paying Austin Buddy or whoever $99 and famous bands paying to have Matt Piccone or Cooper Carter fly out and dial in their presets?

 

[Achilles]

So you are saying the Preset Collector, who collects pre-baked presets like a serial killer collects
corpses......

 

[Los-D]

View attachment 18806

This has me considering stuff like the Friedman IR-X. I’ve gotten pretty good at dialing in tones on modellers… if I have a reference amp. Else, it has to be in a mix (even on my DAW) because the stuff I think sounds great in a vacuum, sounds like ass in a band context

 

[Frodebro]

Just to play devil's advocate, is there really a substantial difference between some random dude paying Austin Buddy or whoever $99 and famous bands paying to have Matt Piccone or Cooper Carter fly out and dial in their presets?

Does Austin Buddy come to you and work with your rig to ensure that you’re getting exactly what you want, and in the environment in which you’ll be playing?

 

[AutomationBias]

Does Austin Buddy come to you and work with your rig to ensure that you’re getting exactly what you want, and in the environment in which you’ll be playing?

No (and that's a very fair and clear distinction between those services), but the context of this thread has largely been that people who pay for presets are dopes because it's so easy to do it yourself (e.g. 'why pay someone to twist the knobs for you'). I'm just wondering how far that extends.

 

[jay mitchell]

To me, offering presets for sale is just a logical extension of charging somebody for a list of control settings for a tube amp and a pedalboard. Back when that rig was the only option, I knew and worked with guitar players with mad dialing skillz, and not a single one ever tried to sell something like that. Sure, if someone's willing to pay for that, they have every right to do so. It still points to a level of naivete about what it will take to craft a particular sound, and it stretches the concept of intellectual property well beyond the breaking point.

FWIW, I've had occasion to audition modeler presets built by folks whose names are known and who charge for their presets. I was appalled at the cavalier manner in which some of them had been built, and I never came across one I'd ever use myself. It's your money, but caveat emptor.

 

[jay mitchell]

Or, it's like the "change your own oil vs. paying someone to do it."

That's not as obvious a comparison as you apparently believe. This is OT, but it's a true story. A close friend (met during a past life in which I was an auto mechanic) was a mechanic at the Ferrari dealership in Atlanta. A customer had his Ferrari towed in with a blowed-up motor. Turns out he'd had his oil changed at a Jiffy Lube, and whoever did the job drained the engine oil but put fresh oil into the transaxle instead of the engine. It ended well, as Jiffy Lube had to pay for the new engine and the transaxle service, but it does serve as a reminder that paying someone else to do what you assume to be a routine task doesn't always work out so well.

Lots of things one person chooses to buy and another chooses to do themselves, comes down to the differences in their person value of their own time.

Sometimes what seems like the least time-consuming option turns out to be exactly the opposite. Just sayin'....

 

[Frodebro]

No (and that's a very fair and clear distinction between those services), but the context of this thread has largely been that people who pay for presets are dopes because it's so easy to do it yourself (e.g. 'why pay someone to twist the knobs for you'). I'm just wondering how far that extends.

I think the correct way to look at it would be that the people who buy presets find value in that approach for reasons that are entirely their own, and there are a number of good reasons why a person would choose to go that route.

Personally, there is very little value in it for me because my experience with digital processors goes back to the late eighties/early nineties, and I am pretty good at getting thing things I want out of a digital unit fairly quickly. I also have a pretty good knowledge of what most amps sound like, which speakers are most commonly used with them, and what all the various parameters for most of the commonly used effects are and how to dial them in.

But for somebody with limited experience with the technology, or limited knowledge of what does what and what works best, paying for a ready-to-go preset pack can be a good way to avoid a world of frustration, and can be the gateway to learning how to DIY.

 

[0XI0]

JHS clover mid and treble boost fix all my modeler woes

 

[ragingplatypi]

In my toan journey I’d say I’ve benefitted 75% from pure self discovery and 25% external sources (friends, articles, forums, YT videos, presets).

What does "can't dial in patches" even mean? Would the same person struggle if given an amp, cab, and some FX pedals? Do they not know

I couldn’t dial in a Marshall amp for almost two decades. A couple times a year I’d be somewhere with one, turn up the gain and make a bunch of noise, but I could never coax useable clean, crunch and lead tones.

As for dialing in patches, the Vox Tonelab played nice when the master volume was dimed. I tried that when I got the HX Stomp and it was a mess and I learned from the forums what I was doing wrong. Then I learned how to balance the gain and master on a Marshall.

 

[Achilles]

Invests in the Fractal Audio Axe-III because they want the king of the hill when it comes to flexibility, extensive routing capabilities, and deep editing possibilities. No other system comes close in regard to being able to get under the hood of the amplifiers and perform component level modifications to fine tune their tone to the ultimate of degrees.





Purchases 3rd party presets to get started.......

 

[Foxmeister]

 

[Foxmeister]

They’re presets someone else dialed in and did all the legwork. Sometimes I gotta tweak them and other times just trying a preset without touching it makes a song fall out.

I also bought the Austin Buddy Live Gold pack when I had my Fractal unit(s).

To me, building a preset on Fractal units was a faff because I had to lay down my inputs and outputs and then start adding my blocks, and as I didn't much care for the stock presets, the Austin Buddy ones were worth it to me to make the workflow easier.

Lazy? Probably, but I value my time, and for a small amount of money, I got a set of presets that I could use as a jumping off point for my own presets so it was worth it.

I've also paid for some presets on the Helix - I've access to the presets that John Cordy puts out and this cost me so little money, that it was simply a no brainer to do so because he has dialled in some great tones on some amps that I may not have considered myself in the past.

Could I have done all this myself?

Absolutely, but then again I can also cook an *extremely* good BIR curry, but I will still order one from the local takeaway from time to time because it suits my needs at that particular point in time.

 

[DrewJD82]

One night I was sitting on my couch and played a B and A chord back and forth a couple times, had a vocal melody pop in my head so I went in my studio and plugged into my AxeFX where I have about 150 of my own presets I dialed in by my big boy self and went to an Austin Buddy preset because I didn’t have a lower gain Plexi preset of my own, 45 minutes later a song fell out because I was so stoked with the preset I couldn’t stop playing.



Suck it.