Gigging With Modelers and Preset Building

[GunpointMetal]

How does everyone treat their live tones when gigging with a modeler. Not so much what sounds, but building arranging presets. I love tone diving when I'm at home, or just fooling around, but for shows I just have one "kitchen sink" preset with a bunch of snapshots and use it like a pedal switching system. For me it's easier than trying to get the exact FX and amp combination I may have used on a recording. Are you guys doing a preset per song, lots of presets to nail recording tones, one amp with a pedalboard, etc? Why do it the way you do? Am I missing something cool doing it my way?

 

[budda]

I plan on one preset and a couple scenes. Maybe some effects on/off depending on what music Im making. When I had an fx8 i treated it like a board.

 

[sleewell]

1 preset with either 8 snapshots or 4 snaps and 4 stomps.

we never get long soundchecks so I would never have time to make changes on multiple presets if i did one per song.

 

[laxu]

I would go with a couple of presets with the kitchen sink approach. To me the key is that your sound between presets is somewhat consistent rather than going to wildly different sounds that make the soundman's life harder.

The FM3 and HX Stomp are the only units that I would treat with the "more presets with simpler fx chains" approach because of their CPU limitations.

Obviously there's nothing wrong with preset per song either if that's more convenient for you and you are playing material with little need for improvisation etc.

 

[budda]

I'm used to only adjusting levels on soundchecks - I'm not going to be adjusting reverb tails or delay times once we're up there.

 

[GunpointMetal]

To me the key is that your sound between presets is somewhat consistent rather than going to wildly different sounds that make the soundman's life harder.

This is a big reason as to why I run things the way that I do. Even if I was doing a bunch of presets for live use I'd probably still have a clean and distortion base that I would copy over to as many as needed and add FX so my levels and EQ would be consistent.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

When I was playing with a cover band, using a GSP 1101 as the main tone generator, I had three presets next to each other: clean, rock rhythm, lead. That covered 80%. But I also had a few presets specifically for single songs. Wake Up by RATM was one. Seven Nation Army was another. Depended on the fx I needed, mainly.

 

[runbirdman]

I have one preset built for single coil guitars and one preset built for humbucker guitars. Each preset is separated into clean, rhythm, lead, wet clean, wet rhythm, wet lead, high gain rhythm (humbucker)/low gain rhythm (single coil), and one oddball per preset. My other presets surrounding the core sounds are for in-between-song ambiance and song intros.

Even in a cover band, my sound is my sound so 90% of a gig is played on rhythm and lead channels of the two core patches. Both are the same amps but have slightly different filters and gain settings. We run sound from the stage after sound check, so having wildly different presets is impractical.

 

[RevDrucifer]

When I was doing the cover band thing I was using a couple different presets (with 8 scenes in each one). Mostly keeping the same 3 amps and using the scenes for changing effects that would cater to the songs.


Pretty sure I’m going to put together another original metal band soon, I’ll most likely end up making one preset per song just to make things a little easier in regards to switching stuff live because I’ll be singing. With the covers I was jumping back and forth between scenes, I‘d probably just set up everything in a linear/song arrangement way so I’m always just going to the next scene instead of back and forth. I’m quite hung up on the 5150 Block Letter and the Mark IIC++ models in the Fractal gear, I don’t think I’ll venture far away from those amps.

 

[devastone]

I usually work in pedalboard mode on my GTk, I have 2 channels set up with clean/dirty amps, then some effects I can turn on or off. May have the same basic preset saved in a few locations in the same bank with different effects, but I tend to use it like I did when I used an amp and a few pedals, guess it's just how my brain works, never could wrap around having libraries of presets that I had to remember.

 

[KentBrockman]

I have a Helix and use it as follows:

- Buttons are configured so that the top four switches are for four presets and the bottom four switches are for four snapshots.
- As an example, here is an example of how I use two of those presets - snapshot 2 has an overdrive, snapshot 2 is the same as snapshot 1 but with a boost and EQ tweaks and delay for lead sounds, snapshots 3 and 4 are the same as snapshot 2 but the amp is switched to a clean amp with chorus and snapshot 4 has a delay.
- My second preset is the same thing but for a rock setting rather than a metal setting
- I do not have specific presets for specific songs, unless it is something highly specific (e.g. I have a preset specifically for Big Sur Moon by Buckethead)

As for editing, I use HX Edit. It's really easy to use, especially when compared to the interface on the floorboard.

 

[Emperoff]

I have three different rig/setups that incorporate digital multi-FX, so I'll just explain all of three in case you find something useful.

- Rig 1: Tube amp + Boss GT-1000.
The big one. The modeller takes care of amp channel switching via MIDI. 5 patches are assigned at the 4 channels of the amp plus a solo patch. Each patch has an "alternate" version that is triggered pressing the same switch. In those alternate versions I assign FX such as delays or reverbs to play melodies when I don't want a volume boost (as If I just stomped on a regular delay pedal, etc).

- Rig 2: Boss GT-1000 into tube amp FX loop return (enslaved mode).
This is the full modelling approach with the built-in amp models. Again 5 patches (clean, crunch, rythm, metal rythm, solo) with their alternate versions. This gets plugged into the FX return of a tube 112 combo amp, while also having a sub output with a York Audio DV77 IR for going straight to FOH if needed.

- Rig 3: Analog pedals + Boss MS-3 (hybrid pedalboard rig).
This is the most complex one. Like the other rigs every patch has an alternate version to enable disable FX. Patches are as follows:
1 - Clean (Amp + FX)
2 - Pushed clean (Amp + OD pedal)
3 - Crunch (Victory Kraken V4 CH1)
4 - Rythm (Victory Kraken V4 CH2)
Tuner Switch - Solo (Victory Kraken V4 CH1 + OD pedal + FX)

 

[Boofchuck]

I use Helix + Amp and play bass in a band with a lot of weird, time based, and expression pedal effects. So I have one preset per song. And I use snapshots to control changes within each preset. All presets/snapshots have the same layout and color coding, but the effects, tempo, and expression controls are different. All presets are in alphabetical order with the song's tuning built into the preset name.

 

[Mprinsje]

I have a helix and use it as follows:

I have 3 presets with 8 snapshots each. They all have the same base rhythm, clean and rhythm with delay and verb sound, and then 5 different snapshots per preset. This because I have more sounds I need in a set than 8, but never in one song. So I just switch between preset in between songs. All presets have a split at the end of the chain so a DI with a cab sim goes to FOH and a line signal that splits off before the cab dim will go to a power amp and cab, because I do like the feeling (and look) of a cab on stage. There's probably a way I can do it more efficiently than to use 3 different presets, but it works for me now. For on stage sound I use an orange pedal baby as poweramp into an orange 412.

I do have one preset that's specific for one song but we almost never play it, only on special occasions.

For one special occasion (a live recording with video and lights and the whole shebang) I made versions of all my presets so that instead of an amp model I can use my real amp with it and only use the helix for FX and for cleans, 4 cable method (amp I use is a 6505, not blessed with the best cleans). But that's not what I would normally use on stage, because I don't feel like using that much cables and lugging my amp around each time.