‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.
Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.
I spent most of Spring dividing my playing time between the pedal platform patches that are based on the DRRI and using my real Tweed Deluxe amp. When I came back to my original 57 Vintage and 65 Modern presets, I could hear a stark difference – and not in a good way.
So, before I finally wrap up this series on the pedal platform patches, I want to go back and re-master those two original pedal platform presets. There’s been some recent Axe-FX 3 firmware updates that make this easier to do and sound better than ever.
Series Tracker
This post is the 19th blog post about building out these pedal platform patches for the Axe-FX 3.
You can see the full list of these blog posts over on the dedicated Axe-FX 3 Pedal Platform Preset page.
Table of Contents
- Series Tracker
- A Quick Recap
- What Problem Are You Solving?
- How Did You Learn About Your Mistake?
- Improvements In The Axe-FX 3
- Adding In A More Recording-Ready Scene
- Final Thoughts
A Quick Recap
Before I get into sounds, I just want to quickly explain the background and purpose of these two particular pedal platform patches.
Why Do I Have My Own Pedal Platform Patches?
I’ve created my own pedal platform patches purely to help me enjoy overdrive and distortion pedals at home. (And to record audio demos for the blog!)
The “at home” bit is key.
I’m not trying to create guitar tones that are “mix-ready” for recording or live use. I’m not chasing any specific artist’s guitar tone. I’m not trying to recreate any famous signal chain.
I just want to have a very satisfying sound for noodling around at home.
That means a “bigger” sound that isn’t EQ’d to fit into a denser mix. It also means having additional scenes that I can switch between – and various EQ toys that I can switch in and out – to support guitars with different voices and different tonality.
While I’m sure there are existing presets out there that do exactly this, I learn more by building it myself (and learning from the many mistakes that I make).
The 57 Vintage Preset Is Where It All Began
I’ve been using my own pedal platform preset for the Axe-FX 3 since mid-2022. It started out as my attempt to recreate the sound of my Marshall DSL 20HR + 1×12 cabs in the Axe-FX 3, and gradually evolved from there.
Eventually, it became my 57 Vintage preset.
57 Vintage is voiced to bring out the best from tweed-tone pedals. (At least, that’s what I’m attempting to do. Doesn’t always work.) Everything from how the amp is setup to the speaker choice is designed to help tweed-tone pedals sound as tweedy as I can.
I don’t want to tweak it to make it more generic. And that’s why I ended up forking it to create a second preset …
The 65 Modern Preset Chases Clean Channels From Today’s Amps
Most modern valve amps boast a “blackface-style” clean channel for our pedals. By that, they mean that they offer a clean channel that’s voiced a bit like a Fender amp from the 1960s.
(The boutique pedal industry is dominated by the USA, where – understandably – both pedal designers and the domestic market of pedal buyers predominantly played through Fender amps. Somewhere along the way, the clean channel on many other amps ended up with a Fender-like tone.)
The reality seems to be that these modern clean channels have a bit more low-end, a flatter mid-range (especially in the upper mids) and an extended top-end. They don’t sound as vintage-voiced as I once thought.
And that’s where I think I’ve screwed up a bit.
What Problem Are You Solving?
There’s Too Much Of The Wrong Low-End
I’ve made the same mistake with both my 57 Vintage and 65 Modern presets: there’s too much low-end coming out of the signal chain. I was going for warmth and a solid low-mids foundation, and I can now hear that I got it wrong.
I’m hearing a lot of build-up in the low-end (too much energy in too small a frequency range). This is causing a thud in the signal that sounds unpleasant.
The High-End Is A Problem Too
In the past, I ended up dialling in too much top-end (both High Treble and Presence) to compensate for this low-end build-up. That’s causing some harshness that shouldn’t be there either.
How Did This Happen?
It’s the kind of sound that I’m used to.
I’ve spent years listening to real amps and cabs sounding like this, and they were my starting point when I switched over to the Axe-FX 3 in 2022.
I Unwittingly Recreated My Mistakes From Real Amps And Cabs
I have my open-backed 1×12 cabs flush up against the wall, sat flat on the floor. If I understand correctly, putting the cabs so close to the wall causes an added emphasis in the low-end that’s different (more boomy or congested) to the sound of an amp that just outputs a lot of low-end.
I didn’t know this at the time, and that’s why I ended up trying to replicate that sound (that mistake!) in my original Axe-FX 3 pedal platform preset. That carried over to my 57 Vintage and (especially) my 65 Modern preset.
Powerful Tools Helped Me Compensate For The Problems
Regular readers may have seen me reach for a mixture of Klon-style pedals and other EQ toys to “fix” my signal chain in the past.
While they have their place, I forgot the cardinal rule: always try to fix problems at the source.
How Did You Learn About Your Mistake?
I Went Back To My Marshall Amp Heads
When I started building my Axe-FX 3 presets back in 2022, my cabs were sat in a room that had very minimal sound treatment. Fast-forward to 2025, and not only is the room got some sound treatment, but I’ve had several months to relearn how things sound in here. This helped me hear the differences when I fired up my Marshall amp heads.
Around the start of May, I sat down to start the prep work for my upcoming long-term review of my Marshall Origin 20H amp. That meant a mix of:
- getting used to hearing amps through my real cabs again; and
- starting to build a signal chain to record my two Marshall amp heads (Marshall Origin 20H and Marshall DSL20HR) through a load box (my Fryette Power Station PS-100).
It’s been over a year since I last spent time with my Marshall amps. Talk about the very definition of returning to something with fresh ears!
I’m glad I did. I found the contrast between my original two pedal platform presets and what I was getting from the two Marshall amps to be immediately noticeable.
And I didn’t like it one bit.
I Don’t Have These Problems With My Recent DRRI Presets
Trying to understand what I’d screwed up, I went back to the 65 Nashville preset that I built last autumn. These use a different amp and speaker: the DRRI into a V30.
Side-by-side against the 65 Nashville preset, my 57 Vintage and 65 Modern presets simultaneously sound muddy and harsh. My two original presets were going too far down into the low frequencies, while the high frequencies had been turned up too much.
I had to fix them. Thankfully, the timing couldn’t have been better.
Improvements In The Axe-FX 3
Tightening Up The Low End …
Some of the recent firmware releases for the Axe-FX 3 have included amp modelling improvements that (in effect) reduce the amount of low-end boom that it produces.
It’s a two-stage process to get those improvements:
- You have to run the latest firmware – and I chose to stick with older firmware for most of last year.
- You have to “reset” the amp model in your preset.
As I understand it (ie, I’m probably wrong about this!), each preset contains amp settings that we can see and manipulate via Axe-Edit and amp settings that we can’t see. These internal amp settings seem to help the amps sound more consistent between (most) firmware upgrades – but they need updating from time to time to get the best out of the latest amp modelling algorithms.
… But Only If You Reset The Amp Block
Until very recently, there were only two ways to update an amp inside a preset to the very latest behaviour:
- Delete the amp from the preset, add it back, and then dial it in again.
- Use the “reset amp” option in Axe-Edit, and then dial it in again.
Either way, you ended up with the amp back at default settings, and you’d have to dial in your sound again.
If you didn’t do this, you still get a lot of the improvements from the latest firmware algorithm. You just don’t get all of them.
And, when it comes to my 57 Vintage and 65 Modern presets, they’re forks (copies) of the very first preset that I made back in 2022.
I’ve never ever done a manual reset of their amp blocks.
Enter Firmware 28.05
Reading the Fractal Forums (I lurk there; I don’t post), I’m not the only person who doesn’t reset their amp blocks.
So, in Firmware 28.05, Cliff added a new feature: a “soft” reset. This basically resets all the amp block’s internal settings, along with some of the advanced settings that don’t exist on physical amps.
It’s a game-changer.
Because most of the amp’s settings are untouched by a “soft” reset, it doesn’t take very long at all to dial the amp back in. I probably spent longer learning to hear the differences than anything else.
In my case, all I had to do was to dial back the low-end and top-end over-compensation that has been in there for years. That mostly meant reducing Depth, Presence and High Treble in each amp. I did tweak the virtual mic placements a couple of times too.
Adding In A More Recording-Ready Scene
Trying To Overcome My Home-Hobbyist Preferences
I’m definitely guilty of chasing a “big” guitar tone: a signal that both extends down into the low frequencies and up into the high frequencies. When I get it right, it puts a big grin on my face, and makes me want to play more.
This is contrary to the advice that’s available from professional recording musicians.
I think Joe Bonamassa explained it well: (I’m paraphrasing) in a dense mix, his tone became better the narrower / more focused it became. The more our guitar tone overlaps with other instruments, the more it all blends together for the listener, and the harder it is to sound like a distinct part.
Now, I’m not ready to dial in a guitar tone that’s really notched and 100% recording-ready. I’ll go part of the way there, and (if I ever record anything) do the rest of the EQ in my DAW.
I’ve added a fourth scene to each of my two presets to chase this more “recording-friendly” tone.
New Scene: 57VS Hermit’s Cave
For my tweed-tone preset, I wanted to build a fourth scene around the speakers that I have in my real cabs: the Celestion A-Type and Celestion Blue. To my ears, when these are blended together, they sound quite close to the 1×12 Deluxe Tweed IRs in the Axe-FX 3.
I’m using Celestion’s own impulse responses for this. I’ve had these since 2018, and I think they still sound great today.
On the virtual amp, I’ve cranked up the mids and dropped the bass. This helps it sound more focused while still being a lot of fun in the room.
New Scene: 65MB Balanced
For my modern pedal-platform amp preset, I wanted to build a fourth scene that chases some of the sounds I’ve heard in professional gear demos.
It’s still built around the same amp and virtual speakers that you’ve heard me use last year. All I’ve done is narrowed the tone a little, by dialling back the mids in the amp and reducing the low-end captured by the virtual speakers.
Final Thoughts
I know it’s taken over a year to get here – I started this back in May 2024 – but I think it was worth it.
I now need to spend the summer testing these remastered presets (along with the two new scenes) with a wide range of drive pedals, just to make sure they’re dialled in.
To help with that, I’m probably going to stick with Firmware 28.06 for awhile.