Presets

Preset management: in the owner's manual

• Axe-Fx II: 3.1 Setting Levels
• Axe-Fx II: 4 Basic Operation and Editing
• Axe-Fx II: 4.3.1 Quick Control ABCD
• Axe-Fx II: 4.4 X/Y Switching
• Axe-Fx II: 6 Global Blocks
• Axe-Fx II: 10.2 Preset Utilities
• Axe-Fx II: 10.3 Status Meters
• Axe-Fx II: 13 Backing Up and Restoring
• Axe-Fx II: 16.6 Understanding Preset Size Limits
• Axe-Fx II: 16.16 Scenes
• FX8: 5 Creating presets

Preset management: sharing presets between Axe-Fx II and Axe-Fx II XL

• You can transfer presets from an Axe-Fx II Mark I/II to a XL, but not the other way around.
• Yek: "When I transferred all my presets to the XL, I kept a log of changed parameter values. These are the ones you may want to check before and after transfer:
  • COMP — TYPE and SUSTAIN and MIX and AUTO
  • PEQ — FREQ TYPE (bands 1 and 5), GAIN (all bands), LEVEL
  • GEQ — 16k slider, LEVEL
  • TREMOLO — LFO PHASE and START PHASE and WIDTH
  • MIXER — BALANCE
  • CHORUS — LFO PHASE"

Preset management: importing presets into the Axe-Fx II

• Beside the factory presets, you can load presets from others users into your Axe-Fx. Presets have a .syx file extension. Presets are available through the user forum and Axe-Change for example.
• If you use Fractal-Bot, Axe-Fx II: Axe-Edit or a MIDI librarian such as Snoize SysEx Librarian (Mac) or MIDI-OX (Windows): make a connection between your computer and the Axe-Fx, load the .syx file and send it to the Axe-Fx. The Axe-Fx is always ready to receive presets in this way. If you upload a preset onto the Axe-Fx this way, the preset is not yet stored on the Axe-Fx but kept in a buffer. If you want to keep it on the Axe-Fx, select a preset slot and save it.
• Preset files are also kept in bank files. You can use Axe-Edit to pick individual presets from a bank file.

Preset management: presets cannot be shared between Axe-Fx and FX8

• FX8 presets cannot be imported into the Axe-Fx II, and vice versa.
• Effect block however can be shared, using the software editors.

Preset management: preset switching speed on the Axe-Fx II

• Cliff: "The II does a few things different to try to make patch changes more seamless." source
• Cliff: "Dropout is only 20-30 ms. If you are experiencing more than that then your MIDI controller is not programmed properly." source
• Firmware 11: "Improved preset switching speed, in some cases drastically improved".
• For gapless switching, use Preset scenes.

Preset management: sending presets to the Axe-Fx using a MIDI librarian

• Cliff: "There are two possible destinations for a preset: the edit buffer or a defined preset number. The destination is encoded in the data. If it's not going to the edit buffer then the preset was harvested from a hard drive somehow. When you load a preset with Axe-Edit it sets the destination bytes. However if you use a librarian then the preset may go to the edit buffer or to a defined preset location depending upon the destination bytes. You can identify the preset destination from the data. If the seventh byte is 7F then it will go into the edit buffer, otherwise it will go into preset memory. For example: F0 00 01 74 03 77 7F 00 goes to the edit buffer whereas F0 00 01 74 03 77 01 02 will go to bank B preset 2 (patch 130)." source

Preset management: starting with a blank preset

• Here's to start with a clean preset using the Axe-Fx II:

1. Turn off your Axe-Fx.
2. Press and hold RECALL.
3. Turn on your Axe-Fx.
4. A completely empty preset is created.
5. Save it anywhere you like.

• In Axe-Edit, select Preset > Initialize.

Preset management: moving presets

• Besides the Store > Swap feature on the hardware (Axe-Fx II< FX8), you use the software editor to move presets around.

Preset management: deleting all presets on an Axe-Fx II XL

• The Utility menu on the XL provides an easy way to delete all presets at once.

Preset management: printing a preset or user cabs list

• In Axe-Edit or FX8-Edit, select Tools > Export as Text > Preset List.

Preset management: (re)naming

• On the Axe-Fx II:
  • X: Insert a character at the current cursor position.
  • Y: Delete the character at the current cursor position.
  • A: Select an upper-case character.
  • B: Select a lower-case character.
  • C: Select a number.
  • D: Move the cursor.
  • < >: Move the cursor.
  • Value: Select any character from the character set.
• On the FX8:
  • Value/NAV: Move the cursor.
  • A: Select an upper-case character.
  • B: Select a lower-case character.
  • C: Select numbers and symbols.
  • < >: Move the cursor.

Preset management: restoring factory presets

• When saving your own presets you have to overwrite factory presets. You can restore these at any moment from disk after downloading them from Fractal Audio Support.