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I thought various people might describe their method for designing a preset from scratch. This is, at its most basic, the way I am currently doing it for general use presets. These are the kind of presets that you might be able to play 80% of your set with depending on what kind of music you play. You will have a different method for a preset designed for a specific song. I will probably end up forgetting some details. I am hoping that other people will add their own methods which I can learn from. There are lots of permutations on routing, and finer points to the process but they would cause this to be a Herman Melville length document. So here goes... I have a preset that I use as a jumping off point for my 'general purpose' presets that has the routing and most of the effects and EQ blocks I use already set up. I generally set up four snapshots for general use (Clean, Crunch, Lead, and Mega(Super Lead) I use the looper to design my presets. I have different guitar parts I play that are best suited to designing a Clean, Crunch, Lead, or Mega snapshot. This is a lot easier than trying to play while you are tweaking a snapshot. I change/select my amp(s) and cab(s) and start by designing the 'Clean' snapshot I turn off all blocks in the preset other than the amp and cab. First I get my amp settings in the ballpark of a decent clean sound. If I will be using that amp for other snapshots as well I will assign most of the settings to snapshots by using the Alt-Click method in the Editor, nice and fast. Once I have the amp sem-dialed in I go to the cab and adjust the mic type, and distance, I may or may not assign a low/high cut at this point. Picking the right mic model is definitely one of the most important parts of the process as it has a profound influence on the EQ curve. I usually assign all the cab parameters to snapshots as well so they can be altered across snapshots. Once I have the cab dialed in I go back and fine tune the amp settings. I generally have at least two EQ blocks set up in a preset. Often a 10 band or Cali (Mesa EQ) before the amp/cab and a parametric after. I assign my EQ parameters to snapshots so I can change them for each snapshot without impacting the other snapshots. I go through now and fine tune my EQ settings on the 10 band before the amp/cab. Afterwards I use the sweep method on the parametric after the amp/cab to dial out or in any frequencies I find that require adjustment. Usually I dial out frequencies. I now turn on and adjust the Delay settings. Usually I assign at least the mix and the time to snapshots. If the time is assigned to the tap tempo button I don't assign this to a snapshot. I then turn on and adjust my Reverb settings with the mix assigned to snapshots so I can alter it across snapshots. I make sure the Tails are set to on in the delay and reverb blocks as I will be switching snapshots within this 'general purpose' type of preset and want the tails to function between snapshots. I turn on my Compression block and adjust its settings. Now I move on to my effects one by one adjusting their parameters to taste. I generally have at least a chorus available for clean sounds although I don't use it very often, and an overdrive/distortion block of some kind . I have various other effects set up depending on the preset. I almost always have a wah and I always have a volume pedal block set up as I frequently use it to adjust my volume on the fly during a performance depending on how loud the rest of the band is. I assign a 3db boost to a pedal on the output block for a clean boost that does not alter my tone. I go back and fine tune everything with all the assorted blocks activated that will make up my core tone for that snapshot. I repeat this entire process for each snapshot (Clean, Crunch, Lead, Mega (Super Lead). I usually just copy the 'Lead' snapshot to the 'Mega' snapshot and tweak it to be hotter than the 'Lead' snapshot.