Does anyone use factory presets after learning from them?

[Stomp2Stomp]

Hello, everyone,

 

I have sort of a best practices question.  I've tried searching for information on the question I have.  If this has been asked before, please let me know.

 

I've had an HX Stomp now for a while and have recently added an HX Effects.  Initially it was helpful to have the factory presets to help me understand methods for building presets, but I find I use them less and less frequently.  In fact now I am more likely to build something from scratch rather than rambling through them searching for something to use.

 

Does anyone out there delete all or most of the factory presets in order to make room for other presets? 

 

Would anyone be willing to share best practices for how you have organized your presets to make them easily assessable or to keep up with?

 

Thank you.  I appreciate it,

Stomp2Stomp

[theElevators]

I played around with the factory presets for about 10 minutes when I got the Helix, then cleared all of them.  I started experimenting with my own signal chain from the very beginning.  Every once in a while I will download a free preset from Custom Tones... and I have yet to find a preset that sounds good enough for me to keep.  Too much noise, too much compression, without exaggeration.... I tried quite a lot. 

 

So I recommend just seeing what's possible with the factory presets, and then using your own stuff.  The purpose of these factory presets is to show what's possible to jam into a preset without it sounding necessarily musical... or being usable at a gig.  I think it's much more beneficial to learn how to set up a preset, and do your own thing.  What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.  I picked up a lot of info from YouTube mostly, as well as from reading the manual.

[Schmalle]

You can scan through the factory presets and - if you find an fx setting you like - save it as a favorite. This way you can name and organize the good stuff for fast access in your own presets.

[Stomp2Stomp]

Thank you.  This makes sense.  I appreciate it.

[craiganderton]

Factory presets give an overview of what kind of sounds are possible. But they rarely can fit into a specific musical context of your own. I generally find you don't need too many effects to make a good sound, and less is often more.

 

There's a way to split the difference. I've created a bunch of presets that work well with the kind of music I plan. They're like the "body" of a patch, and then I can "accessorize" them for specific applications. For example, if there's an amp, cab, and compressor that work well with a Fender Telecaster, I'll save that as a preset. Then I can customize the preset as needed with reverb, chorus, distortion, etc.

 

I also made a lot of multiband presets because it takes a long time to create them from scratch. Having presets saves a lot of time.

[denitronik]

I always make my own presets from scratch so yes I delete the stock presets to make space for mine.

I use the first positions for a set list (one or more preset per tune, each tune as one or more snapshots) and use the last positions to store my presets.

I like to build presets for each of my guitars as a starting point.