I’m starting to dive into my QC and making the transition for a project I’m in to use it as my rig. I’ve profiled my amp (Suhr PT15 IR) and am pleased with the sound coming out of my QC. I still enjoy pulling in other tones from other amps in the unit, but kind of overwhelmed with the options. Just curious how many different tones you all use or if you just stick to a handful of favorites…or maybe even one?
Might be good to start with matching each guitar you own to 2-3 amp models in the QC, and go from there.
For example, I’ve discovered I really like the sound of my Fender Jazzmaster through the Diezel VH4 channel 1 & 2 blocks for clean and light overdrive tones.
But those blocks sound way different when I use a guitar with active pickups. [I use other amp models to cover cleans and overdrive tones with the active-pickup guitar.]
Just because you have hundreds of options available to you, doesn’t mean you have to use them all.
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Being mainly a Country picker most of my tones are clean and edge of breakup and for me the captures of my own amps some others I find they react more like a real amp than the models… [and that could be my imagination 
] But if I do want a heavier sound I find the models have abit more scope to get the tone were I want it… But ye I stick to around 10/15 amps in total 10 of which are captures… And that’s me happy happy
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I pretty much stick to one sound which is a (cleaner) edge of breakup that is a capture of the same amp (Benson Monarch) but split into stereo. Left side is the “UK” setting which is a little more mid focused AC30 style, and the Right side is the “US” setting which is more of a fender-y style (to oversimplify it).
I then “flavor” my tone with captures of my overdrive pedals with the settings of where I most commonly use them. All of them stack or play nice with each other, but it’s rare that I will stack more than 2 together. They are in no particular order, a blues breaker style (Browne Protein); an ODR-1 style (Browne Protein); a Tube Screamer (Browne Gritador) thats used primarily for leads, so more of a colored volume/mid boost than an over drive for me; Benson Germanium pre-amp (this and the blue side of the protein together is a pretty golden sound); and then a unique pedal by Summer School Electronics called the “Science Fair” which is a blendable Tube Screamer and RAT combo. Very cool, tight high gain (for me anyway) sound that’s not over-the-top and is pretty controllable with the right hand. Oddly clear and compressed at the same time if that makes sense.
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I’ve been enamored with a lowly Yamaha JX40 head capture for a few months.
Was putting a BP-1W or a Tumnus in front of it before the switch to the GT1KC for effects/cab sim.
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A few. I have a presets of:
- my fav SLO captures,
- a few Dumble ODS captures,
- one with a selection (Engl and Gower captures from a reddit user, a mean Bad Cat Lynx capture, two SLO, one Nameless etc),
- a few Nameless captures,
- and nice soft low gain one I made to immitate Greg Howe’s Jump Start tone (dual showman capture + tubescreamer I think it is), which I use for playing along to a bunch of non/less metal stuff.
They’re all based around one of Aaron Marshall’s ‘rig’ presets, with the amps swapped out, although it’s been evolving over the years, with various stacks of compressors and OD pedals thrown into the mix on top of the original.
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We play quite a mix of genres, but I mainly use:
ToneKing (captures) for cleanish or bluesy things
JTM50 (captures) for classic rockers
JCM800 (model) for 80s rock
GojiraX (plugin) for high gain stuff
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My first modeler/multi effects was a TC Nova System and I actually used four presets. Later, I got a TC G-System (very fancy!) and maybe had four core sounds, plus another four or five for specific cover band tunes.
Now I have a QC and happily spend all day on one or two presets - or a clean preset with different drives, despite having a kerbillion options.
I think it’s best to spend a while getting one great sound and exploring it. Then add more…
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One sound for my band as a bass player. In that preset I have a couple drives added to foot switches. I like the options to be able to make ew presets in case I need them, but even when I was playing guitar with my fractal FM3, I would generally still use the same basic preset and adjust it to the new song (adding effects, etc.). No matter what I use, I always sound like “me” so I’ve long abandoned the idea of trying to use every amp in the machine.
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Besides messing around with sounds i have 2 or 3 main presets i use:
- a live / rehearsal preset (Whitesnake Tribute - Kraken Ch. 1, i like the sound more than a mesa)
- a dark ambient / black metal songwriting thing (kinda tried to recreate the sounds of rabeas plugin here)
- a practice / general songwriting preset (captured my Marshall SL2555, has some OD, delay, reverb, doubler for wider sound, a freeze and a looper)
But i sure do like testing new presets just for fun, either from the cloud or creating them by my own.
When i first played the QC through a Seymour Duncan Power Stage and a real cab for the first time i had the fun of my life 
Last time i had the exact feeling was, when i tested my friends Marshall JCM800 with a Gower Kali Mod. Man this thing was huge and tight…
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Had the same thing when I first got mine. I found the cab I liked the best, then went through different amps for knew might work for me and tried each one in turn.
Settled on one amp for my main sound and a couple of others as variations, or for clean. I occasionally go back and try other amps, but they’re never better than what I have already.
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I feel like I can cover almost everything I play with five stages of gain.
I have a Revv G50 and get all my core tones from its 3 channels
- Clean (blue channel) often add compressor and dimension chorus for an 80s tone
- Edge (using green channel gain set very low)
- Crunch (green channel gain up half way)
- Punch (purple channel little less than half)
- Lead (purple with a Klon as a boost before it)
That does it for me. I spent ages working with the different amp models and cabs and I realized the tones I am happiest with are captured from that one amp. Using the same stock cab. And for some reason when playing thru headphones I prefer the captures to the real amp!!! Go figure. The QC is amazing.
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This won’t help you much but I have different tones for most songs I play. I’m in a cover band so I try to match the artist’s tone as closely as possible. There’s some re-use of amps/cabs but they’re mostly all different. My go-to tone for just playing around is a capture of a Two Rock with two different drives. Great for blues, rock, lead and rhythm.
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Hi Gas,
you will see both extremes of the spectrum: people who uses only a handful of their preferred tones all the time, and guys like me who compose and produce their own songs and for each single song have made at least two or more different tones (i.e. for verses; choruses; lead or riffs).
My suggestion is to look for your general preferred tones and then only if needed (or bored) look to experiment by using different amps, cabs and fx.
Please note that each tone you create will be dependant on the type of guitar you use; i.e. most tones you create will sound differently if you use a different guitar.
Good luck with your never ending journey.
Steve
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One really good tone.
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Hello from the other end of the spectrum
For the Sleepytime gorilla museum tour i used one preset for each song (occasionally 2) and anywhere from 2 to 8 scenes per preset . Often each scene had its own 2 captures. Generally i am always running two captures in parrallel. So i can run out if processer power and need to add a new preset for the second half of the song. Then i have to find a little break in the song because of the gap when changing presets.
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dang, didn’t know gorillas were such a demanding audience.
I’ve heard they go totally bananas for multiple presets over at the bonobo museum.
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Currently, for live playing, I am using one single patch with 2 tones: one clean, other distorted. They are switched via scenes. That’s all I need.
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tons of tones here, across 2 different studios and our own stage. I like to make a preset per instrument, so I’ve got a bunch in play.
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