Making a sound, correctly
Plug in, hear something, and get the two settings right that decide whether the whole thing sounds broken or fine.
02 · 6 min
Guitar into Input 1, and cab block ON into anything full-range, OFF into a real guitar speaker. Almost every “this sounds wrong” report is one of those two.
Input 1, not the others
Fractal put their instrument front end — they call it Secret Sauce — on Input 1 only. Every other input is line level. A guitar plugged into one of those makes a sound, and it is not the sound the amp models were built around.
The cab block rule
A cab block simulates a speaker cabinet with a microphone in front of it. It belongs in the chain whenever what you are listening on has no guitar speaker of its own — headphones, a full-range powered speaker, the desk, your computer.
It does not belong when the signal ends in a real guitar cabinet, because then you have two speakers stacked. That sounds muffled and small, and no EQ fixes it.
Now plug it into your actual rig
Once you know what right sounds like, work out what your setup needs.
Leave it on
You're feeding a full-range system, so the Nano has to supply the speaker.
Driven from the front panel and Axe-Edit, straight into monitors.
- GuitarINPUT 1
- OUTPUT 1 XLR L+RMonitors or interface
- USBComputer
- Cab block
- On
- Editing
- Axe-Edit III over USB is far faster than the panel