Meshuggah Koloss Tone

[df88]

Has any one come close to the tone in koloss or is it even possible on this thing (axe fx2); Im looking for a CLEAR tone for low palm muting. It seems all amp models have the same fizziness too them that cannot get cleaned up.

Use the beginning of this song (@ 0:27) for reference:
MESHUGGAH - Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - YouTube


Cheers

[slayerfan]

seeing as how meshuggah used cubase VSTs to record koloss it should be more than possible to do with the axe fx II. I wish I could help ya out but I don't have an axe 2 yet

[Shuggahnaut]

This video might help with how the sound is set up...
Playthrough: Meshuggah "Do Not Look Down", Toontrack version - YouTube

[RockerAlex]

AFAIK it's not cubase VSTs any more, they get DI signal from an Axe FX II then used ToonTrack EZMix for their Koloss tones, you can buy the presets.

[BigD1977]

AFAIK it's not cubase VSTs any more, they get DI signal from an Axe FX II then used ToonTrack EZMix for their Koloss tones, you can buy the presets.

For the actual distorted guitar sound, Martin Hagstrom is on record on the DVD of the making of Koloss that he used the amp emulations in Cubase. That information also appears in a couple of guitar magazines that came out around the same time that Koloss was released, although I don't remember the exact mag sources.

If you can buy presets, I'd be interested in dissecting them!

[toolfanem]

This may be a silly question since this post is in the tone match section, but have you tried to do a tone match? The song Marrow has just guitars in the intro.

What amp sim are you using? How much gain? how high is the master volume?

For this style of playing you need very little gain depending on how hot your pickups are. I have a djent style patch that uses the fas modern with the amp gain at 1.90 and the master around 3. Compress and gate heavily for rhythm playing. Also, try rolling off all stuff above around 10-12kHz. That will get rid of some fizz for sure.

[toolfanem]

The other thing is that the guitars are deceptive on koloss, it seems like they have very little gain compared to some of their other records. As always with meshuggah, the bass tone has a LOT to do with how the guitars sounds since they almost always play the same parts. It that sense the bass and the guitars act as one instrument and really depend on each other to make a composite sound.

[df88]

[Response to a few of you in here]

I have Cubase 6.5 and the Meshuggah presets that come with it; I have tried tone matching (which works to some extent with achieving overall tone and open string sounds but is still very muddy when it comes to palm muting). One preset I have cuts the mids to get rid of some of this mud but is very thin by itself; I usually reamp for a fuller sound. On a side note: Does anyone get crappy feedback with these amp sims? I do use higher gain parameters though and have an rg2228 w EMG 808's; I might try what (toolfanem) was talking about with the low gain and compression.

The Cubase 6.5 presets are not bad but are very noisy even with gates. I have also read on a different post that they used the Cubase Amp Rack with custom IR's :

"Yes Acle, but they coupled it with DAR impulse box with Jocke's 4x12 Metal impulse."
Link: (Meshuggah - Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion (preset inside))

Ive tried the preset in that post (version 2 at bottom); it is relatively good but still lacking imo.

[df88]

This video might help with how the sound is set up...
Playthrough: Meshuggah "Do Not Look Down", Toontrack version - YouTube

Thanks, I have not seen this. Makes me wonder though; if I can get that out of $50 worth of vst's then Axe sure teh funk should be noticably better. Daniel Bergstrand is also a master so I guess I have an excuse.
That video does help though by explaining some of the layers they use. The 2 track bass layering was interesting.

[RockerAlex]

I've seen a screenshot of their axes live and they use a recto red modern of some description

[joel]

i recon a lot of their tone is in the strings

[Rey Cantong]

I have the Toontrack EZMix 2 Metal Guitar Gods Pack and the KOLOSS presets there are spot on. Maybe if I want the Koloss Tone in my AxeFx2, I'll just play one song/riff off the Koloss songs, record it in ProTools10, then Tone Match it via USB.

[df88]

Yeah, my buddy has the toontrack MGG pack as well; the thing with that is it does sound close but if you compare both the album and that, its missing some "fatness". It almost sounds as if there are oversized cabs being used.

This clip is pretty good (using Cubase):
https://soundcloud.com/guitarjon/shuggah2

[nick1527]

there is a huge spectrum of meshuggahs tone that comes from the bass guitar being in the same register as the guitars. Seriously if you want to get their tone go buy a bass and tune up to F and go from there. A guitar even if you go and buy the meshuggah sig and use the same VST 's etc will not sound like the meshuggah sound without a pounding bass tone behind it.

[toolfanem]

Daniel Bergstrand is also a master so I guess I have an excuse.

IMVHO, I have never really liked Bergstrands stuff, especially the drum sounds. I think Koloss sounds good, but not great. Also, the low end is lacking for me in most of his productions.