Anyone Nailed This Kind of Blues Tone?

oddb0d

oddb0d

Inspired
Hi Guys, just wandering if anyone has a tone like this already in their blues solo toolboxes? I totally dig this guys tone. I've tried various ways to get close but it's sadly lacking... The guy is Lincoln Brewster, used to play with Steve Perry back in the 90s, now is a solo guy. The tone towards the end remind me a little of Satriani...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfzShSigf18

Any help much appreciated!!! :)
 
Which song, I can't get youtube at work? I'll tell you now that a lot of it has to do with him and not the gear or patches. He has his patches available for the xt and x3 on his site and when I played them, it was kind of a blah moment. Then you start to wonder what he is doing playing wise to get those patches to sound like he does.
 
Also can't watch the vid at the moment (and not familiar with Lincoln Brewster) but figured I'd comment, since he didn't, that javajunkie has a Lincoln Brewster preset on the Axechange called BrewsterRocks. I've been playing around with that for the past couple of weeks as it's one of my favorite clean tones now. Read JJ's notes.

Also, depending on which guitar model I have selected on my Variax, the sound can change pretty dramatically, so I make no promises that it will sound good with your guitar.

Anyway... if it's similar to the tone in the vid, maybe it can serve as a good starting point.
 
You might want to start with a maple neck strat with a pickup in the neck position. That would give you the foundation of the tone--which is the guitar.

With or without that, I'd recommend the axe-fx bassman + 4x12 with a R121 mic or U87, and master volume running high. Pull the drive down to keep it clean and pull the low end WAY down on the amp to keep the flub out. Try the R121 mic first for maximum beef & dynamics on the tone. Try the FET pedal first, and don't be afraid of the fulltone pedal for solos.

To me, it sounds like (on the axe-fx) a cranked master volume, warmer non-blackface fender, through the 4x10 bassman cab with a fat FET or Tape boost, and a clean boost for the solo.

There's a big problem copping that guy's tone. You're hearing a lot of unmiced cab blaring from the stage (before the other instruments kick in), and bouncing off the walls, and then more unmiced cab as he boosts the volume for the solo.

It's a bad reference. I'd try an actual recording from this guy as a starting point, and then work towards that live tone. And definitely start with a maple neck strat if you want to make it A LOT easier to cop the tone. If you want to get something similar, you might want to drench it in LATE reflection reverb bouncing off the walls.
 
oddob has just about the same guitar and wiring as Lincoln brewster, as do I.

Lincoln Brewster uses an X3 live (previously XT live). He uses the Variax plexi model (EVH) into a Marshall 25w 4x12 sm57 on-axis model w/ delay and a little reverb. I can almost gaurantee w/ out seeing the video that is what he is using. He will often times you a house amp so he can get feedback but the main tone comes from the PA.

Personally on the Axe-fx, I use the plexi 2 instead. It reacts to guitar vol roll better for me. Lincoln uses vol roll offs a lot for his tone. R121 I just like the sound of better.
 
I have a Plexi 2 patch that, with a neck position single coil, sounds more like Lincoln Brewster than Lincoln Brewster does! What the guys said is pretty spot on.

I don't do YouTube at work, so I don't know what song or tone your specifically referring to. When I want to sound like LB, I use that plexi 2 patch with a comp, verb, and some delay. It is scary how much it sounds exactly like him. I play at churches a lot, and Surrender was on the list not too long ago. When it came to the solo, I started playing it and scared myself I sounded so much like him.

The funny thing is I never intended to dial in his sound! I designed that Plexi patch for my PRS McCarty as a good, versatile, humbucking rock patch. One day I used the coil tap to get a singlecoil neck sound and discovered I accidentally nailed someone else's tone. With a strat, it's glorious, but I usually just coiltap the PRS because I'm too lazy to switch guitars.

D
 
oddb0d said:
Hi Guys, just wandering if anyone has a tone like this already in their blues solo toolboxes?
Click to expand...
I've got a preset that gets pretty close. I just listened to the video and tweaked the reverb parameters to create the effect of a room similar to the one he's playing in. The preset is here:

http://www.axechange.net/preset.aspx?preset_id=403

It should serve as a good starting point. The upper amp block in the signal chain is set to produce the overdriven part of the sound, whereas the lower one is set clean to preserve the note attack. If you want a fatter sound without muddying up the bass, work with the lower amp block. If you want a more overdriven sound, either increase the gain or the level in the upper block.
 
OK, so I linked to a preset in the post above. It would be nice to know that the effort was useful. Have you had a chance to try it out?
 
Jay! Thanks for that info! I did get a chance last night to try it out... I've been plagued with errors on the forum so I've not been able to post my responses....

I downloaded your 2 x 512 IR cab. For some reason which I think is not your setup or the Axe but I am getting some nutty poor quality sound. I've added a Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer into the "mix." I cannot work it out but it sounds like it's distorting or clipping, but I'm not seeing anything clip on the Axe.

My buddy did tell me that the Mackie XDRs don't have a lot of headroom and I should try TRS. I've tried that but didn't seem to clean it up much....

I am getting a lot of nasty artifacts on my tone and even when the sound is dying down it sounds pretty cheap, nothing like the other sound clips I've been hearing.
 
I had a mixer in my signal chain and experienced the same thing, although my mixer is a behringer. Removed the mixer an viola, no more clipping.
 
oddb0d said:
I downloaded your 2 x 512 IR cab.
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Well, no wonder it sounds like crap. Per the instructions I posted along with the preset, it is set up to use a 1024-point IR. In case there is any doubt, a 512-point IR cannot work with a preset that was developed for 1024-point ones. It didn't occur to me that there would be any misunderstanding of this requirement. I have now posted warnings about this with all my presets on Axechange.

You need to download the Off Axis Natural 1024-point IR - two files, one each for the first and second halves - and put them in User 1 (first half) and User 2 (second half) cab sim spots in the Axe-Fx.

am getting a lot of nasty artifacts on my tone
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Of course you are. See above. Half of your signal is being delayed by 10ms and then going through God-knows-what in the user 2 cab sim block, mixed at the same level as the other half. If you've uploaded a sim to that location, then it's whatever that is. Otherwise, it's just random garbage.

Here's a clip that I did (completely dry) with a slightly higher-gain version of that preset:

http://jay-mitchell.com/5.22MdualHigh.mp3

The preset you have sounds similar to that, but with slightly less overdrive. No artifacts, no trashy decay, etc.
 
Jay, I did download both cabs. Hence the 2 x comment.... I downloaded them into user 1 and user 2.

I am still getting weird issues..... Not sure why at this point, I will spend some time tonight trying to work it out more...
 
oddb0d said:
Jay, I did download both cabs.
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You said above:

"I downloaded your 2 x 512 IR cab."

If you downloaded any "512" cab, then you downloaded the wrong one.

Here are links to the cab IRs you should use with the preset:

http://www.axechange.net/preset.aspx?preset_id=230
http://www.axechange.net/preset.aspx?preset_id=231

If you upload the preset and the above IRs to your Axe-Fx, it will work.

Edit: if the clipping is due to your setup rather than to a preset, it is possible that you are sending the Axe-Fx output - which is line level - to an input that expects a mic level signal. In that case, you're probably better off asking for help in the "General Discussion" forum.
 
oddb0d said:
Jay, I did download both cabs. Hence the 2 x comment.... I downloaded them into user 1 and user 2.

I am still getting weird issues..... Not sure why at this point, I will spend some time tonight trying to work it out more...
Click to expand...

Are you positive that you are pointing to the correct user cab locations?

I'll upload what I use for that Licoln Brewster tone as well (now that I can hear which clip you are refering to).
 
Jay Mitchell said:
oddb0d said:
Jay, I did download both cabs.
Click to expand...
You said above:

"I downloaded your 2 x 512 IR cab."

If you downloaded any "512" cab, then you downloaded the wrong one.

Here are links to the cab IRs you should use with the preset:

http://www.axechange.net/preset.aspx?preset_id=230
http://www.axechange.net/preset.aspx?preset_id=231

If you upload the preset and the above IRs to your Axe-Fx, it will work.
Click to expand...

Ah ha!!! thanks Jay! I took the wrong one. I did some searches on the old forum to try and get my head around the IR stuff and I thought it was a 512 point IR downloaded into 2 cabs that got the 1024. I didn't download the ones you mention. I will as soon as I get home. Thanks for your patience Jay I know this can be so frustrating with dummies like me. This was the first time I've delved into the IR stuff and loading Cabs.... Thank you for your help and putting this stuff together and sharing, it's totally awesome.

If it makes you feel better I will do my best to help others when they get stuck on this when they come along. :)
 
javajunkie said:
See Ed D's stratified preset in one of the new banks. It will get you most of the way there.
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So far this has been the closest I've been able to get, just made a few little tweaks here and there. I am still struggling to get Jay's IRs to sound good. I am not sure what the heck is going on. My recording rig is all boxed up at the moment so I cannot make a clip so you can hear the issues, but I've definitely loaded the right cabs into the right user presets. But it still sounds pretty lame.
 
oddb0d said:
I am still struggling to get Jay's IRs to sound good.
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If you get it successfully loaded into your Axe-Fx, along with the correct IRs in User 1 and User 2 spots, it will work.

but I've definitely loaded the right cabs into the right user presets.
Click to expand...
Uploaded with what utility, and verified how? If it doesn't sound like the clips I've linked, which were all recorded direct, then something is not the same as what I uploaded to Axechange. From the information we've seen so far, the cab sims appear to be the prime suspect.
 
Jay Mitchell said:
oddb0d said:
I am still struggling to get Jay's IRs to sound good.
Click to expand...
If you get it successfully loaded into your Axe-Fx, along with the correct IRs in User 1 and User 2 spots, it will work.

but I've definitely loaded the right cabs into the right user presets.
Click to expand...
Uploaded with what utility, and verified how? If it doesn't sound like the clips I've linked, which were all recorded direct, then something is not the same as what I uploaded to Axechange. From the information we've seen so far, the cab sims appear to be the prime suspect.
Click to expand...

I used the Axe FX Editor (1.03 beta) to upload the cabs.
 
oddb0d said:
I used the Axe FX Editor (1.03 beta) to upload the cabs.
Click to expand...
How did you verify that you successfully loaded them?

Edit: Are you sure you downloaded the correct IRs? Here are links:

First half: http://www.axechange.net/preset.aspx?preset_id=230

Second half: http://www.axechange.net/preset.aspx?preset_id=231

They are configured to go into user 1 and User 2, and the preset is set up to use those locations as well. If you successfully upload a .syx file to the Axe-Fx, you will see the green "Midi In" Led blink (briefly, so you have to watch closely) at the end of the upload.
 
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