Gift of Tone #15 - PHIL COLLEN of DEF LEPPARD

Paulzx said:
Well this is a game changer - and it's probably going to push me over the line for a fractal now because I've been dialling in DL tones for various era's on my Helix with pretty good results - including the elusive Hysteria record tone - but this is the real deal, and frankly, how the hell is any competitor supposed to compete with that - they can't, it's a total slam dunk for Fractal. I'm not going to mention this on the Helix forum, I'll be exiled.

I would love to see how they've set this preset up, particularly as it's been balanced for a PC1, because my PC1 sounds quite a lot different from all of my other guitars. I spoke to John a while ago about the fractal gear and he confirmed even back then that they were using the amp sims. What an endorsement that is.

Two questions for you guys - the original preset is obviously Axe III, can it be ported over to an FM9 or FM3?
Also for anyone who has delved into the preset - how it is EQ'd - are they doing anything unusual?
Click to expand...

There are versions for FM3, FM9 and Axe-FX III.

The preset is quite straightforward. No additional EQ. Not even at the CAB preamp. You can open it with FracTool to see all the settings without a connected device.

For rhythm:
In > Amp > Cab > Out
Amp is the JMP-1 OD1
1671193458068.png
Chorus is the Dimension 1
1671193430772.png
 
Piing said:
There are versions for FM3, FM9 and Axe-FX III.

The preset is quite straightforward. No additional EQ. Not even at the CAB preamp. You can open it with FracTool to see all the settings without a connected device.

For rhythm:
In > Amp > Cab > Out
Amp is the JMP-1 OD1
View attachment 112734
Chorus is the Dimension 1
View attachment 112733
Click to expand...
Master volume is lower than expected. More gain than I thought would be on there. Pretty interesting to see it laid out like that. What's the lead scene like?
 
Paulzx said:
Well this is a game changer - and it's probably going to push me over the line for a fractal now because I've been dialling in DL tones for various era's on my Helix with pretty good results - including the elusive Hysteria record tone - but this is the real deal, and frankly, how the hell is any competitor supposed to compete with that - they can't, it's a total slam dunk for Fractal. I'm not going to mention this on the Helix forum, I'll be exiled.

I would love to see how they've set this preset up, particularly as it's been balanced for a PC1, because my PC1 sounds quite a lot different from all of my other guitars. I spoke to John a while ago about the fractal gear and he confirmed even back then that they were using the amp sims. What an endorsement that is.

Two questions for you guys - the original preset is obviously Axe III, can it be ported over to an FM9 or FM3?
Also for anyone who has delved into the preset - how it is EQ'd - are they doing anything unusual?
Click to expand...
Don't burn any bridges ;)
 
I wonder if this is tuned for live volume, at least in my home studio sounds great at neighbour friendly spl.
 
rcomeau said:
Questions for John...
What are the guitars tuned to in the studio recording of Photograph? 432?

I was going to ask if you had to reset the amp's input EQ Low Cut back to 714Hz after upgrading to firmware 21 because that value seems high and firmware 21 upgrading reset the values back to defaults. I see that it is the default for the JMPre-1 OD1 amp. Did Def Leppard's collaboration with Fractal contribute to that default?

I hear a guitar playing the arpeggios that is cleaner than the shared tones. Even the songster tabs have those arpeggios on a track labeled as "Electric Guitar (Clean)". Perhaps attempts to play along with those parts without the clean tone is why people are commenting about the tones being dark. Is it that Phil doesn't play that clean tone so it isn't included?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure about the tuning - I'll ask Phil about it.
I kept the Input EQ low cut there to make sure the low end stayed tight. There was a FW update earlier this year that changed some things in the JMP model, so I had to do some tweaking to get it where we wanted it. The output EQ reflects some of that tweaking.
As far as the studio recordings, there are definitely multiple layers of guitars going on - they typically pick out the dominant parts and play those live. I have been experimenting with layering a clean amp underneath the high-gain amp on my own III, so maybe we'll start doing that on some of Phil's presets. I'll share a preset here soon and see what everyone thinks - it's a cool way to have 2 separate guitar tones going on simultaneously.
 
Here is some of the experimenting I've been doing - it's the JMP block from Phil's preset with a clean layer added. The clean on its own is pretty bright/thin but its main function is to add some sparkle/texture to the heavy tone. It works well for the chorus of Photograph.
 

Attachments

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jzguitar said:
Here is some of the experimenting I've been doing - it's the JMP block from Phil's preset with a clean layer added. The clean on its own is pretty bright/thin but its main function is to add some sparkle/texture to the heavy tone. It works well for the chorus of Photograph.
Click to expand...
Thanks John! Do you know the chorus settings for the Foolin intro from the last tour? I didn’t know if you have those settings or not since you just work on Phil’s stuff.
 
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