Here’s a copy of tonygtr’s post on the Circular & Panned settings from the PCM70 ….
I AM Tonygtr
That was my previous screen name for a couple of years. I'm not even named Tony, it was kind of a joke. I change screen names whenever I change my email adress. As you can see, that post is pretty old, and I have collected many more recordings, and spent so much more time analysing things in audio programs etc. There is probably other old posts out there from me using other screen names, with what I now know is wrong information, so just disregard anything that's more than a couple of years old and not from this screen name. I'd appreciate it if you could edit out those old quotes, it can make this thread quite confusing to have incorrect information contradicting the accurate one in the OP.
He always used reverb in his rack rigs until he starting using the Riveras. From around 87-88 it was always the same one too, the Roland SRV2000, and always near the top of the rack.
Regarding his preamps, I've spoken more than once to John Suhr and Bob Bradshaw regarding both the X88R and the CAE 3+. "Kingdom of Desire" is released first in September 1992, and is the CAE 3+. The last thing Luke ever did with the X88R prototype is the 1990 "Planet Earth" tour, which ends in December of that year. After that, it's the 3+. There are only two songs on Van Halen's "FUCK" that's a 3+, and that's "The Dream is Over" and "Spank". It's actually not even a proper 3+, but the prototype of what would later become the 3+. The album "Lukather" is a mix of everything. There's the X88R, Soldano SLO100, the Rivera modded Marshalls etc. The prototype of the X88R was ready in early 1988, but it wasn't fully implemented in the rig right away.
The biggest breakthrough regarding the delays came when I realized that he synced the delays to tempos, although kind of badly at times. I don't think he tap tempod the PCM70s, I think Bob Bradshaw programmed presets on the units with different delays times, and then he switched the presets with a small midi controller backstage. At least that's what he says on the CAE website. I'm guessing the PCM70s might not have had presets programmed for exactly every song, or the tempos swayed a lot live. Anyway, that made me realize that I had to disregard the times of the delays, as a way to tell which one has was used for what thing. I had also been told by other people that the "Circular delays" was his main delay, but I know now from all my research that "Pan delays" was always used more. He did use "Circular delays" more by itself with the CAE 3+ and 3+SE rigs though, but "Pan delays" was still the favourite. So now you know why I incorrectly thought "Circular delays" was the one he used most.
I never used the regular delay block to simulate the PCM70 presets, and there has always been two multidelay blocks, even the old Ultra had two.
The Tri Stereo Chorus information is not from me. I googled and it's from other users over at HRI, none of them me.
The info on Lukather's use of chorus and detune is mostly correct, The timeline might be a little fuzzy regarding the TC2290 and TC1210, but I think it's pretty accurate besides that. I can't remember where I got the information on Landau's detune settings, probably from some Landau-buff over at HRI, so I can't say with 100% certainty that those are correct.
I have never seen a break down of his pedalboard with the Bogners, except a quick listing of the pedals being used in the first version of the board that Racksystems built him, but that's 3.5 years old by now. Before that, Bob built the pedalboards for use with the Bogners.