Neal Schon GoT

Lord ToneKing said:
Yet another GoT that didn’t impress me 🤷🏼‍♂️
I'm guessing these are all just very stripped down presets. And like someone else said the reverse delay has so much string noise that it’s unbearable. Not complaining, just my observation

Still a nice gesture and an amazing company 👍🏻
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100% agree. none of the 'Artist pre sets' sound useable at all. Great gesture for sure!
 
AngusV said:
Having some fun with this one!
All the comments about an unimpressive preset really confirm the notion that Tone is in the Fingers!
There is, IMO nothing magical about many presets unless you make it magical. They allow u 2 play through some of the most amazing Amps ever produced along with effects that few music shops could provide off the shelf.
Ive seen some stage Performances that sounded amazing and played through some beaten up old backroom amp that was lying around at the time. Remember Steve lukather saying he and Van halen swapped Guitar rigs once. He said Van Halen sounded like Van Halen through his rig and he sounded like himself when he played through VHs guitar set-up LOL.
Thanks FAS and CC.
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You’re confusing playing style with tone.
 
Well, it should be clear that most people have to adjust these presets to match their own playing style and instruments. If for example someone uses hot humbuckers when the preset has been created with low output humbuckers or single coil, it probably won't sound very good. We have to use our ears and tweak the presets. Everyone also has their own idea what is a good sound. These presets will not work for everyone. I usually take ideas from these presets and save blocks from nice sounding things and use them in my own presets. For my taste the delays and reverbs have often been too wet, so I adjust them down quite a bit.
 
In my opinion, a lot of "live" or "GoT" presets are NOT going to sound good to us common folk playing bars/clubs/smaller venues.
I have played covers in the best entertainment venue in my city and some of my hand made presets still sound muddy, dull, and bassy to my ears. I'm not complaining because I can mitigate this by creating presets with more high end, simply not high cutting the cab blocks, or using the P.A. mixer.
Some need to realize that most, if not all of these GoT presets are made for sheer volume that would simply kill us if played in a smaller venue. A lot of us simply cannot get our volume up loud enough to overcome the FM effect so our presets still sound dull and lifeless. A lot of these live and GoT presets are created with MF in mind so they will be dull and lifeless at volumes us minions would play at.
Personally, over the last couple years I have started creating or revising my presets to have more highs than necessary or just leaving the cuts on the cab block wide open then taming them at a gig. I now have them set pretty good and they work from venue to venue.
 
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I tend to think people open up a preset expecting to be some Simone Harris, mind-blowing sonic orgasm. I love those...but it said Neal Schon, have you ever heard Journey live before? It's world class talent run through a few pedals and an amp or two...and to quote Leon Todd "It's glorious!"
God forbid Angus Young ever does one...somebody would be asking for ping-pong delays and shoegazing reverbs!
BTW, it is possible to do your own thing with it...not sure I've ever downloaded a preset or bought a preset that I didn't screw around with. I took one of the hundreds of Petrucci presets that are around and replaced the amp with a JC-120 just to see what it would sound like (doubt he'll be leaving Mesa for Roland anytime soon) but it was fun!
 
In the rig rundown video that Cooper did, he had (2) 5153 half stacks (mic'ed) on stage and his pedal board. The first pedal on his board was a Boss 4 knob compressor with the first and last knobs dimed IIRC

I doubt this preset truly represents his live tone completely. But, there are some great gems in them to build on.
 
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Well, since none of us are Neal or Cooper, I guess we just have to speculate. 😂😂. I know I never toured the world for 45+ years.
 
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For me, a gift is a gift and this preset is definitely a great gift. I think it's fantastic that musicians like Cooper Carter, Leon Todd or Neal Schon give us these presets, even if not all of us are happy with them, they always give us an insight into how these outstanding musicians work. In my case, this preset works very well above a certain volume and the trick of using a pedal to input gain is very useful. Now all I need are two Meyersound monitors and let´s get started. With this in mind, happy new year to all of you.
 
Goonie said:
In my opinion, a lot of "live" or "GoT" presets are NOT going to sound good to us common folk playing bars/clubs/smaller venues.
I have played covers in the best entertainment venue in my city and some of my hand made presets still sound muddy, dull, and bassy to my ears. I'm not complaining because I can mitigate this by creating presets with more high end, simply not high cutting the cab blocks, or using the P.A. mixer.
Some need to realize that most, if not all of these GoT presets are made for sheer volume that would simply kill us if played in a smaller venue. A lot of us simply cannot get our volume up loud enough to overcome the FM effect so our presets still sound dull and lifeless. A lot of these live and GoT presets are created with MF in mind so they will be dull and lifeless at volumes us minions would play at.
Personally, over the last couple years I have started creating or revising my presets to have more highs than necessary or just leaving the cuts on the cab block wide open then taming them at a gig. I now have them set pretty good and they work from venue to venue.
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do you typically just use a global eq on the output to tailor to the venue? geq? peq?
 
Rock Chalk said:
I tend to believe Cooper when he says that this is the same preset Neal uses live.
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Thx👍
chrisxs2003 said:
In the rig rundown video that Cooper did, he had (2) 5153 half stacks (mic'ed) on stage and his pedal board. The first pedal on his board was a Boss 4 knob compressor with the first and last knobs dimed IIRC

I doubt this preset truly represents his live tone completely. But, there are some great gems in them to build on.
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No smoke and mirrors here, folks.

I do I understand the tempting impulse to believe these Gifts of Tone are hiding something, since they don't instantly make anyone sound like Neal or whomever (spoiler alert, no preset will do that), but sonically this is literally the unchanged live preset.

The routing was cleaned up -- I leave lots of space for any on the fly additions.

(p.s. Those amps/cabs are for onstage reinforcement only and sometimes to mix in some stage sound in the ears to his taste. That board compressor may get turned on once a show. Like all the pedals, Fractal and physical, it's for fun and variety, not integral to any sound.)
 
Goonie said:
In my opinion, a lot of "live" or "GoT" presets are NOT going to sound good to us common folk playing bars/clubs/smaller venues.
I have played covers in the best entertainment venue in my city and some of my hand made presets still sound muddy, dull, and bassy to my ears. I'm not complaining because I can mitigate this by creating presets with more high end, simply not high cutting the cab blocks, or using the P.A. mixer.
Some need to realize that most, if not all of these GoT presets are made for sheer volume that would simply kill us if played in a smaller venue. A lot of us simply cannot get our volume up loud enough to overcome the FM effect so our presets still sound dull and lifeless. A lot of these live and GoT presets are created with MF in mind so they will be dull and lifeless at volumes us minions would play at.
Personally, over the last couple years I have started creating or revising my presets to have more highs than necessary or just leaving the cuts on the cab block wide open then taming them at a gig. I now have them set pretty good and they work from venue to venue.
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Don't overthink it -- it's far less Fletcher-Munson or venue size considerations than it is simply this:

These artist presets are dialed in at razor precision to fit one specific artist who makes their living showcasing as best as possible their unique talent.

Compare that to factory or purchased presets, which are designed to showcase the strength of a unit, amp model, or recreation of a famous sound as powerfully as possible through as many different players and setups as possible.

There is a fundamentally different design intent behind these GoT offerings than in the presets most players are used to loading into their unit.
 
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PSea said:
do you typically just use a global eq on the output to tailor to the venue? geq? peq?
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Personally, I use the global PEQ or let FOH do their magic depending on the venue. I have frequency bands 1 and 2 and the gains for Out1 and Out2 added to the global performance page so I don't need to dig for them in the setup menu.
If we play a typical bar or outdoor at a restaurant, etc, we usually bring our own P.A. so I'll goof with the global EQ a bit. I have my channel strip set to where I think our P.A. mains sound good and usually leave it the same from gig to gig.
If we play a venue with their own FOH, I just let them do everything. I would run Out1 to FOH, and Out2 to our stage monitors then global EQ it a bit so it sounds decent and not boomy on stage.
 
I popped the amp and cab (although changed high and low cut) into my "separate ways" patch right before practice and the guys dug it. I'm looking forward to using it at Fridays gig. Thank you for sharing this preset!!!
 
Goonie said:
Personally, I use the global PEQ or let FOH do their magic depending on the venue. I have frequency bands 1 and 2 and the gains for Out1 and Out2 added to the global performance page so I don't need to dig for them in the setup menu.
If we play a typical bar or outdoor at a restaurant, etc, we usually bring our own P.A. so I'll goof with the global EQ a bit. I have my channel strip set to where I think our P.A. mains sound good and usually leave it the same from gig to gig.
If we play a venue with their own FOH, I just let them do everything. I would run Out1 to FOH, and Out2 to our stage monitors then global EQ it a bit so it sounds decent and not boomy on stage.
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interesting. appreciate the explanation! never played w the output gains. believe i saw them in Edit on the Out1 block if that's what youre referring to. how do you use these to tailor for a venue? just to make the guitar a bit more responsive for a given room?
 
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