Are artist presets proprietary?

iaresee said:
I've literally played Joe Satriani's guitar on Joe Satriani's rig and....




....sounded nothing at all like him. It was super disappointing and amusing all at the same time.
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Reminds me of what Ted Nugent said in a Guitar Player magazine interview a long time ago about playing through EVH's rig at full blast. Ted said he sounded exactly like ... Ted Nugent.
 
Again it is a business philosophy more than should it be or not be. Buying a recto won’t make you sound like Metallica nor will having their presets. Lol. I think the “legal” aspects still lie on the camp of sound engineers more than musicians.
 
Brucegregori said:
Again it is a business philosophy more than should it be or not be. Buying a recto won’t make you sound like Metallica nor will having their presets. Lol. I think the “legal” aspects still lie on the camp of sound engineers more than musicians.
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I think that the legal aspects rather lie on the camp of greediness, selfishness, egotism and opportunism ;)
 
I can't see why any artist wouldn't share their presets (if they had time to do so, or even knew people wanted them).
Metallica gives away their presets, then what?
People now have 'the' tone and play more Metallica songs (result, Metallica gets more popular)
I don't see a down side.
Having the tone doesn't mean you wrote their songs....and if you write songs 'like' them, then you're a rip off
(cough....Avenge 7fold)

(flame suite on)
 
Even if they gave away their preset, which they may or may not do, the guitar, strings, pickups, electrical components in the guitar, will all make a difference. I've been lucky to play some old Laney gear, pedals, and cabs that were extremely close to what Tony Iommi used both live and in the studio. It sounded close but not quite there until I used an SG with Fatboy pickups and super light strings. Then, after turning it up to ear splitting levels, finally had the tone.

So, the question we started with is: "Are artist presets proprietary ?". Yes. They developed their presets, spent their own time and money for them. They choose to give them away or not. If they tell Fractal "No, don't share it then Fractal does what they ask". For all we know, Fractal may not even know what their preset is.
 
BBN said:
I can't see why any artist wouldn't share their presets (if they had time to do so, or even knew people wanted them).
Metallica gives away their presets, then what?
People now have 'the' tone and play more Metallica songs (result, Metallica gets more popular)
I don't see a down side.
Having the tone doesn't mean you wrote their songs....and if you write songs 'like' them, then you're a rip off
(cough....Avenge 7fold)

(flame suite on)
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Downside is that someone gets the Metallica preset and sounds nothing like them, probably because they are using a different guitar, different way of monitoring, play differently etc, so they then complain about how the presets suck etc etc

Or they give them away for a given firmware and then when stuff is updated people start asking “where is the update ?” As if the artist is entitled to provide support for a free offering.

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished lol
 
lqdsnddist said:
Downside is that someone gets the Metallica preset and sounds nothing like them, probably because they are using a different guitar, different way of monitoring, play differently etc, so they then complain about how the presets suck etc etc

Or they give them away for a given firmware and then when stuff is updated people start asking “where is the update ?” As if the artist is entitled to provide support for a free offering.

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished lol
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Ha....solid point.
 
Piing said:
I think that the legal aspects rather lie on the camp of greediness, selfishness, egotism and opportunism ;)
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My guess, truly, is that artists are generally "coached" by their business advisors or may not even know this aspect of an agreement. I have been around and done a lot of sessions and I have never heard a guitarist, ever, say - you can't see my amp/guitar/whatever settings lol.

However, sound folks, engineers are very different and many times they are secret about things. I am not sure in the case of a modeler why it would be a big deal to the artist or the digital supply company - unless there exists an agreement and then it would be the legal and business folks "protecting" the artist and the supply company from any exposure.

I understand why it happens and yes it does, even though it doesn't seem correct. Paul Gilbert would mark his pedals where he wanted them and he would show you and say "go and mark it right here." As I said - I have my opinion which is more like Paul's.

As an aside, I got scolded by a sound engineer one time when an audience member asked how I was mic'ing my cab. In the first place, as a guitarist mostly, I didn't really know or care. In the conversation, I told the person it looks like it is x,y,z off center of this x,y,z speaker. Complete bla bla bla guitar head talk. Afterwards, the FOH manager had words with our management. And so it goes....

The only reason this is now an issue is because a "digital" file of a rig can be saved and so some snarky lawyers, business managers, and others can go "that is our personal property." Why because it is now "digital"?

Last I knew that was a digital copy of what a physical device could be set at.

Maybe the actual digital file is, maybe it is not. To me I never heard anything about treble, bass and mid and amp settings being copyright material.

However, I am sure someone will learn to make money off of it.....if you get a judge to agree...lol.
 
lqdsnddist said:
Downside is that someone gets the Metallica preset and sounds nothing like them, probably because they are using a different guitar, different way of monitoring, play differently etc, so they then complain about how the presets suck etc etc
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Yeah, but lets be honest. Metallica isn't going to not do something cause someone might complain or say it sucks.

When you look at the popularity of the Neural artist plugins, there's clearly a market for it. And I think some people need to realize, not everyone plays guitar to be 100% unique and carve their own sound/career path with it. There's quite a few that simply want to have fun playing their favorite songs after work.
 
Morphine said:
Yeah, but lets be honest. Metallica isn't going to not do something cause someone might complain or say it sucks.

When you look at the popularity of the Neural artist plugins, there's clearly a market for it. And I think some people need to realize, not everyone plays guitar to be 100% unique and carve their own sound/career path with it. There's quite a few that simply want to have fun playing their favorite songs after work.
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By that same logic though, does one need the exact settings direct from James, or his tech, to enjoy playing Metallica songs after work ? If it’s a preset from a random guy named Bob and it’s 99% spot on, wouldn’t that still provide the same experience ?

If one “needs” the artist exact preset they probably also would require the artist signature guitar with the exact pickups, use the same strings, same pick, same sweatbands et al., or else is just coming close right ?

If the mids knob isn’t set to exactly 6.71 it’s a no go. Those other guys who “dialed in” the sound had it way wrong, they used 6.27, close but no cigar.
 
I don't see how it would be Fractal's property to give away in the first place. A band buys the equipment, possibly hires Carter to help/create presets that match their current touring rig. Those are either the bands presets, or Cooper's, or some mix of those. I don't see how any of that comes back to Fractal.

Now, obviously, Fractal did arrange with some artists to share their presets, but that was at the grace of the artists or for sponsorship or something. To expect that anyone buying and using Fractals gear has to put their presets in the public domain is pretty insane.
 
There is a gathering thinking where I think we might be able to all agree on: there are some tones you need to learn for some music styles you'd like to experiment with.

Here's a real life example (just to contradict myself a bit an go more in the direction of tone hard seekers that also have their part of truth in that discussion!) :

As many probably here, I trained hard on Eruption when I was a child, but even when my hands were finally flying on the neck after months of hard practice, it was not sounding as impressive as on the record...

... until I finally understood that Eddie was using pedals and I was only using my amp. Now of course after using them, I was not shy anymore about playing that solo and it felt really good and I could even start adding my own shredding version to it (we have such an amazing preset btw for that in our units!)

The last point I try to make here is when you like a very particular tone and it makes you confortable/inspired (usually with a lot of effects in my case), it will sometimes helps you going further and sound better ...
Singers know that for a fact and as they start on a song, they would sometimes almost abusively use fx to make themselves more confortable on challenging tunes to start with.

But I would never regret to have practiced with 'dry' tones first because their unforgiveness helped my technique to get better.
 
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lqdsnddist said:
By that same logic though, does one need the exact settings direct from James, or his tech, to enjoy playing Metallica songs after work ? If it’s a preset from a random guy named Bob and it’s 99% spot on, wouldn’t that still provide the same experience ?

If one “needs” the artist exact preset they probably also would require the artist signature guitar with the exact pickups, use the same strings, same pick, same sweatbands et al., or else is just coming close right ?

If the mids knob isn’t set to exactly 6.71 it’s a no go. Those other guys who “dialed in” the sound had it way wrong, they used 6.27, close but no cigar.
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I agree, most user created content that's in the ballpark will provide the same experience.

I don't think anyone is entitled to an artists preset. So I don't agree with the idea that if Fractal has 'em they should just cough 'em up. I also don't think anyone "needs" them either. But I think "need" is another can of worms when it comes to guitar players/musicians/fans etc. Ultimately, I don't see the harm in expressing a desire to have artist official presets/plugins etc or purchasing them if they're made available. Much like everything else in music they're not going to interest everyone.
 
Whether an artist cares deeply about keeping their presets theirs, cares not at all about it, or falls somewhere in the middle varies with the artist. Many times there is an NDA. More times there is not. From my perspective, many of the artists who won't/don't share presets aren't protecting their sound as much as they are the time and work that was put into achieving it.
 
Cooper Carter said:
Whether an artist cares deeply about keeping their presets theirs, cares not at all about it, or falls somewhere in the middle varies with the artist. Many times there is an NDA. More times there is not. From my perspective, many of the artists who won't/don't share presets aren't protecting their sound as much as they are the time and work that was put into achieving it.
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Bingo
 
Phil Collen said on a live chat he'd be happy to share presets. He said he'd speak with his tech.

I would imagine he simply forgot to do anything about it as a father of a young child and doing "normal" life stuff probably means a promise halfway through a two hour long chat got forgotten about
 
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