'80s Lifeson tone Q - PCM80?

Admin M@ said:
If you want to loan me the PCM80, I will reverse engineer that preset in as much detail as possible and recreate it. I helped create some of Alex' sounds in the Axe-Fx II and you know what he had to say about that...
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Matt - I'm going to take a stab at it myself first. But I'm sure that within a week I'll throw my hands in the air and send it over to you. Heck I still have the box it shipped in. Sigh can you go ahead and PM your address so I can prepare for my inevitable surrender to the horror of the PCM editing matrix?
 
Mako said:
Here is the PCM80 manual

https://3e7777c294b9bcaa5486-bc9563...215603/PCM80_DualFX_User_Gd_Rev1_original.pdf
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Yep ... I’ve been reading this for a while now. This little box is amazingly deep - too bad the UI is from the mid ‘90s. I wish I had time to write a programming tool for this little gem.

So far what I hear between the AF and the PCM is “air”. The really shimmery high end stuff that you hear through decent monitors just glistens with the Lexicon mods and reverbs. The reverb tails also have a certain shimmer and movement. Plus the mods / delays have this funky spatial thing going on that’s hard to explain and that I haven’t managed to reproduce on the Axe. But once again - I’m barely competent with the AF so who am I to judge?

Net net - once I get over the new toy days I’ll ship this over to Matt and see what he can do with it. I’ll bet it’s just a case of someone needing better ears than myself.
 
I think I would turn down all but one tap, then put a tone burst through it to figure out the modulation. Its best to have a scope. Once you get a single tap translated to the Axe then light up the other taps on the PCM and translate them to the Axe
 
Mako said:
I think I would turn down all but one tap, then put a tone burst through it to figure out the modulation. Its best to have a scope. Once you get a single tap translated to the Axe then light up the other taps on the PCM and translate them to the Axe
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Well - I own a white/pink noise generator, an arbitrary function generator, and a digital storage scope with an FFT function. I'll have to think about getting the time to set that up. I'm having too much fun just playing the darn thing right now :)
 
If anyone is interested in playing with settings I've posted the parameter matrix at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...nhhvlwH189u/pubhtml?gid=387883220&single=true

PCM80 programming makes me want to hug my AxeFx with AxeEdit. Geez I love the sounds of the '80s and '90s but programming back then was more art than science.

It looks like a mono flange and two choruses that are offset by 90 degrees. Simple stuff but I just can't seem to find the same transparency yet.
 
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I distinctly remember reading an interview with Lifeson in which he stated that the Roland Dimension D was used extensively for chorus effects on Grace Under Pressure.
 
Ok - my first (pitiful) attempt at a match. Please ignore the amp and pedal tone - I'm really not even paying attention to that right now.

http://axechange.fractalaudio.com/detail.php?preset=5854

It's getting there but it's still missing the high end shimmer and air of the PCM80 preset. Plus it's too "whooshy". Too much low-midrange and not enough haas effect. But it's better than an hour ago :)

Man I wish we had more raw delay lines to play with! Having all of this power and only 2 delay lines is limiting. I'd trade the (to me) useless megadelay for 4 more modulated delay lines in a heartbeat.

Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow to continue to work on this.
 
steadystate said:
I distinctly remember reading an interview with Lifeson in which he stated that the Roland Dimension D was used extensively for chorus effects on Grace Under Pressure.
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I'll try that tomorrow . . . using the raw delay lines to build a stereo chorus is cool though - you get an amazing amount of control!

My kingdom for more delay lines!
 
It's actually the 250 RL. The head version, but it sounds great through some greenbacks and has quite a bit of versatile tone in it with the mini pots inside the chassis. I'd happily donate it if they wanted to model it.. so Admin, hit me up if you want to check it out.
 
I just tried your latest patch. It sounds great to me! I just changed the multi tap delay mix to 26%. Played along with Signal and Grace Under Pressure seems like a good match
 
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