Don't Tell Me You Love Me

A

AlexGuitar

Inspired
Everyone,

I am in a cover band and looking to emulate the synth sound in Don't Tell Me You Love Me by Night Ranger. Figuring out how to do this from scratch is well beyond my knowledge, so I figured I'd see if anyone had a preset to work from or advice on how to create this.

Thanks in advance!
 
It's been twenty-five years...

Do you know anything about their real world rig? Amp and cab are the two biggies, don't sweat boost pedals.
 
IIRC Brad Gillis played through Boogie Mark IIC & 4x12 (some have said MK IIB)not sure what speakers. 62 Strat Pretty hot pups Duncan Custom I think. Jeff Watson early Hiwatt head Marshal 4x12 , later Boogie MKIII. LP with Duncan JB’s.
 
Which part of the song? There are keyboards throughout, and you won't be able to perform these parts faithfully using the monophonic synth of the Axe-Fx III. If you're only thinking of the prominent B man/F# --> A man / F# thing, you could do that as follows:

1. Add a SYNTH block. Set the first voice to track the notes you play. Route it into a pitch shifter so it constructs major chords above the notes B and A. (I used F# Dorian, so if I make any mistakes, they'll basically still be in the key. Play B and A.)

2. Set the second voice to play an F# no matter which note you input. This is done using the ENV ONLY tracking option and then dialing in the pitch as desired. Route this voice so it does NOT enter the pitch shifter. You could use the 3rd voice to double this pitch an octave down.

3. Unite the output of these into a chorus (Analog Mono) and then a filter set to LOW PASS. Experiment with using an Envelope to control the filter cutoff frequency.
 
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RDH said:
IIRC Brad Gillis played through Boogie Mark IIC & 4x12 (some have said MK IIB)not sure what speakers. 62 Strat Pretty hot pups Duncan Custom I think. Jeff Watson early Hiwatt head Marshal 4x12 , later Boogie MKIII. LP with Duncan JB’s.
Click to expand...

The pickups were PJ Marx .... Made in Canada ( I think ) .... Anyway they haven't been in production for years. You might find one on Reverb though ?

Good Luck !
 
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@AlexGuitar I made you a quick recording showing how the above sounds. I added a touch of delay and reverb in the box.



I'm running beta firmware or I'd share the preset but here's how that part looks:

1679324347873.png

The two volume blocks are used with INPUT SELECT LEFT and INPUT SELECT RIGHT to allow the B/A to be processed by the harmonizer while the F# passes through as a pedal. The synth voices are panned hard left and hard right accordingly.

What to do with the unused 3rd synth voice? I copied the settings from the first voice to it and added a little detune as a thickener ;-)

PS: I played the part (single notes!) using one finger and no pick to allow the tight feel and hard stops.
 
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Admin M@ said:
@AlexGuitar I made you a quick recording showing how the above sounds. I added a touch of delay and reverb in the box.



I'm running beta firmware or I'd share the preset but here's how that part looks:

View attachment 117941

The two volume blocks are used with INPUT SELECT LEFT and INPUT SELECT RIGHT to allow the B/A to be processed by the harmonizer while the F# passes through as a pedal. The synth voices are panned hard left and hard right accordingly.

What to do with the unused 3rd synth voice? I copied the settings from the first voice to it and added a little detune as a thickener ;-)

PS: I played the part using one finger and no pick to allow the tight feel and hard stops.
Click to expand...

Love this.
 
Singing this in my head ...I think there might be a part of the song where the bass note under those chords changes to an A? If so you can change the scene, use an expression pedal, or do whatever else you might want to/need to. Or, just kill the bass notes and let someone else cover them.

Wow, it's been a LOOOOONNNNNNG time since I played this in a band... 1983!
 
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@Admin M@ - Thank you so much. I haven't had a chance to recreate it for myself yet, but that soundcloud clip sounds awesome! I am continuously amazed by what this unit can do with a little creativity...

When the preset is done with clean, synth, rhythym, and lead scenes I will post it for everyone.
 
Admin M@ said:
@AlexGuitar I made you a quick recording showing how the above sounds. I added a touch of delay and reverb in the box.



I'm running beta firmware or I'd share the preset but here's how that part looks:

View attachment 117941

The two volume blocks are used with INPUT SELECT LEFT and INPUT SELECT RIGHT to allow the B/A to be processed by the harmonizer while the F# passes through as a pedal. The synth voices are panned hard left and hard right accordingly.

What to do with the unused 3rd synth voice? I copied the settings from the first voice to it and added a little detune as a thickener ;-)

PS: I played the part (single notes!) using one finger and no pick to allow the tight feel and hard stops.
Click to expand...

Fucking brilliant!!

Great, now I gotta go find my socks... ;)
 
@Admin M@ a couple questions:
1. What type of wave did you use for that gritty sound?
Edit - found it: sawtooth
2. I'm struggling to know what settings to use for the scale in the pitch block. Which pitch block am I using (custom shifter, whammy, arpegiator, etc?) and how am I setting it?
Edit - I got it to work just adding a note 4 half steps up and 7 half steps up with the quad chromatic settings, but I'm not sure if that's best.
 
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