Dweezil Zappa – On the Road with the Axe-Fx

Tom King said:
mortega76 said:
Tom: Is he using one for live and one for backup? Also, is he using custom IR's or stock IR's? Big thanks for showing us this!
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99% of the time he is using one unit. There is one song that he uses a complex panning setup between amps where he blends the other unit in with an expression pedal to create a very specific effect. It has to do with a dirty and clean amp texture and how it feeds back if I am remembering correctly. Perhaps Dweezil will stop by and elaborate if he get the chance. :)
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This is an awesome setup... thanks for giving us a "behind the scenes look" Tom... I bet you guys are getting "invitations" to places you've never had "invitations" too in the past... I love me some perks!
 
It's really simple, at least on Windows, if Java rte is installed correctly: doubleclicking the .jar file will install it. No renaming, no extracting (installer does that for you), no .exe files: the .jar files are to Java what the .exe are to Windows (and .dll, etc.).

No idea how that works for Apples.
 
Dutch said:
It's really simple, at least on Windows, if Java rte is installed correctly: doubleclicking the .jar file will install it. No renaming, no extracting (installer does that for you), no .exe files: the .jar files are to Java what the .exe are to Windows (and .dll, etc.).

No idea how that works for Apples.
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"Do you like Apples? I got her number... How you like them Apples?" :D
 
wow, tom and dweezil: thanks so much for sharing all this info. those clips sound great! i love that delay on the orange solo... wow i really have to sit down and turn some knobs... every week or so i'll just throw a new effect in there and try to mess with it at the gig.

thanks again, this is really inspiring. FOH is the way to go.
 
Hey Everybody,
I'm on my way to Melbourne Australia in a few moments but I just wanted to mention that I do use both Ultra's throughout the show each night. Talking with Tom King early in the development of the rig I was mentioning to him that I thought I would be predominantly using one Ultra. But I knew I would have at least on scenario that would require 2.

I needed to use 2 specifically for this kind of scenario - Mono clean sound in the center with it's own effects, Stereo dirty sound spread wide left and right with it's own effects. Both autonomously controlled with volume pedals. ZOOT ALLURES!

Along the way I discovered dozens of other great uses for the dual set up. I have been working with Matman on this rig. He has incredible musical ideas and unbelievable programming knowledge. I'm using a lot of his presets and loving them.

The clip "Orange" solo uses 2 Ultras. One "Dynaflanged" dirty lead sound I made and another Matman preset that has clean delays feeding back into themselves and is controllable via the expression pedal. That's the swelling delay stuff you hear. It's really nice to have access to that kind of control while improvising. It can really create a mood.

It's because of the forum that I was able to get in touch with Matt. It's great to see everyone helping each other out here.

Anyway, I will keep dialing in the sounds and post some stuff when I can.

Regards, DZ
 
Dweezil (um, . . Mr Zappa?)

That's so much for sharing your knowledge and ideas with the community. We are fortunate indeed to have people like you to learn from. Many thanks. Best wishes for your tour.


Tom & Cliff,

Congrat's. It's rewarding for us to see your continued success and growth. I've gotta ask one question . . . can you (we) get a unit by unit layout similar to the layout of Dweezil's monster analog rig at http://lectronx.com/zappa/ ?

cheers,

Jed
 
DZ - This is awesome. Since I have 2 Ultras, I am very interested in how all this is set up. Thanks for helping Matman!
 
Hi Folks,

I've been working with Dweezil to design and program the rig for this tour. I thought I might share some info here.

Dweezil uses both Ultras throughout the show, often at the same time. Each has a foot pedal (EXT1) on its main out, so he can mix, match, and blend. In one of the more complex routing algorithms (selected dynamically with a Switchblade GL) we actually run the 1st ultra inside the effects loop of the 2nd. The first ever "axe-Fx Aux-effect" is a wet only version my send/return delay programs (formerly available on Axechange, but I'll pass some of these along to Fractal to share :)

The dual amp crossfade patches that Tom mentions are actually created in a single ultra-- We use the mixer with a pedal on EXT2 to crossfade with the following settings:

Amp1: Start/Mid/End: 100/100/0, Curve: 25, Offset: 48
Amp2: Start/Mid/End: 0/100/100, Curve: 25, Offset: 48

I've since created some nice clean/drive tones with this method too. (BTW, we found this to be an instance where you really want linear pedal action!)

The tour tones are built almost entirely with stock IRs, though Dweezil did some great programming around the IRs that Cliff posted here.

Have fun,
 
dweezil zappa said:
Hey Everybody,
I'm on my way to Melbourne Australia in a few moments but I just wanted to mention that I do use both Ultra's throughout the show each night. Talking with Tom King early in the development of the rig I was mentioning to him that I thought I would be predominantly using one Ultra. But I knew I would have at least on scenario that would require 2.

I needed to use 2 specifically for this kind of scenario - Mono clean sound in the center with it's own effects, Stereo dirty sound spread wide left and right with it's own effects. Both autonomously controlled with volume pedals. ZOOT ALLURES!

Along the way I discovered dozens of other great uses for the dual set up. I have been working with Matman on this rig. He has incredible musical ideas and unbelievable programming knowledge. I'm using a lot of his presets and loving them.

The clip "Orange" solo uses 2 Ultras. One "Dynaflanged" dirty lead sound I made and another Matman preset that has clean delays feeding back into themselves and is controllable via the expression pedal. That's the swelling delay stuff you hear. It's really nice to have access to that kind of control while improvising. It can really create a mood.

It's because of the forum that I was able to get in touch with Matt. It's great to see everyone helping each other out here.

Anyway, I will keep dialing in the sounds and post some stuff when I can.

Regards, DZ
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welcome to Melbourne mate!
have a great gig

sucks i can't make it
 
Jed,

The rig architecture would fit on a napkin-- (but it would take weeks to delve into the anatomy of all the Ultra programs [and even then, you'd find a smidge of arcane trickery defying diagramification :)]

It's 2 Ultras, wired up in 2 main ways (parallel, auxed). A SoundSculpture Switchblade GL does the routing changes between the units, sends signal out to house/mons/decks, and a few pedals are operate mostly on the wire between the guitar and the rig, switched sometimes from one to the other (we also have one really cool insert algorithm where the loop is used to route 2 different chains of external pedals to 2 different amps in the ultra. At the moment that's basically it. Well, there's also the incredible flying finger magic imparted upon the gear by its owner...
 
dweezil zappa said:
The clip "Orange" solo uses 2 Ultras. One "Dynaflanged" dirty lead sound I made...
Regards, DZ
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I'd love to get my fingers on the DynaFlange settings :D . Awesome that you nailed that tone !
 
Awesome! Thanks for sharing all this!

It's great to have stuff like this on the board. And to have guys like you on board of the Axe-train!
 
Wow! It's just awesome to get this kind of insight into Mr. Dweezil Zappa's Work! :)
Thank you very much Dweezil, Tom and Matman!

And Matman, you must be a true genius m8, thank you very much too for contributing your knowledge!
I think you should write a book about programming the axe-fx, i'd shure as hell buy it instantly! :)
(even the hardcover version! ;) )
man, i'd love to have something like the axechange back, to go in and listen to some more of your patches!

All the best,
quasimono
 
Cool stuff !!

Thanks Tom, DZ and Matt for sharing.

I gotta say Matt, I knew you had a great command of programming by the patches you put up on the late Axechange.

There are some great examples of getting the most out of the Axe-Fx. Very cool of both of you (and everyone else who shares) for sharing your knowledge with us here. This is one of the best forum communities on the net IMO.

You are also right about the magic fingers....I can shoot the same bow and arrow as the Indian....but no matter how hard I try...I can't hit the bulllseye ?
 
I gotta admit.. this is really cool.
DZ, fwiw, you definitely have impressed me, you are genuine... many many thanks for sharing. And Tom/Matt/Cliff, thank you for sharing this info!
 
Awesome :!:

Thanks to Dweezil, Tom, Matman and to all of you who share and let us be witness to all the crazy creative inspirational thing that the AxeFx allows.

It's really cool to have great contributors, pros and not so pros to come here and share.


Now if i only could find a way to get more than 24 hours in one day !!!

Keep on sharing guys !

Claude
 
voes said:
Thank you Tom and Dweezil for sharing this info!!

really appreciate this!

mortega76 said:
P.S. That's a big ass pedal board! What the hell is it? Loving the stickers, looks like Voes...
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Thanks Mortega for the compliments but guess where I got the idea from ;)

http://fractalaudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4929&start=0
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Yeah, but yours looks better with your custom bigger fonts!!!

Also, on your link to the flicker pics shows pedals that I think may possibly be in the next couple of firmware revisions!!!!!!

Dweezil's da man! Hey Dweez, maybe you could hook up Cliff with one of your prized amps and have him model them!
 
Cool stuff guys! The AxeFx is so versatile.........I love seeing how others are applying all that power, it spurs new ideas for me.

p
 
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