Fender Deluxe - Am I crazy?

[ethomas1013]

Here's a link to a brief clip of some "tweedy" stuff:

http://jay-mitchell.com/Tweed Demo.mp3

Is this in the ballpark of what you're looking for?

Here's where I'm at trying to get a 5E3 tone by tweaking the Tweed model. I'm not looking to duplicate tones from a specific song, just trying to get the spirit of the 5E3 circuit happening.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~ethomas/Axe-FX G-Tuning Slop.mp3

There's nothing like a Tele in open G tuning plugged straight into a Tweed Deluxe for Stones songs! I'm debating whether to buy the Fractal FR, or to get a used Clark Beaufort....

 

[Deltones]

[quote="dk_ace":336wspk5]I plugged into a Deluxe and a Princeton NR a while back that sounded simply beautiful. I need to find those sounds in the Axe-FX. The problem I have with them is that I find such a huge range of variance in the original models that it's hard to know what to expect with the sims. I've never plugged in to two deluxes that sounded the same. Honestly, often times they don't even sound very similar.

I agree. In my experience with Fender amps since ca. 1966, I've encountered such a wide range of sounds - including differences among supposedly identical amps - that I have no idea what folks mean when they talk about getting a "Fender sound." For that matter, it is possible to get a very wide range of sounds from any given Fender amp and one guitar. The one thing I can readily identify about many Fender amps is their overdrive characteristics, which I find generally unpleasant. One prominent exception is a brownface Bassman I owned for several years in the early 1970s. Its overdrive was beautiful to my ears.[/quote:336wspk5]

Jay, if there is one quality that is almost universally recognized for Fender is what I would describe as "The Fender Bell" sound. Yes, there are variations, but that quality is always there.

I listened to the clip you posted above. It's not a bad clean sound by itself, and I know you probably recorded that very quick but it's cold and it doesn't have that bell ring I'm talking about. Hopefully, people on this thread know what I'm trying to describe with "The Fender Bell" sound.

 

[VegaBaby]

On this one, I'm going to save you. Read this the following link. I can attest to what he says because I've done my own tests.

http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/ht ... evels.html

To each their own

 

[Jay Mitchell]

I listened to the clip you posted above. It's not a bad clean sound by itself,

Here's where words fail. We hear exactly the same thing, yet we choose entirely different words to characterize what we hear. I would never call this sound "clean." It's got hair all over it, although it cleans up when you back off your playing intensity or turn down the guitar volume.

I've owned more Fender amps than I can remember and had countless conversations with other guitar players about sounds going back more than 40 years, and I have never once heard any of these players refer to the "Fender Bell" sound. I've seen reference made to the "vox chime," and I know what that sounds like. I can say from years of experience that there are Fender amps that don't have a "chimey" quality to them.

 

[dk_ace]

[quote="dk_ace":15g3vsdk]I plugged into a Deluxe and a Princeton NR a while back that sounded simply beautiful. I need to find those sounds in the Axe-FX. The problem I have with them is that I find such a huge range of variance in the original models that it's hard to know what to expect with the sims. I've never plugged in to two deluxes that sounded the same. Honestly, often times they don't even sound very similar.

I agree. In my experience with Fender amps since ca. 1966, I've encountered such a wide range of sounds - including differences among supposedly identical amps - that I have no idea what folks mean when they talk about getting a "Fender sound." For that matter, it is possible to get a very wide range of sounds from any given Fender amp and one guitar. The one thing I can readily identify about many Fender amps is their overdrive characteristics, which I find generally unpleasant. One prominent exception is a brownface Bassman I owned for several years in the early 1970s. Its overdrive was beautiful to my ears.

Jay, if there is one quality that is almost universally recognized for Fender is what I would describe as "The Fender Bell" sound. Yes, there are variations, but that quality is always there.

I listened to the clip you posted above. It's not a bad clean sound by itself, and I know you probably recorded that very quick but it's cold and it doesn't have that bell ring I'm talking about. Hopefully, people on this thread know what I'm trying to describe with "The Fender Bell" sound.[/quote:15g3vsdk]

When people say they want "bell-like" clean tones, I usually steer them towards Vox Top Boost amp designs, not Fender amps. I like Fender clean tones for certain things, but bell-like isn't a phrase I would use to describe their clean tones as a general rule. It certainly isn't as descriptive of Fender amps as it is of other amps. To each their own though, I can't hear the clip you're discussing from here.

I certainly hear a signature sound in the Fender line, but I've never heard it called the Fender Bell sound. I don't know how I would describe it really, but I know when I hear it if that makes any sense. I've always just referred to it as the Fender clean tone. While I certainly hear that flavor in the Axe-FX, particularly in the Blackface model, I've not dialed in the exact, ideal Fender clean sound that I hear in my head. This is not the Axe-FXs fault as much as it is that I'm aiming for this magical sound I've only heard in a select handful of vintage amps and don't really know where to start. I haven't figured out what made those few amps so special, and that's really going to be key in getting the sound right in the Axe-FX unless I just stumble across it (little to no chance that will happen).

D

 

[VegaBaby]

When people say they want "bell-like" clean tones, I usually steer them towards Vox Top Boost amp designs, not Fender amps. I like Fender clean tones for certain things, but bell-like isn't a phrase I would use to describe their clean tones as a general rule. It certainly isn't as descriptive of Fender amps as it is of other amps. To each their own though, I can't hear the clip you're discussing from here.

D

True... Anyone ever heard some of the Johnny Winter live stuff he did during the 70s with two Twins cranked to the max ? It sort of sounded like a bell, but more like you've got your head inside it and someone's hitting it hard :lol: .

 

[Deltones]

Here's where words fail.

True. I cut the rest of your reply for brevity, but I agree with you about how we each perceive sound. Bell tone as far as Fender is concerned is probably not a common catch phrase, but that's how I perceive it. Of course, I have heard of the the expression "Vox chime". Believe it or not, I still haven't tried that model yet, and I think I've had my Ultra for close to a year. Concentrated mostly on the Fender model and the Marshall and experimented on the 5150 for a song I'm working on.

I don't know how I would describe it really, but I know when I hear it if that makes any sense.

Amen.

 

[Jay Mitchell]

True... Anyone ever heard some of the Johnny Winter live stuff he did during the 70s with two Twins cranked to the max ?

I saw him a couple times during that era, first at the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival, then in spring of 1970 at the Atlanta Sports Arena. He was playing a pile of Super Reverbs at the pop festival and Twins at the sports arena. And yes, he was rather loud.

It sort of sounded like a bell, but more like you've got your head inside it and someone's hitting it hard.

Johnny liked lots of treble.

The JW volume experience pales in comparison to the times I saw the Amboy Dukes playing clubs in Birmingham, Alabama. Ted Nugent played through three Twins set on top of (and driving) Dual Showman cabs. Everything cranked, with a Byrdland. No pedals. I was hearing bells for several days after those concerts. :lol:

 

[VegaBaby]

True... Anyone ever heard some of the Johnny Winter live stuff he did during the 70s with two Twins cranked to the max ?

I saw him a couple times during that era, first at the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival, then in spring of 1970 at the Atlanta Sports Arena. He was playing a pile of Super Reverbs at the pop festival and Twins at the sports arena. And yes, he was rather loud.

It sort of sounded like a bell, but more like you've got your head inside it and someone's hitting it hard.

Johnny liked lots of treble.

The JW volume experience pales in comparison to the times I saw the Amboy Dukes playing clubs in Birmingham, Alabama. Ted Nugent played through three Twins set on top of (and driving) Dual Showman cabs. Everything cranked, with a Byrdland. No pedals. I was hearing bells for several days after those concerts. :lol:

First time I saw him was in the late 80s when I was something like 11 and he played MusicMan by then, but I recently spoke to someone who saw him around the 77 period when he also released the Captured Live album and apparently his amps were not mic'd and he still was louder than the whole band and those were big sized shows :lol:

 

[Deltones]

The JW volume experience pales in comparison to the times I saw the Amboy Dukes playing clubs in Birmingham, Alabama. Ted Nugent played through three Twins set on top of (and driving) Dual Showman cabs. Everything cranked, with a Byrdland. No pedals. I was hearing bells for several days after those concerts. :lol:

I'll bet. You know, I should try that sometimes. I have a 64 Showman and a 61 Showman replica made by Gomez Amps. I'll borrow my friend's 66 Showman, bridge them all and make my own version of Baby Please Don't Go. Bells aplenty.

 

[MikeyB59]

I definitely have that Fender "bell tone" thing in mind as a characteristic of Fender clean tones, also of Music Man clean sounds. I think of that as Blackface and sometimes silverface. If Tweed, it's got to be something with 2/4 6l6 tubes or it tends to overdrive where I'm hoping for bells. I agree that there are a ton of variations of that sound. For me the Vox and by extension, Matchless sounds can be simulatenously cleaner and dirtier than Fender in that there's a treble clarity and presence I've never heard in Fender, but there's always this little hair on the edge that's rounded off in BF Fender sounds that more suits my idea of really clean (jazzy tones or super clean and tight rhythm parts). Matchless clean (or slightly dirty) has this quality that really cuts through a mix though and they're great amps. The bell tones of Fender/MM are also beautifully accentuated by spring reverb.

I agree also that most Fender driven tones aren't my favorite with the exception of the Tweed amps. I do love drive pedals into BF Fenders/MM and find lots of great driven sounds there.

I heard Ted Nugent once in 76. I knew most of his stuff at the time...this was near the beginning of his huge popularity (Stranglehold, etc.). He was so f@#$ing loud I couldn't even tell what song he was playing most of the time. Truly. It was horrible. Saw Johnny Winter around the same time in same space (Houston Coliseum) and I could at least tell what he was playing. Shortly thereafter I bailed on cranked rock as the mainstay of my musical diet.

Mike

 

[Zen Guitar]

+1 on the "give the vintage sounds some love."
<snip>
I've gotten some tones that are in the ballpark, but as people have said, neither the luciousness of the grind of the Tweed nor the sparkle and snap of the Deluxe are quite there.
<snip>

I also would love to see the Fender sounds revisited/revised. Fender amps have been such a large part of the sound of music (from blues to jazz to rock to funk to...) for more than half a century and in many ways have been unsurpassed in the sounds they deliver (so many of us still come back to these classic designs) that I would think it only fitting to give them a lot of attention in the Axe-Fx. Attention, which I believe, they do not currently enjoy. To my ears, the current Fender models lack the openness, the sparkle, and the percussive quality that their real world counterparts have in spades (FWIW, I am aware of the difference between recorded tones and being in the room with the amp). FYI, what I hear most lacking is the sparkle and the elastic scoop of the Blackface models. Besides revisiting the amp models, I think that offering some additional IR's that have been created specifically to capture the sound of these amps when properly recorded (a mix of close, distant, and back of cab micing) would be greatly beneficial--perhaps some pre-mixed or combo IR's for these amps.

I'd would love to see a real Tweed Deluxe modelled and a BF Super would be great as well.
<snip>

I have played and/or owned a great many Fender amps over the years. I currently own a fleet of very nice amps with some very good clean tones (including a pair of Mesa Lone Stars). The King of them all, when it comes to warm jazzy cleans, soulful blues tones, and spanky hyper-clean funk, is my Blackface Super Reverb. I have two Alnico and two Ceramic speaks in mine and the combination is gorgeous. For anyone that has ever seen Robben Ford play live through his Super Reverb, THIS is the sound I'm talking about. I would absolutely LOVE to see a Blackface Super Reverb simm added along with a couple really nice 4x10 cab IR's. FYI, engaging the bright switch and turning the amp up to 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 is where the magic happens, IMHO. Pushing the front end with a TS-808 is pure SRV. Cliff, if you do model one of these, PLEASE be choosey about which tubes you use, the bias, and which speakers you use as this can make the sound go from good to GREAT. IMHO, the Re-Issues are NOT the same.

I also agree that a proper Tweed Deluxe would also be a great addition.

Cheers,
-Matt

 

[electronpirate]

I have problems with this too, but the IR's are probably more at fault here (if I had to guess.)

The amp sims to me seem fine, all my tweaking comes from Cab side, with a touch of chorus.

 

[Robboman]

My advice is to A/B the Axe Fender models against the real amps using the SAME speakers.. i.e. the speakers in your (open-back) Fender combo. Then see how close the Axe sounds. The open-back cab is really critical here, no IR/FRFR combination can reproduce that effect.

After struggling to get proper Fender tones using cab sims into a QSC HPR12, I finally tried ditching the IRs and using a SS amp (ART SLA2) straight into the same speakers. BAM - there's my Fender! It was EASY to dial GREAT tones with all the 'bell', 'pop' or whatever you like to call it. No comparison to the best IRs I tried (didn't try RedWirez though).

I don't own a Deluxe, but I gigged many years with a tweed Bassman and I also have a 64 BF princeton and an early SF Pro Reverb (BF circuit). I've done a lot more live playing than recording, so I'm intimately familiar with what these amps sound like standing in front of them. I was able to NAIL the 5f6-a Bassman.. the knob positions don't visually line up the same, but matching by ear I could make them VERY near identical. I could have easily failed a blindfold test, and this is an amp I've played for hundreds, maybe thousands of hours over 10+ years.

 

[GM Arts]

I'm not going to read the last 12 pages, so sorry if this has already been said (or even contradicted), but I'm finding the redwire cabs work well for me. This is what nailed the clean top end for me - finally sweet brightness and clarity without harshness.

 

[Enzo Sutera]

I have problems with this too, but the IR's are probably more at fault here (if I had to guess.)

The amp sims to me seem fine, all my tweaking comes from Cab side

+10000

 

[Dpoirier]

...
I was able to NAIL the 5f6-a Bassman.. the knob positions don't visually line up the same, but matching by ear I could make them VERY near identical. I could have easily failed a blindfold test, and this is an amp I've played for hundreds, maybe thousands of hours over 10+ years.

Hey Robboman, would you be willing to upload that patch? Even if it's just a starting point for those of us who don't have an open back Fender cab handy, it would certainly be much better than blind tweaking (especially when you don't have a Fender specimen on hand to take the A/B approach you suggested).

I have been dying to get great Fender tones out of my Axe, and have to admit that I have failed miserably (to date). *Any* step closer would be great.

Note: if you want to upload a preset into this thread, I think you have to zip it, or rename it to change the .syx extension to something else, and provide instructions on how to restore it. Sorry for this shameless attempt at making it easier for you, but I'm sure many others would be grateful if you would share that one (and any other Fender tones you nailed).

 

[Scott Peterson]

Clipped from another thread/post I've done very recently. I think this is a great Fender Deluxe type of tone I've done.

Here are some patches I use regularly. I'm attempting to share and show folks there isn't that much 'magic' or crazy stuff to do when doing patches on the Axe-FX. It's pretty straight forward.

That said, I put a lot of effort into totally personalizing and customizing my presets for my own tastes and uses. These are NOT universal to everyone; just me sharing my way of creating and crafting tones that I use everyday and enjoy greatly. They put a smile on my face, and I hope you check them out and they put a smile on your face too.

I usually add a Parametric EQ (PEQ) after the cab, before other effects. IMHO, this simply creates a better sonic 'picture' and sounds better in the mix. Note I use the 'blocking' parameter, which is a roll-off and not a hard shelving roll-off. I use different settings for each (see each preset for details) but this is a good starting point for any PEQ used for this purpose.

Axe-FX Preset Files: http://www.mediafire.com/file/muh2z1jondt/Scott Presets January 2010.zip

First up is my go-to clean sound (though it depends greatly on your playing dynamics) based off the Fender Deluxe type of sound I prefer most of the time.


(I'll show screen shots of the three pages of the amp settings for completeness and to give folks an idea of what I have everything set at)


I use the Tweed model and a Red Wire IR response. I am using the Tweed Deluxe Celestion Blue, Royer 121, CapEdge at 3" from the Red Wire "Big Box" collection. Nothing fancy, no custom mix, nothing to do once you drop it in the user slot in the Axe-FX.

Clip: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8693661

 

[DieSchmalle]

Hey Robboman, would you be willing to upload that patch? Even if it's just a starting point for those of us who don't have an open back Fender cab handy, it would certainly be much better than blind tweaking (especially when you don't have a Fender specimen on hand to take the A/B approach you suggested).

+1

I'd also like to know which kind of guitar you use with your bassman-sim and which cabinet and speaker you use .

 

[RDeraz]

the Fender sound eludes me also.just like in the real world. always end up fighting with a Fender,hitting the strings twice as hard to get it to push.i'm still trying to figure that one out in the Axe-fx.