[For FM9] Brian May's "Wall of AC30" rigs

[km 202257]

[Edit Apr. 22th, 2024] Updated preset for FW7 (Cygnus X-3) is available on Post #2. The presets attached to this post is obsolete so deleted. Demo video is taken down as that no longer demonstrates the current version of this preset.

Attached is my presets to simulate Brian May's "Wall of AC30" touring rigs (in 2000's and after), re-tweaked for FM9 w/ firmware ver. 5.00 or after.
(Originally for AXE-FX III, available at: https://forum.fractalaudio.com/thre...available-for-fw22.189154/page-2#post-2431557)

I made 3 separate presets to meet different use cases. Here are the brief introduction of each preset:

“Wall of 9 AC30s FM9 |km 202257”

• This is my take of Brian’s rig for the gig, including the chorus, pitch shifters, and Brighton Rock delay.
• You can choose either chorus, pitch shifters, and Brighton Rock delay by changing the Scenes.
• This comes with the simulation of a treble booster (the Drive block) so you can directly connect your Red Special or any guitar into Input 1.
  • If you want to use your real treble booster, connect the booster to Input 2 and apply the following tweaks to the preset:
    • engage Input 2 block in all the Scenes,
    • turn off Input1 and Drive block, and
    • change the "Tonestack Type" of the Amp block to "Default"

“Doc's Eventide FM9 |km 202257”

• This is what Scene 6 "Eventide in Get Down Make Love" on the original preset is separated as a dedicated preset to meet "1 pitch per preset" limitation on FM9.
• Specifications on Inputs are the same as “Wall of 9 AC30s FM9”.

“Doctor's Fav AC30 FMx |km 202257”

• This is intended for studio recording quality tone. Chorus, pitch shifters, Brighton Rock delay, FX Delay, and Reverb are not available.
• You’ve got 3 scenes with different cab/mic placement. On Scene 1-4, simulation of a treble booster (the Drive block) is engaged, while on Scene 5-8 it’s bypassed so that you can connect a real treble booster to Input 2. (Scene 2 and 6 are intentionally left blank)
• For all the scenes, Cab block comes with a combination of dynamic mic IRs and condenser mic IRs. Dyna-Cab is used on Scene4 and 8.

I'm afraid I haven't prepared the sound clips of these presets. Meanwhile You can hear the original preset for AXE-FX III in the video below to get in the ballpark.
I'd like to acknowledge Yonderbosk as the manufacturer of the treble booster I played with my preset “Doctor's Fav AC30” on this demo. If you liked my tone there, check out "BC149 ‘Orange Label’ Treble Booster" at http://yonderbosk.com
Keep in mind that Chorus is bit more "Chorus-y" on the attached presets due to the updates mentioned in the additional notes below.

Here are some additional notes…

• Drive block’s got a different setting for each channel and are set to the channel that matches best to each of the scenes. Here’s what each channel has got:
  • Channel A: matched to a treble booster by Fryer guitars by ear. Similar to Brian May’s treble boosters in late 90s-2000s.
  • Channel B: matched to a treble booster by Pete Cornish by ear. Similar to what Brian used in late 70’s to early 80’s.
  • Channel C: Almost the same as the default of the “treble booster” model but with clip type changed to “Germanium”. Intended to simulate what Brian used in early 70’s
  • Channel D: The default setting of the “treble booster” model.
• After experiments, I recommend treble boosters be connected to Input 2, not 1.
  • However low I turn down the input level or A/D sensitivity of Input 1, it never stops clipping when a treble booster is connected. It is not the case with Input 2.
• For the presets/Scenes intended for the use with a real treble booster, the gain of Amp block is adjusted to improve S/N ratio.
  While with these presets/Scenes I feel the AXE-FX is behaving very close to the real AC30, you may find the gain is lacking especially in the solo. Adjust the gain in that case or I recommend using the presets/scenes with Drive block engaged.
  • Actually I prefer using the simulated treble boosters as it can achieve higher gain and still tolerable S/N ratio.
• I didn’t include the foot controller configuration. Please do the configuration yourself If necessary. If you are gigging with my presets, I guess you’d want to assign switches to change the Scenes and control other FXs.
• When you don't use a real treble booster, I recommend plugging the guitar directly into the INSTR input, because input impedance plays an important role on this preset (and Brian's tone in general). If you use a wireless you should pair it with an impedance adjustment device (such as Radial Dragster: https://www.radialeng.com/product/dragster) to bring down the impedance anywhere below 100kohms.
• Chorus block is updated from the AXE-FX III version to match with Brian's own chorus settings.
  • A new information on Brian's settings of his FX effects (TC Electronic G-Major 2 BTW) becomes available by Doug Short, who asked Brian's guitar tech Nigel Knight to build the same rack unit as Brian's, including the same setting of chorus and other FXs as Brian's. The parameter is available on Doug Short's website (https://dsgb.net/gear/brian-may-live-rig/)
  • I applied the same settings to the Chorus block of my presets, except for "LFO Phase" tweaked a bit to obtain a better stereo effect and "Delay Time" to replicate the latency by TC G-Major's A/D & D/A conversion.

Apologies for the lengthy post. I hope you like them!

 

[km 202257]

Bump, Excuse me. Following the release of Cygnus X-3, I've updated the presets to optimize them for current amp simulation algorithm.
I've also my findings after previous presets, including ones at the venues of the recent Rhapsody Tour by Queen + Adam Lambert that I attended (I had a luck of being provided a seat right in front of the line array speakers twice!)

Please find the attached presets. As the presets were programmed on AXE-FX III, please let me know if they don't load or work on your FM9 and I will fix it ASAP.
(Other than the updates mentioned below, instructions in Post #1 applies. If this is your first time to use this series of presets, please make sure to read it before use.)

These are the major changes from the previous version:

• Amp blocks
  • Adjusted to deliver my intended tone on Cygnus X-3.
• Cab blocks
  • For slots loaded with Factory cab "2x12 Class-A NTB 30W 421 D," Swapped to "A". "D" sounded too boxy with the updated Amp block so I decided to swap it with a brighter one.
• Drive block
  • In response to the claims on S/N ratio, I reduced the output level of Channel B/C/D.
    I feel the gain is adequate enough to play with my Red Special replica with Adeson Tri-sonic pups, which has rather weaker output. That said, if you find the gain is lacking, turn it up to your taste.

I recommend that you use this preset with your Red Special (or any guitar) connected directly to the device and with the simulated treble booster. After Cygnus X-3, I don't know the reason but Amp blocks lacks in gain with a real treble booster. That is why I omitted "Wall of 9 AC30s noTB" from this update.

Just FYI, You can hear the AXE-FX III version of “Wall of 9 AC30s v3" and see how it looks like in AXE-EDIT in the video below. Please note this is not the perfect demonstration of the attached presets due to the AXE-FX III exclusive features.


I guess this could be the final update of this preset, unless there will be significant addition of features that could potentially improve the authenticity of the preset drastically (e.g. Addition of the models of AC30s modified for Brian lol.)
I hope you enjoy my presets!

 

[sawyer]

I used to play for the "We Will Rock You" Musical, where the techs tried to acurately replicate Brian's rig. I think your presets sound good, and are close, but you might get even closer in the FAS world. I am surprised you didn't go for one of the actual AC-30 amp models, I'd suggest using the TB model, or the new Brillant - that might get you closer to the original sound.

While the Fractal IRs sound great, if you want to get even closer, you might want to look into 3rd party IRs (like York Audio), to my ears they are a little closer to the real deal.

 

[km 202257]

@sawyer, Thank you for your comment. Honored to receive feedback from a guitarist of the WWRY musical.
Here are the comments to your points. I hope my excuses below would not sound like an insult without respect; I just want to clarify why I had my presets like the uploaded ones.

I am surprised you didn't go for one of the actual AC-30 amp models, I'd suggest using the TB model, or the new Brillant - that might get you closer to the original sound.

The reason I went for AC-20 model is that Cliff (the developer) himself said that the normal channel on a Vox would be closest to the Morgan.
It indeed worked for me after tweaks, and I've been too lazy to try out Class-A models.
The reference of Class-A models being AC30HWHD was another reason for not trying Class-A as I didn't hear good reputation on AC30s made outside of UK among Brian May fan community.

Taking your advice, I tried out the Class-A models to see if I would prefer them than my tweaked AC-20 models. Here's the sound clip:

My impressions are:

• Class-A TB (starts from 0:00)
  • Most favourite model among Class-A models, if I'd pick up. I wished the single notes to have more bottom and lower mids and less "twang-iness" that I slightly perceived.
• Class-A Brilliant (starts from 1:13)
  • I'm afraid this is too thin for my taste. I missed the bottom and lower mids from the single notes and clean tone.
• Class-A Normal (starts from 2:25)
  • This is too flabby. I didn't like the lack of the octave harmonics while playing Neck+Middle out of phase.
• AC-20 12AX7 Bass, as used in my presets (starts from 3:38)
  • I could be biased, but I liked how it sounded open without becoming thin, and how I could hear the unique picking noise from the sixpence the most. Maybe a little darker than it should, but I find it most powerful sounding and closest to the experience I had with my Dave Petersen modified AC30s (, which I like the most among Brian May spec AC30s). These are why I decided to keep using AC-20 models.

I also tried them in the mix and it didn't change my impressions.

If you were playing Fryer or KAT AC30s in WWRY production, maybe I'm hearing AC30s differently from you as Fryer/KAT are brighter sounding amps than Dave Petersen ones.

* Attached is the preset I used for this sound clip, which you can try out to validate my impressions.

While the Fractal IRs sound great, if you want to get even closer, you might want to look into 3rd party IRs (like York Audio), to my ears they are a little closer to the real deal.

I agree. When I play my presets, I actually swap the Cabs to my original IRs from the three "TBX" AC30s arranged side-by-side in a same room. This is how it sounds like:


It's just that I intentionally limited myself to Factory IRs as people can import my presets easier if only Factory IRs are used.
I used Silver Alnico Factory IRs (and SIC) mostly in my preset, so I guess that's why my preset sounds different from what we hear from AC30s with reissue Blue Alnico.

Apologies for the long post.