Fractal Audio Artist Preset Series - Steve Stevens

Morphine said:
Did Metallica release all those notes? I did see a YouTube video of someone discussing those a while back. Seemed like acquiring all the gear today would be quite a task.

I'm with you on the secrecy thing. I've been chasing Devs tone for a while now, while the preset they released is very cool it does seem like a very ballpark version of his sound. The GP sound isn't there, which is the main "Dev" thing. He's said multiple times it would get released and it never has. Latest is it will get released with a Neural DSP plugin. Not holding my breath!
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I thought the notes were released in a box set or special release they did. Lemme do some diggin'-

Seems it was Flemming Rasmussen who posted them on his website- http://www.fwrproduction.com/FWR_Produktion/Notes_1.html

In this case, I'm not sure if Flemming asked the band if it was ok, or didn't bother being that they were his notes. While I don't know the relationship between the band and Flemming, my knee jerk reaction is to say if the band asked him, he would have taken them down.

I think the reason why I don't believe they're all that secretive is because I've never heard James or Kirk say as much. I've been a pretty avid fan for quite some time, read every interview I've ever come across, especially if it was a Hetfield interview, and don't recall ever seeing them say "We don't want you to know that.". I think it's more of a situation that the guys have always relied on producers/engineers to get the sounds on the albums. I'd be quite surprised if they even actually knew exactly what ended up on the records and exactly how everything was dialed in.

Take for instance, Bob Rock on the Year And A Half doc, when Kirk is tracking the solo for "The Unforgiven"-



When Kirk asks if he can use a thicker sound, Bob's reply is to go back to his regular sound and he'll put it through an amp later because he doesn't want to fuck around with sounds. While I'm sure the guys always had plenty of input, at the end of the day, it was the producers/engineers pushing the knobs and especially in the case of Rock, they hired him specifically to get the sound he was known for. He had them trying all kinds of stuff and I'd be willing to bet James and Kirk were sitting in the control room while someone else was out turning knobs on amps, waiting for them to say "Yeah, I dig that.".

Tl;dr- I'm sure James and Kirk can tell you their ballpark settings, but I highly doubt they can go into great detail due to being more focused on the final product and not so much being tone nuts. They've always been open about what they use as far as guitars, amps and effects and even describing the tones they dig, but I'm not so sure they're that involved in the engineering/mixing process to give anymore information than that.
 
RevDrucifer said:
I thought the notes were released in a box set or special release they did. Lemme do some diggin'-

Seems it was Flemming Rasmussen who posted them on his website- http://www.fwrproduction.com/FWR_Produktion/Notes_1.html

In this case, I'm not sure if Flemming asked the band if it was ok, or didn't bother being that they were his notes. While I don't know the relationship between the band and Flemming, my knee jerk reaction is to say if the band asked him, he would have taken them down.

I think the reason why I don't believe they're all that secretive is because I've never heard James or Kirk say as much. I've been a pretty avid fan for quite some time, read every interview I've ever come across, especially if it was a Hetfield interview, and don't recall ever seeing them say "We don't want you to know that.". I think it's more of a situation that the guys have always relied on producers/engineers to get the sounds on the albums. I'd be quite surprised if they even actually knew exactly what ended up on the records and exactly how everything was dialed in.

Take for instance, Bob Rock on the Year And A Half doc, when Kirk is tracking the solo for "The Unforgiven"-



When Kirk asks if he can use a thicker sound, Bob's reply is to go back to his regular sound and he'll put it through an amp later because he doesn't want to fuck around with sounds. While I'm sure the guys always had plenty of input, at the end of the day, it was the producers/engineers pushing the knobs and especially in the case of Rock, they hired him specifically to get the sound he was known for. He had them trying all kinds of stuff and I'd be willing to bet James and Kirk were sitting in the control room while someone else was out turning knobs on amps, waiting for them to say "Yeah, I dig that.".

Tl;dr- I'm sure James and Kirk can tell you their ballpark settings, but I highly doubt they can go into great detail due to being more focused on the final product and not so much being tone nuts. They've always been open about what they use as far as guitars, amps and effects and even describing the tones they dig, but I'm not so sure they're that involved in the engineering/mixing process to give anymore information than that.
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My info on it came from Ken Lawrence and ESP primarily. Bout 15 years ago or so I went on an Explorer kick and bought 5 from Ken and a handful from ESP. One of them was a replica of his 1st one with a petraglyph inlay. Ken went into detail about how he couldn't replicate James' guitars exactly cause James is very protective of "his" designs. He would do alternate versions of the inlays as to not upset James. ESP also had released guitars for the Japanese market in the 90's that James squashed once he learned they were in production.

Seems they wont allow pictures of amps, gear, settings for live use (not that those would be of much use now that they're full Fractal) either.

I think they've got ample opportunity to release things with all the companies they're involved with in terms of guitar tones. Just seems they've done about all they're going to do on that front.
 
RevDrucifer said:
I never really got the gear secrecy thing. Sure, you'll get in the ballpark with all the same gear, I certainly did with Vai's tone back in high school when my rig was almost an exact duplicate of his, but without the fingers you're only going to get 75-85% of the way there. When I load up the Devin Townsend presets and play Dev/SYL riffs, it still sounds like me playing them.
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Exactly.
IMHO 99.9% of the sound of a guitar player comes from the guitar player.
The gear broadens the 'voicing bandwidth' (that's why one can't have enough gear) but your capabilities are the key to unlock the full range of possibilities. That's why someone like Vai will still sound awesome on a crappy amp and shitty guitar and on Vai's rig I will sound ...
 
Morphine said:
My info on it came from Ken Lawrence and ESP primarily. Bout 15 years ago or so I went on an Explorer kick and bought 5 from Ken and a handful from ESP. One of them was a replica of his 1st one with a petraglyph inlay. Ken went into detail about how he couldn't replicate James' guitars exactly cause James is very protective of "his" designs. He would do alternate versions of the inlays as to not upset James. ESP also had released guitars for the Japanese market in the 90's that James squashed once he learned they were in production.

Seems they wont allow pictures of amps, gear, settings for live use (not that those would be of much use now that they're full Fractal) either.

I think they've got ample opportunity to release things with all the companies they're involved with in terms of guitar tones. Just seems they've done about all they're going to do on that front.
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Monty Jay used to have a pretty big site with tons of gear pics on it.

Seems odd he squashed the Japanese market ESP’s when he was having them released in the states.
 
RevDrucifer said:
Monty Jay used to have a pretty big site with tons of gear pics on it.

Seems odd he squashed the Japanese market ESP’s when he was having them released in the states.
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Many of the ones for the Japanese market were never released in the USA. The wolf to man inlay explorer, the middle finger inlay explorer, and the wood burned elk skull explorer (have heard of this one, but never actually seen one) were all guitars ESP made for Japan and abruptly stopped at James request. So the story goes anyway.

A lot of the ones for the US market were either different than his or guitars he never really used live.

I remember MontyJays site. Lots of cool info there. He used to be pretty active over on the old ESP forums.
 
Morphine said:
Many of the ones for the Japanese market were never released in the USA. The wolf to man inlay explorer, the middle finger inlay explorer, and the wood burned elk skull explorer (have heard of this one, but never actually seen one) were all guitars ESP made for Japan and abruptly stopped at James request. So the story goes anyway.

A lot of the ones for the US market were either different than his or guitars he never really used live.

I remember MontyJays site. Lots of cool info there. He used to be pretty active over on the old ESP forums.
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Morphine said:
Many of the ones for the Japanese market were never released in the USA. The wolf to man inlay explorer, the middle finger inlay explorer, and the wood burned elk skull explorer (have heard of this one, but never actually seen one) were all guitars ESP made for Japan and abruptly stopped at James request. So the story goes anyway.

A lot of the ones for the US market were either different than his or guitars he never really used live.

I remember MontyJays site. Lots of cool info there. He used to be pretty active over on the old ESP forums.
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I'd love to get my hands on any of the Hetfield Explorers. They just go for ridiculous prices now that it's not worth it for me. I'd rather just get a used Gibson and mod it. I saw one of the diamond plate Explorer's at Sam Ash back in the 90's, that thing was HEAVY. I figure, if you're going to dish out the money for a Hetfield Explorer, might as well go to Ken Lawrence and have one custom built for the same price or cheaper than you can score an ESP sig for.

I've known Monty via forums for close to 20 years. He got into concert photography a couple years ago but hasn't been very active on FB for the last year. I sent him a message just to check on him and he's doin' good, just taking a bit of a break from social media.
 
RevDrucifer said:
I'd love to get my hands on any of the Hetfield Explorers. They just go for ridiculous prices now that it's not worth it for me. I'd rather just get a used Gibson and mod it. I saw one of the diamond plate Explorer's at Sam Ash back in the 90's, that thing was HEAVY. I figure, if you're going to dish out the money for a Hetfield Explorer, might as well go to Ken Lawrence and have one custom built for the same price or cheaper than you can score an ESP sig for.

I've known Monty via forums for close to 20 years. He got into concert photography a couple years ago but hasn't been very active on FB for the last year. I sent him a message just to check on him and he's doin' good, just taking a bit of a break from social media.
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I had a few of the MX250 models from Japan. Those were really nice. The EXP models for the US market weren't too bad, but wasn't crazy about the bolt-on necks and rosewood fretboards on those.

The prices on everything custom has exploded. I custom ordered one of my MX250s from a dealer in Japan in 2003 and it was $2350 shipped to the US. Now I see them around $6500. Same with the KL stuff. Last time I spoke to him was a couple of years ago and the base price was double what it was when I bought mine.

Glad to hear Monty is doing well. If you speak with him again tell him SYL from the old ESP forums said hello!
 
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