Gift of Tone #15 - PHIL COLLEN of DEF LEPPARD

[ak301]

Now you're going down a rabbit hole that I'm very familiar with lol. Since the band started using Fractal I've often wondered if they would consider trying to replicate the actual guitar tones from the Hysteria album, with the Axe III because that was such a different sounding album and now you have the tech to do it a lot more easily - well that would be a job for John obviously!

I don't know if the band have thought about it, but it would be killer if you could reproduce some of the Hysteria album tones just for those songs and then switch back to the current sound for the modern stuff

They've already done that, though in a slightly different way to I think what you're getting at back in 2014

Watch around the 11 min mark

 

[rrhoads17]

Now you're going down a rabbit hole that I'm very familiar with lol. Since the band started using Fractal I've often wondered if they would consider trying to replicate the actual guitar tones from the Hysteria album, with the Axe III because that was such a different sounding album and now you have the tech to do it a lot more easily - well that would be a job for John obviously!

I don't know if the band have thought about it, but it would be killer if you could reproduce some of the Hysteria album tones just for those songs and then switch back to the current sound for the modern stuff

I don’t think it’s possible to recreate the tones from Hysteria because the album was so layered and processed. They came fairly close to those tones during the Adrenalize tour because they using the spanky cleans and chorus from the Rockman XPR units.

 

[Rich5150]

Really digging this, Im curious though on a tune with clean guitars like Love Bites what amp do they use for the cleans?

Can't Thank Fractal, Def Leppard and everyone else who's contributed to this

 

[Metal1993]

His JMP-1 units were stock (I think Viv's were modded). I actually didn't refer to those settings at all - I just went by ear. I pulled up a live recording that I would reference to make sure I was in the ballpark as I was tweaking.

As an owner of a real jmp-1 can you please tell me what those original settings were? I have been trying to find out for years. I would greatly be thankful.

 

[Piing]

John’s shirt

What are the links between Phil Collins/Genesis and Phil Collen/DefLeppard?

- John's shirt

- Both like to play shirtless

- Both are badass


- Both should have been knighted by the queen, although someone said "Phil Collins is deserving of Knighthood, whereas Phil Collen would probably have to slay a dragon to do so"
https://onemoreknight.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/not-to-be-confused-with/

- The first encouraging letter Rick Allen opened after he lost his arm was from Phil Collins
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/new...car_crash__what_his_bandmates_had_to_say.html

Anyone can recall others?

 

[Metal1993]

Also is there way someone could convert this preset to so those with an axe f2 could play along as well? As other than the 3 cabs everything else seems like it would work in the 2.

 

[Metal1993]

One last thing to add I have a pc1, one of the first prototype of the satin series with a huge neck. and full titamnim floyd set up. not fu-tone but the full tisonox set up. and it sounds spot on. I copied what i saw from the screenshots and its so close its amazing! But 2 get a fx2 version would be great!

 

[Bruce Sokolovic]

Chorus scene of the preset was dead on the Photograph sound. The regular rhythm scene was a little darker than I would have thought but everyones monitoring is different.

 

[Powers of Ten]

Thank you Fractal, jzguitar and Phil Collen!
So much fun exploring these gift of tone presets.
Only tried this preset on my FM9 with Matt Picone"s cabs and not on my Axe III yet.
But it did not sound dark at all on my Dynaudio monitors, sounded amazing actually.
i just bumped up the volume in the input block a bit as the HB in my main Suhr Classic is not nearly as hot as PC's HB's

 

[Bruce Sokolovic]

Thank you Fractal, jzguitar and Phil Collen!
So much fun exploring these gift of tone presets.
Only tried this preset on my FM9 with Matt Picone"s cabs and not on my Axe III yet.
But it did not sound dark at all on my Dynaudio monitors, sounded amazing actually.
i just bumped up the volume in the input block a bit as the HB in my main Suhr Classic is not nearly as hot as PC's HB's

This stuff is all relative. I have the preset next to the Dante GOT preset which seems to be considerably brighter. Both sound great, and one wouldnt really sound dark or bright if not in comparison to the other. At least not obviously. You can really take over the world with either preset.

 

[Sashman]

I do usually grab my own PC-1 if I'm working on sounds at home - it is one of his tour guitars that he was kind enough to gift me a couple of years ago (it's the one in the video) so it's a great reference for tweaking tones that we will use live. I don't typically change the basic amp tone for different guitars, so each one will have its own vibe. Once we get a feel for how they all sound through the rig, we'll figure out which ones suit certain songs. We do change it up throughout a tour, too. We also run the Fender Acoustasonic through the AxeFx for the acoustic section of the show, although it's pretty much straight in and out with no blocks engaged.

All I can say is thank you John!
I tried the preset today with my new studio setup (two monitors and a slim subwoofer) and it does sound glorious und it transfers very well to my setup.

 

[Paulzx]

They've already done that, though in a slightly different way to I think what you're getting at back in 2014

Watch around the 11 min mark

Yeah I remember seeing that video and wondering how they made that work. I think they were still using their basic marshall amp tone live that they had been using for a while (and still are), rather than try and replicate the rockman tone which is what I was thinking about. I mean it might not be feasible to do, but given the unique sound on Hysteria, if you were to recreate it live just for those tracks, it would sound a lot different from how they have done it since the Adrenalize tour, I think what they have tried to achieve since then is a very even sound across the whole set with the JMP1 tone which does work pretty well.

Over the years of seeing all the big rock bands live, Leppard in my opinion have been consistently the best sounding live.

 

[Paulzx]

I don’t think it’s possible to recreate the tones from Hysteria because the album was so layered and processed. They came fairly close to those tones during the Adrenalize tour because they using the spanky cleans and chorus from the Rockman XPR units.

Agreed, Hysteria & Adrenalize tour was more similar to the album sound, then the live sound went in a different direction for Slang, very stripped down. The funny thing about the Hysteria album tone is that so many people even now, are obsessed with trying to replicate something near to it on the modelers because I suppose theoretically it should be easier to do now, but it's still very elusive to nail. I think the rockman IR's do get you in the ball park but never exactly there. It's a life long passion lol

 

[jzguitar]

As an owner of a real jmp-1 can you please tell me what those original settings were? I have been trying to find out for years. I would greatly be thankful.

When I started working for Phil, they were already programmed. I never had to dive in and do any programming on those JMPs. From what I remember, it was pretty much a rhythm preset and a lead preset. The AxeFx was just for effects at that point in time.

 

[Metal1993]

When I started working for Phil, they were already programmed. I never had to dive in and do any programming on those JMPs. From what I remember, it was pretty much a rhythm preset and a lead preset. The AxeFx was just for effects at that point in time.

Right, I get that, but can you tell me what those setting were that you saw when you jumped in? And were they going in to the axe fx using the main outs or the emulated ones? I am curios, and in the rig rundowns, they say they go into the axe fx and then into a power amp. So i was wondering did the main outs go to the ax fx then the ax fx to the randal power amp, or emulated into the ax fx and then the mains into the power amp? Thank you for being a part of this community!

 

[cragginshred]

The file mentions using 3 cabs, I saw 2 IR's? How are you guys setting it up? I used the Factory cabs in the pre set and they sounded really good too. I did lower the Depth to noon

Does it sound a bit dark due to the EQ as pointed out in the pic in a previous post?

 

[Paulzx]

Hey John, I was wondering seeing as the guys were using the fractal previously but just for effects, who's idea was it to actually start using
the amp sims?

 

[ak301]

Hey John, I was wondering seeing as the guys were using the fractal previously but just for effects, who's idea was it to actually start using
the amp sims?

As I understand it Phil heard the III being played by John Pettrucci on the G3 tour and was blown away by it and I think they bought some soon after

 

[RoshRoslin]

Right, I get that, but can you tell me what those setting were that you saw when you jumped in? And were they going in to the axe fx using the main outs or the emulated ones? I am curios, and in the rig rundowns, they say they go into the axe fx and then into a power amp. So i was wondering did the main outs go to the ax fx then the ax fx to the randal power amp, or emulated into the ax fx and then the mains into the power amp? Thank you for being a part of this community!

Wolfie mentions me around the 11:00 mark in that Rig Rundown from 2014 (Hey Def Leppard fam). This was during the era where I was working with them and a couple tours after. Just like the rig rundown says, everything was basically routed back into the Palmer PDI and sent to FOH and In ears. This also allowed the techs to monitor what was happening in real time in Vivian and Phil's in ears (with headphones), and also to hear what was happening on stage (take the headphones off). Then there was a split in the signal path to route to the power amps. This allowed different independent tones for stage, ears and FOH. There were Mesas, and Engls depending on which rig and it's A/B/C redundant backup rig.

The JMPs were programmed with some final tweaking here and there during production/rehearsals. If you're familiar with JMPs each knob/setting has a numerical value. You twist to a number and save. We didn't do anything crazy other than maybe bump values up or down a number or two in either direction. More of the signature or acoustic sounds were tone matches from the original stems as Wolfie says. Especially for getting Piezo Pickups to sound like acoustic guitars or Rockmans etc.

The rig rundown of this era is very accurate to what they were doing then.

 

[Brian Coonan]

Here is some of the experimenting I've been doing - it's the JMP block from Phil's preset with a clean layer added. The clean on its own is pretty bright/thin but its main function is to add some sparkle/texture to the heavy tone. It works well for the chorus of Photograph.

Gift of Tone 15.5 - so cool that you are part of the conversation out here. Def Leppard is a great band with an amazing live sound!