AFIII Grindcore track with 'fake Boss HM-2' guitar tone

GrindcoreHank

GrindcoreHank

Member
EDIT: New version of the tone with re-recorded guitars added

A guy on Facebook pointed out I was boosting the wrong frequency band for the 'Low' knob. I made a new version with a lower band and now I boost with two graphic EQ blocks, both with a narrower Q than before. Now I'm boosting 88Hz and 1kHz with +20dB each. Guitars were rerecorded today, bass is still the same recording. Slightly different mix/master.

New version:

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Hey guys,

Roughly a month ago is got my Axe-FX III. I've been experimenting with some different presets, as well as making my own. So far I'm really impressed by the 'nice' tones. I decided to push the boundaries a bit and use this high end unit to recreate one of the most disgusting guitar tones ever. I know the Boss HM-2 was never modeled in the Axe-FX firmware so I decided to make my own buzzsaw tone. I'm running it into the 'Severe 2' amp block, so it's going straight into the high gain channel of an ENGL Savage. EQ on the amp block is maxed out. The HM-2 was faked by combining the RAT distortion with maxed out gain and a parametric EQ. I boosted 200Hz and 1kHz and got a really nice buzzsaw tone going. The bass was recorded with another patch that I've made. It's B7K --> Compressor --> Ampeg SVT --> Ampeg 8x10".

This song is a few years old but I never did anything with it. I wanted to test my Fake HM-2 tone in a mix, so I recorded this. A friend of mine will add vocals soon. He liked the song and the tones so much we're going to make an album together :)

 
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2112 said:
Man that's some legit chainsaw action!
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Thanks man! I'm happy with how the tone turned out. Initially I had a high gain tone for the bass as well but that just sounded awful in the mix hahaha :p I did try to play my bass through the guitar preset used in this song. That actually sounded really cool in it's own horrible way ;-)

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't get any notifications so I didn't know anything was happening in this thread. Apparently a bunch of people like what I did, that's great :)
 
rascarvalho said:
Nice tone... I'm tired of asking FAS to include HM2 into AXE products... but you nailed it!
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Thanks man, I'm glad you like the tone :) This whole modeling thing is still pretty new to me. That being said, I have over two decades of experience as a guitarist and I studied studio engineering. I'm also doing some EDM stuff these days, so I'm used to replicating certain tones and hearing the order I should used for my signal chain. The Axe-FX III allows me to experiment in a similar way with gear that I don't have as a real amp/pedal etc. So far I'm having a lot of fun :D
 
rascarvalho said:
What did you use to achive this sound? (Amp and drive block models) thanks again.
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Most of this is in my OP, but here's a quick summary:

All FX are mentioned in the order of the signal chain.

- Drive: Rat Dist.
  1. Gain: 10
  2. Tone: 5.68
  3. All else is stock.
- Parametric EQ
  1. Band 2: Peaking, 200Hz, 12dB boost
  2. Band 4: Peaking 1000Hz, 12dB boost
  3. All other bands are neutral.
- Amp block: Angle Severe 2
  1. Input drive 6
  2. Overdrive 6.8
  3. EQ is maxed out.
  4. Presence 3
  5. Master Volume 6.4
  6. I think the rest of the amp block was left untouched.
-Cab block: Both are 4x12" ENGL with V30 speakers from the OH Impulse Responses.
Cab1 has the SM57 mic and is blended at 0dB.
Cab 2 has the Royer 121 mic and is blended in at -6dB.

Have fun playing around with that stuff, I'd be happy to hear some more people do the Swedish OSDM tones. Gotta love some buzzsaw distortion :D
 
GrindcoreHank said:
Most of this is in my OP, but here's a quick summary:

All FX are mentioned in the order of the signal chain.

- Drive: Rat Dist.
  1. Gain: 10
  2. Tone: 5.68
  3. All else is stock.
- Parametric EQ
  1. Band 2: Peaking, 200Hz, 12dB boost
  2. Band 4: Peaking 1000Hz, 12dB boost
  3. All other bands are neutral.
- Amp block: Angle Severe 2
  1. Input drive 6
  2. Overdrive 6.8
  3. EQ is maxed out.
  4. Presence 3
  5. Master Volume 6.4
  6. I think the rest of the amp block was left untouched.
-Cab block: Both are 4x12" ENGL with V30 speakers from the OH Impulse Responses.
Cab1 has the SM57 mic and is blended at 0dB.
Cab 2 has the Royer 121 mic and is blended in at -6dB.

Have fun playing around with that stuff, I'd be happy to hear some more people do the Swedish OSDM tones. Gotta love some buzzsaw distortion :D
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First of all, thank you very much!!!
2 things: What do you mean with "EQ is maxed out" (Axe Fx 2 didn't have this parameter in amp block)? Which cab did you use (the number after 57 in the file name)?
Again... thank you!!!
 
stink said:
That destroyed the speaker in my iPhone just so you know...
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I'll take that as a compliment. To me that means the tone was just as awful as it should be :D

rascarvalho said:
First of all, thank you very much!!!
2 things: What do you mean with "EQ is maxed out" (Axe Fx 2 didn't have this parameter in amp block)? Which cab did you use (the number after 57 in the file name)?
Again... thank you!!!
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The amp has a three band EQ: bass, mid, treble. All are set to 10. Just dial them up until they can't go any further.

One of the first differences I noticed between the real HM-2 tone and the fake one is that I don't hear uncontrollable squealing when I bypass my gate, hahaha!

EDIT: forgot to mention the IR numbers from the cab slot. The SM57 is Factory2 Cab #694. The Royer 121 is Factory 2 Cab # 696
 
Thank you again!
I tried to change Rat Dist to Hard Fuzz with Drive 5 and Tone 7.62 and reduce to 5 input drive (amp block). It sounds good too.
 
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rascarvalho said:
Thank you again!
I tried to change Rat Dist to Hard Fuzz with Drive 5 and Tone 7.62 and reduce to 5 input drive (amp block). It sounds good too.
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I will try this tomorrow. Personally I'm not a big fan of fuzz sounds, but I'm curious to hear what it will do in this setup. I used the RAT distortion because Dismember used a RAT for their most famous tones. That sounds pretty close to a HM-2 kind of tone already, so I figured it would be a good place to start.

Fun side note: I once used my Boss HM-2 to create a ZZ Top kind of tone. It worked out pretty damn well, hahaha :p Billy Gibbons is of course known for using fuzz pedals, so I guess using the Boss HM-2 to achieve his tone is the opposite of what you're suggesting for the 'Fake HM-2 tone' :p
 
I posted the song in a Facebook group yesterday. Someone pointed out that something was off, probably due to the fact that I boosted the wrong frequency as the 'Low' knob. I will post an update soon.
 
This new tone sounds better... could you share the settings of this 2 blocks (eqs). Amp and Dist block are the same, right? Thanks again!
 
No, I changed more things actually.

Drive type was changed to Plus Dist w/ max Gain and Tone set to 6.37

EQ is now a 10dB boost on 88Hz and 1000Hz, both with Q = 1.5 This is copied to Parametric EQ 2 I used 'Peaking' as the filter type.

The amp is now the Brit 800. With the Angle Severe 2 it was just too much of everything. The Brit 800 gives the HM-2 tone that classic OSDM vibe :) Input Drive is set to 6.66 for obvious reasons. Low/Mid/High are still maxed. Presense is used to control the high end a bit. Master is at 9. I think the rest is default.
 
mediocrechris said:
I hate to necro a dead a thread, but that part right there is probably one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life. Well done!
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Hahahahaha, I'm glad I could make you laugh with this. I couldn't resist doing it. It's like how a few Firmware versions had 'Melt Faces' as the 'value' when the Gain/Master Volume knobs were maxed out.
 
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