Hans Zimmer "Time" Chord drones, HBE 2018 and others

AlbertA

Fractal Fanatic
These are some patches based on a simeon preset from back in the Axe-Fx ULTRA days.

Ominous Nebula

This patch setups a couple of synth blocks with an Am and a F chord drone.
  • The External 1 controller is used to transition between the chords.
  • External 2 is setup as a volume control of the drone so you can bring it in/out.
  • You may want to remove the modifiers attached to synth blocks mix control if you don't have External 2 configured as you may not hear anything.
Preset details
  • Two synth blocks are used, passed through a filter, plex shift, delay and reverb.
  • The filter is just a lowpass filter whose frequency control is attached to an LFO, so you get that washing in/out sound.
  • All of the synth block voice frequencies are tuned to various octaves of A (440 Hz, 220Hz, 110Hz, etc). That way I can use the shift parameter to change the note, as the values are in semitone units.
    • For example a shift of 2 is a B, a shift of -2 is a G
  • The first synth block is setup to go from A,C, F (F chord 1st inversion) to A,C,E (Am)
  • The second block is setup to go from F1,F1,F2 to A1, A1, E2.
  • This is done by attaching modifiers to the shift parameter of the synth blocks.
  • The Amp used is an HBE 2018 amp; The cab block uses a mix of V30 and G12 IRs.
Here's how it sounds, this is all in real-time on the Axe-Fx III, one take:



Auto Nebula

This patch is a variation of the first

  • The shift from F to Am however is done via the sequencer controller instead of External 1.
  • The volume is still controlled via External 2 just as in the first one, so you may want to remove that as described above.

Zimmer Time

This patch sets up one chord per scene, corresponding to the chord progression used in Hans Zimmer "Time" from the Inception movie soundtrack.

  • The shift parameter of voice 1, 2, 3 of Synth block 1 are attached to scene controller 1, 2, 3 respectively.
  • The shift parameter of voice 1, 2, 3 of synth block 2 are attached to scene controller 4. This is because they all use the same shift value as they are just root note octaves.
  • Each scene then just changes scene controller amounts to set up the appropriate chords notes.
  • The synth volume is still controlled via External 2 as in the above presets, so you may want to remove that as described above.
  • I switch scenes using the scene increment MIDI control - which nicely wraps around.
  • The AMP is still an HBE 2018 with the same IR mix as above, but tweaked to be lower in the overall mix and brighter to kinda approximate the guitar tone in the original track.
Here's how it sounds, all real-time in the Axe-Fx III, one take:

 
Last edited:
If you don't have a pedal attached to External 2, you may not get any sound. In this case, remove the modifier attached to the mix parameter of both synth blocks. I use External 2 to swell in/out the synths.
 
These are some patches based on a simeon preset from back in the Axe-Fx ULTRA days.

Ominous Nebula

This patch setups a couple of synth blocks with an Am and a F chord drone.
  • The External 1 controller is used to transition between the chords.
  • External 2 is setup as a volume control of the drone so you can bring it in/out.
  • You may want to remove the modifiers attached to synth blocks mix control if you don't have External 2 configured as you may not hear anything.
Preset details
  • Two synth blocks are used, passed through a filter, plex shift, delay and reverb.
  • The filter is just a lowpass filter whose frequency control is attached to an LFO, so you get that washing in/out sound.
  • All of the synth block voice frequencies are tuned to various octaves of A (440 Hz, 220Hz, 110Hz, etc). That way I can use the shift parameter to change the note, as the values are in semitone units.
    • For example a shift of 2 is a B, a shift of -2 is a G
  • The first synth block is setup to go from A,C, F (F chord 1st inversion) to A,C,E (Am)
  • The second block is setup to go from F1,F1,F2 to A1, A1, E2.
  • This is done by attaching modifiers to the shift parameter of the synth blocks.
  • The Amp used is an HBE 2018 amp; The cab block uses a mix of V30 and G12 IRs.
Here's how it sounds, this is all in real-time on the Axe-Fx III, one take:



Auto Nebula

This patch is a variation of the first

  • The shift from F to Am however is done via the sequencer controller instead of External 1.
  • The volume is still controlled via External 2 just as in the first one, so you may want to remove that as described above.

Zimmer Time

This patch sets up one chord per scene, corresponding to the chord progression used in Hans Zimmer "Time" from the Inception movie soundtrack.

  • The shift parameter of voice 1, 2, 3 of Synth block 1 are attached to scene controller 1, 2, 3 respectively.
  • The shift parameter of voice 1, 2, 3 of synth block 2 are attached to scene controller 4. This is because they all use the same shift value as they are just root note octaves.
  • Each scene then just changes scene controller amounts to set up the appropriate chords notes.
  • The synth volume is still controlled via External 2 as in the above presets, so you may want to remove that as described above.
  • I switch scenes using the scene increment MIDI control - which nicely wraps around.
  • The AMP is still an HBE 2018 with the same IR mix as above, but tweaked to be lower in the overall mix and brighter to kinda approximate the guitar tone in the original track.
Here's how it sounds, all real-time in the Axe-Fx III, one take:




Excellent!!!!!!!!!
 
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