I bet you cannot match this tone

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First off, apologies if I've come across as a troll, that is not my intention.

The reality is that I've spent the past year trying to replicate that tone with a number of amp modellers and have been unsuccessful with each one.
Well, the constant then in your attempts happens to be...


Also, I have watched a number of YouTube videos covering the song, and no one has even come close to getting that tone in my opinion.
Again, looking for constants, none of those people would be Andy Summers at that specific moment in time, right?


I don't want a preset. I want someone on here to nail that tone and thereby prove to me that it is indeed possible to get it, which will be of great help in determining if Axe FX (and its tone matching capability) is the right product for me.
Mmm. Fractal has a really excellent return policy. You can try this for yourself. But it'll never turn you in to Andy. There's only one Andy. And he loves his Axe-FX II AFAIK.
 
I don't own an Axe FX and don't know anyone who has one, so I can't try it for myself unfortunately. Honestly I'd love to try out the tone matching capabilities.

As for me being "too lazy", clearly you missed the part where I mentioned that I've been trying to replicate this tone with a number of amp modellers over the past year.
i didnt missed that part but what you did in the past year is irrevalent because i am questioning what you are doing right now not past year and not about what you did with other modelers. and i think you missunderstood the tone matching. it is just a eq analysis just as @unix-guy said so it does not capture the whole tone for you it just matches the EQ with your own tone so what you should try is the amp models itself not tone match block
where are you from ? if you ask out i think you can find someone in forum who has axe fx and live near you. about 3 months ago there was a guy who asked that and he meet with some forum member to try axe fx
 
I honestly thought that Tone Matching allowed you to run an isolated guitar track through and would then configure a profile to match the tone (including amps, effects etc.) discovered.

Glad to hear that Andy Summers is an Axe FX fan. Perhaps we can get him to share some of his setups? I'm sorry but I don't buy the whole "time and a place" excuse when it comes to matching tones. You can still get extremely close, heck, there's a near perfect tone for "Lay it Down" by Ratt on the front page of this forum section right now. It can most definitely be done.

This tone specifically I find puzzling though. The closest attempt (all things considered) which isn't even that close I have found is in the video below:

 
The closest attempt (all things considered) which isn't even that close I have found is in the video below:


He's got the voicing and the gain right, but he's missing the pitch shift and the swirl. Mostly the pitch shift. I still say Matt nailed that part above.
 
Let's say you can do it. Then what? Why do you need 100% tone match and why 95% is not enough? Are you going to buy an Axe-Fx and play that song over and over for the rest of your life in your room? Because believe me, nobody else cares about it around you!

And yes, it can be done! Now get that axe-fx and start learning how to use it. Spend a lot of time with it and do that 100% tone-match!
 
Let's say you can do it. Then what? Why do you need 100% tone match and why 95% is not enough? Are you going to buy an Axe-Fx and play that song over and over for the rest of your life in your room? Because believe me, nobody else cares about it around you!

And yes, it can be done! Now get that axe-fx and start learning how to use it. Spend a lot of time with it and do that 100% tone-match!
What is this 95% match you speak of? If you're referring to the Soundcloud sample or the video I posted, then I'm sorry, it is nowhere near that close.

I don't play guitar to satisfy others. I see music as a personal and spiritual development, and I would feel incredible if I could get that sound coming out of my gear.
 
5 minutes of tweaking Matt's preset to change the amp and cab to something that sounds closer to me (for the record he was demonstrating complex harmony changes with a footswitch, not how close he could match this tone). Is it 100%? No, but I bet it'd be pretty close in the hands of the fella that wrote it, I just don't have that signature touch of Mr. Summers. I didn't feel like rigging up the footswitching of Matt's preset for the harmony, so I just tracked a harmony on the intro for effect. In hindsight I should have made it more wet and played a lot more dynamically, but oh well it still sounds pretty good to me. There's a lot of room sound in the recording which is tricky to match, but if I was as passionate about this tone as you are I would imagine the details would be pretty straightforward to sort out from here.

 
Without intent to offend, there's nothing special about the tone in the original video and everything special about the player in the video. A good bit of the swirlyness is probably from the isolation rather than anything to do with the recording. It sounds like Andy Summers playing his usual Fender guitar into his usual Fender amp with his usual readily available effects. Whatever inability to come up with something similar requires a long hard look at the fingers playing the guitar, not the equipment on the other end.
 
Without intent to offend, there's nothing special about the tone in the original video and everything special about the player in the video. A good bit of the swirlyness is probably from the isolation rather than anything to do with the recording. It sounds like Andy Summers playing his usual Fender guitar into his usual Fender amp with his usual readily available effects. Whatever inability to come up with something similar requires a long hard look at the fingers playing the guitar, not the equipment on the other end.

Exactly. This is just one of those classic examples of the tone being in the fingers. He's got a killer touch. I'm a high gain guy through and through, but the truth is you can really blur a lot of lines with high gain tones with heavy tweaking (not to take anything away from anybody, it's just easier to attain certain tones than others). This kind of tone requires certain inflections and playing characteristics to really shine.
 
I recently interviewed Andy Summers and read his book "One Train Later" from cover to cover. He talks about using a Fender Twin Reverb, a '61 Tele an Electroharmonix Electric Mistress Flanger and a Dynacomp compressor. Here is a good URL where Andy discusses his signal chain. http://www.watersish.com/archives/2015/05/andy-summers-rig-the-police-years.html Andy talks about using Roland Bolt amps, and Marshall heads with various speakers, although at this part of the conversation, he is also discussing his live setup. A lot of the color in the studio recording can come from the signal chain, including the sound of those particular stomp boxes. His playing volume could also a factor, as Yek mentioned, mic selection and placement position, the sound of the recording board, and any post production effects that the engineer added. If you want to get Andy's sound, the first thing is to find out as much about his sound as you can. I thought that he used chorusing for all of these years, but a lot of that modulation sound was from a flanger, not a chorus. Here is another useful video by James Santiago from Voodoo Electronics, that also discusses Andy's sound. Santiago talks about Andy Summers using Marshalls with a scooped EQ curve here and comes very closing to nailing Andy's sound.
 
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5 minutes of tweaking Matt's preset to change the amp and cab to something that sounds closer to me (for the record he was demonstrating complex harmony changes with a footswitch, not how close he could match this tone). Is it 100%? No, but I bet it'd be pretty close in the hands of the fella that wrote it, I just don't have that signature touch of Mr. Summers. I didn't feel like rigging up the footswitching of Matt's preset for the harmony, so I just tracked a harmony on the intro for effect. In hindsight I should have made it more wet and played a lot more dynamically, but oh well it still sounds pretty good to me. There's a lot of room sound in the recording which is tricky to match, but if I was as passionate about this tone as you are I would imagine the details would be pretty straightforward to sort out from here.


Reasonably close, but I think you'll agree, no cigar. Please keep at it.

Andy's fingers didn't magically get him that tone. Tone is almost entirely generated in the effects and processing units. Want proof? Here is someone getting Eddie Van Halen's Brown Sound replicated perfectly who isn't him and can't play anywhere near like him (the muting in the intro is all wrong). By your logic, this should not be possible because he sounds like Eddie and doubtfully like himself.

 
Stop wasting yours and everyone else' time arguing and get to work on the tone because you don't have it. You can probably set up a preset based on a Marshall lead 100 head, scoop out the tone controls to give it some bite, try a few different cab/ir combinations until you have the basis - Then follow Santiago's suggestions from the video I posted earlier, then start slowly adding flange, delay, and compression until the sound is right. Santiago got damn close, and you can too!
 
Want proof? Here is someone getting Eddie Van Halen's Brown Sound replicated perfectly who isn't him and can't play anywhere near like him (the muting in the intro is all wrong). By your logic, this should not be possible because he sounds like Eddie and doubtfully like himself.
Reasonably close, but I think you'll agree, no cigar. Please keep at it.







(See how FUN this game you're playing is???)
 
Here is someone getting Eddie Van Halen's Brown Sound replicated perfectly
As you say: reasonably close, but no cigar.


Please keep at it.
Exact recreation of a complex tone—especially a low-gain tone that reveals the intricacies of distortion, dynamics and playing—is an involved process of research, analysis and experimentation, for all the reasons that @barhrecords mentions above. A talented chef has to work hard to recreate someone else's perfect dish, even if he has the best ingredients in the world. Don't be surprised if people aren't willing to invest a lot of time on what you admit to be your own personal and spiritual development.

If your purchase of an Axe-Fx depends on someone else's work to duplicate a tone, there may not be an Axe-Fx in your future.
 
I can replicate the tone in Every Breath You Take, but not Message in a Bottle, and they are so very different indeed. Words cannot describe how frustrating this is.
 
I think that asking what is being asked is just as likely to be accomplished (by the OP or any other forum member) with an Axe Fx as it would be with all the original gear that Andy Summers used.

Contrary to what the OP has stated, I think most of us agree that a major component of a player's tone comes from their hands and the particular nuances of their touch, as much as from the gear if not more.

I'd be willing to bet that Andy could dial up his tone on the Axe Fx in short order and the OP would play it and still be unsatisfied with the results... Because he is not Andy.
 
This is not important the important thing to know is STING can last all night......
Kidding aside I lived in Austin and they were staying at the Driscoll hotel down from the
venue they played at and Sting was out in the parking garage practicing before the gig singing
it was empty and dark and you could clearly tell it was him unmistakeable so me being an asshole stopped
and sang it all back too him everything he sang I sang it back and not shitty either he just quit singing and left....

Dont stand so dont stand so dont sing so close to me....
keep working at you will get it I heard the message was in the bottle....


Andy if your reading this please tell Sting im sorry...
I know he will sleep better knowing I love this band and meant no harm....

I loved ya since I knew ya wouldnt talk down too ya.....
 
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