IRs are 90% of the sound

You were/are the one struggling to get a good sound, not me. :)

I'm not sure how thats accurate. It's only a few solid state type sounds that were tough to nail, but that's because there is no solid state models n fractal. But I have no problem getting most of the sounds I was after out of the Afx3. And. Only requested circuits which are not modeled. What does that have to do with getting "good sound" ? Lol

Like I said I haven't shared a lot of what I am doing neither will I be. Aside from maybe posting a clip so that trolls like you can stop being fed.

Ya I'm getting such terrible sound, that's why I requested that we have PIN numbers that can be assigned to patches. Great logic! 🍿

You only think you are getting good sound. But if you were then you wouldn't be sharing your patches. 😂
 
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Yes that's my playing, thanks for the kind words, I'm not influenced by Zappa at all, although his solo on "Montana" is killer.

Over the last 2 years when trying amp sims I built a list of what I wanted them to do during a solo.
  • palm-mute high-strings legato ( tough for a sim to do without a ton of gain )
  • palm-mute low-strings legato - easy enough, but still look for articulation
  • fast alternate picking, palm muted, lower strings - looking for articulation, you can hear this right near the end of the track. On the Axe this is an issue with Tube Hardness and setting the speaker to anything other than Soft, at the moment.
  • fast alternate picking high strings - make sure there isn't a painful spikiness in the hi's.

The track was done, pre AXE 3, with a JCM800 amp sim by a guy named Nalex. He just has a blog. The amp sim crashes a lot, but I love it, I wish I could upload this into the Axe. For cabs I can't remember what I used, but it was the usual speaker following a speaker setup.

This is what I'd be very happy with as a solo tone, if I can pull it out of the Axe. Go to 3:10, during this solo, Paul Gilbert has backed off the distortion, it's a dirty/clean tone, with tons of punch, he does a quick lick on the high strings with palm-muting and all the notes punch out nicely, also, that's an Ibanez, and it sounds almost more Fendery than a Strat, it's got a beautiful bell-like quality on the lower-strings that reminds me of SRV.



I Have to reply to that message a second time.

Wow! I did some searching as I was positive that I was hearing a JCM900. This is not even one of the guys I listen to and I confirmed right away that Gilbert was using a 900 and is a big fan of them. I have requested that amp model several times. The 4100 version of the 900. I noticed similarities in the accuracy of the instant articulate but rich "grab" of the shred as even the way one of my favorites Trey Azagthoth prefers and uses that 900 amp too because of all the solid state stuff going on in the first gain stage I believe (But trey als does a modified pro-co Rat rackmount before it for more solid state stuff and is generally a "messier" and "sloppier player". But I know exactly why they both prefer that 900 amp.

But there are unfortunately many people out there who think that is not a good amp. Right away, you can bet that whoever is saying that is a complete buffoon because they have no idea what they are talkin about and don't understand certain things about what certain lead players look for in needing the accurate feel of something. It's just this sensitivity to how the circuit reacts that some people get a different psycho-acoustic feel from as more satisfying and real. Believe me. That 900 amp, is the real deal. There are some others too like some of the older Randall Solid state stuff. Many other things sound loose out there. You cannot get those kinds of sounds from most strictly tube preamps.
 
Ya I'm getting such terrible sound, that's why I requested that we have PIN numbers that can be assigned to patches. Great logic! 🍿
That's funny...
You only think you are getting good sound. But if you were then you wouldn't be sharing your patches. 😂
And that doesn't even make any logical sense. Plenty of people here are getting great sounds, and share them for the simple reason they like being helpful to others, and if it can save someone else some time, that's a good thing. It's called being nice.

I can see holding your songs close, but presets? Whatever.
 
That's funny...

And that doesn't even make any logical sense. Plenty of people here are getting great sounds, and share them for the simple reason they like being helpful to others, and if it can save someone else some time, that's a good thing. It's called being nice.

I can see holding your songs close, but presets? Whatever.
I'll try to take that into consideration.

I may be up for sharing some presets ive done and I think I even did that with a DAR FBM tone match I did on the afx2.

But there is one core sound thats taken me far too long to figure out and then make my own. If there is a tone you really like, you will find a way to get it. Certain objectives need to be earned.

And one of the artists I was trying to get the tone of, in a way I'm happy he didn't tell me how he gets his sound because going through the wild goose chase was actually amusing. And in the process I also made to focus on improving my playing too and then figuring it out came naturally after just using ears and logic.

With that being said, there is nothing wrong with tossing people nuggets if they are really frustrated. But tossing the whole chain is kind of pointless. Studying pickups alone, their varieties and even additional things that can be done to them is quite the pursuit that in many cases you need to just do the research and reading and tinkering.
 
Oh gotcha. But I dont think this is primarily about IRs in your case if that's the type of sound you are lookin for. At 3:10 I have been trying to get this type of sound for the longest time as well for another type of sound I'm trying to add to my repertoire.

It's a more instant type of breakup and gain characteristic. At least from this Paul Gilbert Clip. Sounds to me he may even be using a modded JCM900 which has lots of solid state circuitry and telling people he is using something else.

And believe it or not, that may be your answer as to why you may be having issues getting what you want out of the Fractal. You may be needing solid state amplification or modeling for the type of sound you are going for. Many artists lie and say they use tube but actually have solid state or at least some solid state op-amp based tone somewhere in the circuit. It has happened with even one of my favorites who is not even well known but who has sent me on a wild goose chase with every tone lie under the sun till I found out what he actually uses from one pic I noticed and it was a sansamp psa-1. Which I've also requested to be modeled in the Fractal.

Or it can be a solid state based pedal combined with a heavily modded tube amp. These pros go through ridiculous mods and tons of them - to both tube circuits and solid state ones. They have the endless money to be able to hire people for that.

You may want to try the JMP Pre-1 model in the fractal as it's the closest I've been able to get to a fast solid state sound. But I'm still not quite able to get the type of sound I'm looking for in

It's possible to do with tubes too but you need some crazy amp mods to get it right but if you do get it right with a tube amp, it's amazing.

All these reasons is why I have for the longest time been requesting a JCM900 model. The 3:10 part of that clip you sent made me instantly think of that amp.

Avid makes a decent sansamp PSA-1 plug-in in both AAX and AAX DSP. But it doesn't sound like the older first generation of the rack which was the much better one and then Sansamp change the circuit to a cheaper circuit in the later 1.1 to reduce production costs. I hate it when companies do that. It makes you pull your hair out and treat your units as if they are darts and your drywall as if it's the dartboard.

Very very interesting observations about solid state stuff, muchly appreciated. I was thinking a lot about this today and it had me thinking to Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush Live, the intro to Johnny B Goode, he has this tone that is ultra-immediate, and I pretty sure I remember him saying he used solid state amps on that tour because tubes were too unreliable. He's a blues-rock guy from Montreal, Canada, this dude could shred! and this was in the 70's. I love the intro tone he has, it's solid, and has that percussiveness that's so necessary for fast playing. Also, I thought about that immediacy and percussiveness I get from my solid state Marshall practice amp, sounds amazing for a little amp. I paid $80 for it at a pawn shop. Then I remembered Ty Tabor of KingsX talking about how good the Lab Series L5 ( solid state), and what a tone he has!

This led me to pickup the guitar today and plug into the Afx3 and 'start over' in a sense. I tried the JCM preamp as you suggested, it forced me to think outside of the trap I'm currently caught in. The 1st thing I did was switch my toggle over to series from parallel, which is how I always run it. In series, it's like a layer of kleenex has been taken off the mids, but there is more potential for thin, shrill, hi-mid nastiness. I eq'd for that and then dug into the settings. First thing as usual, turn Tube Sag to Zero, remove compression from wherever I see it, turned the Power Amp to 'off', boom, instantly better for immediacy. But, still, something was bothering me, so I ran through a bunch of different amps, and the way they respond is very very different. I stopped at this point, I know what I need to learn, and it's a lot, and I don't have the energy today, but ... one thing occurred to me to try very quickly, and that was my other guitar, a Yamaha Pacifica, I took the Ibanez Jem jr pickup out of the Ibanez jr I have ( I stuck a Seymour Duncan in it because I thought it would sound better) and put it in the Yamaha Pacifica to replace the YP's stock pickup. I plugged the $250 Y pacifica in, with the Ibanez Jem jr pickup and wow, what a colossal difference, punch and tone and I can't believe it ... sigh. I have to dump the Seymour Duncan, it's making things so difficult, it's a Seymour Duncan TB5 Trembucker custom Bridge, and it's not happening, at all. I want to buy a pickup that is as punchy ( in the right way) as the stock Ibanez pickup, but with 4 wires output, so I can attach it to a 3-way mini toggle switch. You can't do this with the stock pickup because it only has 2 wires coming from it. I must find a pickup that can match the Ibanezs pickup punch and tone, any suggestions would be welcome.

Congrats on nailing the JCM 900 from intuition. It's always good to find out your instincts were on point.
 
I want to buy a pickup that is as punchy ( in the right way) as the stock Ibanez pickup, but with 4 wires output, so I can attach it to a 3-way mini toggle switch. You can't do this with the stock pickup because it only has 2 wires coming from it. I must find a pickup that can match the Ibanezs pickup punch and tone, any suggestions would be welcome.
If it were me, I'd swap the cable on the pickup to a 4+shield cable. Sounds like a doozy of a pickup to get shelved due to having the wrong hookup cable for your needs....
 
If it were me, I'd swap the cable on the pickup to a 4+shield cable. Sounds like a doozy of a pickup to get shelved due to having the wrong hookup cable for your needs....

Sorry, I don't understand this "I'd swap the cable on the pickup to a 4+shield cable", are you referring to the Ibanez pickup? I've never heard of this before. There are 2 or 3 wires coming out of the Ibanez Pup, a tech told me he'd need 4 wires to hook up to a 3 way mini-toggle switch. Are you saying the stock Ibanez Pup can be modded to 4 wires? I'd do this in a second.
 
Sorry, I don't understand this "I'd swap the cable on the pickup to a 4+shield cable", are you referring to the Ibanez pickup? I've never heard of this before. There are 2 or 3 wires coming out of the Ibanez Pup, a tech told me he'd need 4 wires to hook up to a 3 way mini-toggle switch. Are you saying the stock Ibanez Pup can be modded to 4 wires? I'd do this in a second.
It's a double coil pickup, right?

If so, then there are 4 wires inside the pickup - a start and finish wire for each coil, plus a ground shield connected to the pickup's base plate - and Ibanez didn't make them all available to you. You just need to replace the pickup's cable with 4+, and the switch can be wired....
 
It's a double coil pickup, right?

If so, then there are 4 wires inside the pickup - a start and finish wire for each coil, plus a ground shield connected to the pickup's base plate - and Ibanez didn't make them all available to you. You just need to replace the pickup's cable with 4+, and the switch can be wired....

This is the stock Ibanez pickup - https://cs.hoshinogakki.co.jp/pcw.n...=4Z01&curFromYMTX=&curToYMTX=&strMode=newpage

are you saying this can be made into a 4 wire pickup?
 
If it were me, I'd swap the cable on the pickup to a 4+shield cable. Sounds like a doozy of a pickup to get shelved due to having the wrong hookup cable for your needs....

I looked at a couple of pickup comparisons last night, the following so closely illustrates the difference between the Seymour Duncan I bought and the stock Ibanez pickup, which sounds like the Seymour Duncan Alpha Omega pick up, which is $400, LOL, I am not paying $400 plus taxes and shipping for a pickup, especially since the Ibanez Bridge pickup acts like it, and the other Seymour Duncan in this illustration sounds like the one I bought, you can hear a high mid accentuation on it, I think for digital modelers this High mid accentuation might not be the right thing, I've heard somebody else complain about this accentuation.



I should also point out that on the Ibanez JEM Jr I have tremolo bar floating, I have to wonder how much tone is lost when the bridge isn't sitting on the body because the Yamaha Pacifica Bridge is probably about $20 in parts, it really does look like cheap junk, but it's resting on the body, and the punch that came from it with the Ibanez pickup I put in it was impressive.
 
Forget what I wrote above, the Ax3 is more than powerful enough to turn a pickup into something it wouldn't be from a regular amp. Yesterday I had my pickup performing with tons of beef and chunk. The 'secret' I found was to use the output EQ of the Amp to EQ your tone, and not use the Amps regular tone controls which introduced unwanted gain in odd ways.

I ordered a P-Rails last night, it is built specifically for 3 tones and requires a 3 position switch. I've been splitting my humbuckers for years, but they weren't built specifically for this.

Back to IRs. Try putting a bass speaker, like 15", in the speaker section, then in the Cabs choose 2 different 4 x 12s and delay one by about 20 to 50 ms.
 
I haven’t used the output eq much. I did when I 1st got on board and then stopped. You just leave the amp tones flat? I’ll revisit that. I kind of started thinking of it as a crutch. Probably dumb thinking on my part. My stuff sounds good but always looking for more.

I love the P-rails. I put them in my PRS and one in the bridge of my HSS Strat. Used the mounting rings with switches. The Strat uses 2 S1 switches. They mostly stay on the P90’s. Parallel bucker is good. Series bucker not bad. The singles are too hot but I use them sometimes. The versatility is great to have.

Edit: Forgot to add that they have 4 modes and a 3 way switch won’t do that as far as I know. If your guitar has a mounting ring buy one of those Triple Shots. Makes it easy to hook it up.
 
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I'm not sure how thats accurate. It's only a few solid state type sounds that were tough to nail, but that's because there is no solid state models n fractal. But I have no problem getting most of the sounds I was after out of the Afx3. And. Only requested circuits which are not modeled. What does that have to do with getting "good sound" ? Lol

Like I said I haven't shared a lot of what I am doing neither will I be. Aside from maybe posting a clip so that trolls like you can stop being fed.

Ya I'm getting such terrible sound, that's why I requested that we have PIN numbers that can be assigned to patches. Great logic! 🍿

You only think you are getting good sound. But if you were then you wouldn't be sharing your patches. 😂

You are getting sounds by your own admission that you don't like, but somehow want to have them PIN protected
so your secret sauce is not being stolen by everyone.

Hmmm?????

And I am the one struggling with being "logical!"
 
I haven’t used the output eq much. I did when I 1st got on board and then stopped. You just leave the amp tones flat? I’ll revisit that. I kind of started thinking of it as a crutch. Probably dumb thinking on my part. My stuff sounds good but always looking for more.

I love the P-rails. I put them in my PRS and one in the bridge of my HSS Strat. Used the mounting rings with switches. The Strat uses 2 S1 switches. They mostly stay on the P90’s. Parallel bucker is good. Series bucker not bad. The singles are too hot but I use them sometimes. The versatility is great to have.

Edit: Forgot to add that they have 4 modes and a 3 way switch won’t do that as far as I know. If your guitar has a mounting ring buy one of those Triple Shots. Makes it easy to hook it up.

Good to hear about the P - Rail, I've basically been doing this for years with a 3 position mini-toggle switch, but, as I mentioned the pickups I had weren't specifically meant for this, then ... by sheer luck, on saturday, I saw Ty Tabor of Kings X mention this pickup and why he likes it, that guy has tone for days. That was all I needed. I looked at the Triple Shots, they seem interesting, but I have the 3 position mini-toggle in the guitar already and am assuming that that will do the trick.

About the EQ, I leave the amp tones flat, try Not to use the Depth if you can, I have found it messes with the low-end in the wrong way, I loved it at first but found there was a cost, so I try to get that "depth" from the output EQ, and the Speaker Thump. On saturday I fiddled with the Ax3 for 5 hours straight and think I've found something interesting. I won't be able to back it up until I try different things to really test my little theory out, I'll post the proof in audio form if I think I'm on to something. At the end of 5 hours I had a rhythm sound I could make bloom where I wanted, i.e. take the first chord from VH's Panama, it's a root, fifth, octave and major 3rd, I could make the tone highlight that major 3rd while keeping the other voicings of the chord clear, this is without cranking the gain into oblivion. This is done with stock IR's ... who knows, maybe 3rd party IR's will present the depth nicely and not mess with other notes ... there are SO many variables with this thing.

Ty Tabors tone, pffft, from Kings X -

 
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Good to hear about the P - Rail, I've basically been doing this for years with a 3 position mini-toggle switch, but, as I mentioned the pickups I had weren't specifically meant for this, then ... by sheer luck, on saturday, I saw Ty Tabor of Kings X mention this pickup and why he likes it, that guy has tone for days. That was all I needed. I looked at the Triple Shots, they seem interesting, but I have the 3 position mini-toggle in the guitar already and am assuming that that will do the trick.

You’ll be able to get series bucker, P90, and the single with an on-off-on switch. But not parallel bucker. Parallel is similar to the P90. A little less power than series, brighter, noiseless.

I like the depth control but leave it low if I do use it. Waiting for the thump to make it to the FM3. You’ve given me some ideas to try out when I get off shift.
 
You are getting sounds by your own admission that you don't like, but somehow want to have them PIN protected
so your secret sauce is not being stolen by everyone.

Hmmm?????

And I am the one struggling with being "logical!"

Ya you seem to be, because according to your brain, if a person can't find an amp model for a specific type of amp circuit sound like fortin (which is not a model in the Fractal), then you somehow are bizarrely believing that I can't match any type of metal tone whatsoever out of many when I've already been satisfied with tons of metal tone styles I've replicated. 😆

As a result, you have also demonstrated that you believe that one amp circuit should be able to get all metal tone types. I really dont know how I can help you with this belief system but good luck with it. You may as well ask for a Marshall MG model at this point as I don't think it will matter for you. 😂
 
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Ya you seem to be, because according to your brain, if a person can't find an amp model for a specific type of amp circuit sound like fortin (which is not a model in the Fractal), then you somehow are bizarrely believing that I can't match any type of metal tone whatsoever out of many when I've already been satisfied with tons of metal tone styles I've replicated. 😆

As a result, you have also demonstrated that you believe that one amp circuit should be able to get all metal tone types. I really dont know how I can help you with this belief system but good luck with it. You may as well ask for a Marshall MG model at this point as I don't think it will matter for you. 😂





But if you say it, then it must be true. Right?? :)
 
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