Kemper Double Tracker Feature on Axe-FX III?

Gigantor

New Member
Hey All

I haven't seen anything like this as a feature for Axe-FX III, does anyone know if this is possible or is under development at Fractal? This is a great feature and would love to have it.

 
Hey All

I haven't seen anything like this as a feature for Axe-FX III, does anyone know if this is possible or is under development at Fractal? This is a great feature and would love to have it.


Isn’t the Enhancer very much along these lines? If you want more control, you can always use a second signal with a little wobble on the pitch and delay, tied to a controller, to “create” a second take.
 
Isn’t the Enhancer very much along these lines? If you want more control, you can always use a second signal with a little wobble on the pitch and delay, tied to a controller, to “create” a second take.
The Kemper double tracker is different than the Enhancer. It's more like the Mimiq pedal. Bakerman did an attempt mimicing the Mimiq on the Axe-FX a while back.
 
Modern doublers are in fact somewhat similar to our classic enhancer—with a twist. According to my sources (including one of the supposed "inventors" of this effect), the wet signal is created by using a an envelope detector or other means* to trigger super fast crossfades between different delay lines. When a delay line is not in use its time is changed randomly to a new value. Some versions also use pitch shift and or modulation per voice.

*IIRC in one plugin version of this, the change happens when the signal level drops below the threshold, not when it goes above it, so more like a silence detector?
 
Last edited:
The pitch block is great for stuff like this. Add tones hard panned L and R with +/- pitch and a slight delay. Or pan dry signal to one side and a second pitch to the R. There are lots of fun tones to be had.
 
Petrucci rig has the mimiq pitch block settings in it. This subject has been beat to death and was just another new post about it yesterday. To me that Kemper one sounds like just a delay on one side of the stereo field which I do on most of my presets with a dual delay block. I think for the most realistic double track sound two different amps and cabs panned hard LR with their own FX chain would yield the best results. Maybe a 100% mixed delay on one side that changes the delay time randomly. Problem is you're the only player so it will never sound like two separate tracks.
 
Then I'd defer to my second idea: use a Pitch and Delay block, very subtly, to create a second take.
The Mimiq (and Kemper doubler) works by an envelope triggering a change in a delay time and then uses cross-fading to hide the change. The trick is to accurately detect a note attack. Get it wrong and you hear noticeable glitches. In addition, the Mimiq slighty adjusts attack dynamics.

There are various "doubling" presets available for the Axe-FX, but the only one that is similar to the Mimiq/Kemper is one Bakerman did for the Axe-FX II. https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/various-presets-tricks.135770/post-1620271

By the way, my favorite plugin for this is the Cloner in Cubase.
 
Last edited:
The Kemper Double Tracker produces phase issues when the signal is collapsed to mono.
 
Last edited:
One plugin I know of uses the opposite approach: they make the change during the space between notes.
My preferred way to do it is to not change the delay times at all. Instead, have a few delays, each with a fixed unique time, and switch to using a different delay at note onset. That way, no delay time changes are needed. It's quite effective, but you still need good attack detection to make it work. There's no free lunch :).
 
Yes, there are various Axe-FX presets available on the forum and Axechange which use pitch or chorus effects to create a pleasing stereo effect. That's not how a Mimiq or Kemper doubler work though. They use envelope triggered delays to emulate the sound of double tracked guitars. That's a more convincing way to do a doubler effect than a pitch/chorus effect.

Here's a preset that demonstrates the Mimiq technique. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get the delay cross fades to go to completion 100% of the time on the Axe-FX. And this preset only uses 2 delay times. To be a more convincing emulation of double tracking, it should have a larger variety of delay times, but I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to try to make this a more complete emulation of a Mimiq.

In any case, I think this illustrates that it isn't easy to replicate the sound of a Mimiq or Kemper doubler on the Axe-FX with the tools currently available, which supports the idea that it would be nice to have a new "doubler" block that more fully implements this capability.
 

Attachments

  • Doubler.syx
    48.2 KB · Views: 68
Last edited:
The Kemper Double Tracker produces phasing issues when the signal is collapsed to mono.
...which happens on my cell phone and it sounds like a very short delay. That's not impressive, it sounds like a cheap sound there, not like a feature.

Maybe it would be best to have the original track in the center and have the copies hard panned and inversed, so copies neutralize themselves when collapsing to mono?
 
This double track can be simulated with a very short delay, a chorus this and that … but nothing replace a real 2 track recording panned left and right . All the small differences in playing make it more huge sounding that just copying the same track
 
Lots of good attempts at the Mimiq sound out there, but since I run just about everything in stereo and have some pretty CPU intensive patches, I have a Microcosm feeding into a Mimiq sitting in the Out/In 3 loop on my Axe. For the presets that I'm on 95% of the time, the loop is always engaged, Mimiq always on- on my old board, I literally had it out of the way on the lower level. Sounds great, and doesn't chew up extra CPU.
 
Hey All

I haven't seen anything like this as a feature for Axe-FX III, does anyone know if this is possible or is under development at Fractal? This is a great feature and would love to have it.


I think Cooper Carter had a double tracking trick he used recently
 
boltrecords Cooper Carter did the pitch block mimiq in the Petrucci rig so it's the same one. I need to have a look at that preset and see what the bocks output is set at. The one I saved some time ago had the output level at 5 so it really stands out when you engage it.
 
Back
Top Bottom