Looking for a great Dirty Shirley "live" preset...

[sfla99]

Hi all,

I have pretty much determined my love for the Friedman DS / Twin Sister sound, I have been gigging for a while with the AB Live gold DS2 patch and testing different IRs out but as much as I love it, I just feel like my patch which I am using just feels like its missing something, our other guitarist uses either an orange amp 30watt or runs a Pod Go and I have be honest, his tone cuts more through the mix.

I realize this is all totally subjective, I would not say the tone I have is not good but I am really trying to learn how to get those most out of my FM9. I have been listening to the stock Dirty Shirley patch in the FM9 and some user patches floating around here and the AB Live Gold is distinctly different, far less bass which the DS is known for and maybe more focused sounding.

Just for context, I play in a classic rock cover band, we gig every weekend and I am loving the FM9 for its versatility. I plug direct into our PA or into FoH if the venue has sound, I also have paired down to mostly running an QSC CP8 for sound to get my guitar, the singer and some of the other guitarist in the CP8. From there we do a very light pan left and right on guitars to get a balance with the bassist coming through the middle.

I am not expecting someone to just give me the holy (unless you feel so inclined) but I am really hoping for a solid starting point as its easier to get recorded tones than live tones I am finding and I use my FM9 for live.

Gain structures I run are - clean, edge, rhythm, lead and then I do a single coil match on scenes 5-9.

I also have purchased a bunch of IRs from York, Ownhammer and since I have an IR-D as backup I even have those IRs loaded into my fractal to keep the sound consistent.

Any help is greatly appreciate.

 

[DrGreencock]

You're right, it's very subjective! Having the sound that makes you feel better and play better is somewhat a mental game too, especially since the live tone is something you don't always hear yourself. You'd have to be out front to hear what the audience is truly hearing instead of just what you've dialed in through your monitor or IEMs.

A long time ago at an outdoor gig, we decided to play La Villa Strangiato and I tried something on the spot that I had never felt comfortable with before, just for giggles - I pushed IN the pull fat on my Mark IV's Rhythm 2 channel which cuts the perceived gain and takes away the aggressive mid punch. We played the song, it felt kind of weird under the fingers but I just went with it and dug in, and listening back to a video our drummer's now-wife took at the time, it was the right move. I started doing that a lot more often in other bands and just trusting that it would work. Although it did change the gain structure of the amp, it was almost akin to picking a different IR; less mid forward, more balanced, and more perceived brightness in the sound coming out of my cab.

Maybe the anecdote doesn't say much but what I mean to say is you might be closer than you think to the live sound you want. Here's a version of my DS1 preset that worked really well for a 90s gig last year, and I'll be using it again in about a month for the same gig. The first 4 scenes are my versions of your 4 gain levels and I can happily use this with humbuckers or single coils. I also fell in love with York's KW IRs (specifically the U67-1) so you'll have to fill in the blanks there, Cab channel B is Legacy #103 which works, and channel D was what I was using (two stereo mix IRs from the same YA KW pack)

Try out the scenes, use the control switches (same idea as AB's Live Gold with CS 2-6), hopefully this gives you another take that helps to dial in what you're looking for,