No Tone Match? No Problem!

[ruso]

I wanted to give back to this awesome community by sharing a little tutorial I put together on how to EQ Match using your FM3, a DAW, and an isolated guitar track.

This can be performed in any DAW, using one of the many EQ plug-ins available, but for this particular example, I will be using the following:

MacBook Air (running MacOS 12.1 Monterey)
Logic Pro 10.7.2
Match EQ plug-in (included with Logic Pro)
Impulse Response Utility (included with Logic Pro)
LoopBack*

*LoopBack is a 3rd party app that allows you to route audio from one application to another and back. There are similar apps that are open-source such as Blackhole, JACK, and Soundflower, although I have no experience with them.

This tutorial assumes that you know your way around your FM3 and Logic Pro, but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer them. I will be editing this as I go, so please let me know if anything is unclear.

Step 1: Import Reference Material and Insert Instance of the Match EQ Plug-In

Import the reference material you wish to match into Logic Pro. Your reference material should contain isolated guitar without any other instruments. I won't go into detail on how to create or source them, but these guitar-only tracks or "stems" can be found with a simple web search. Make sure to either trim this track to the specific length or adjust the cycle range to loop the specific section of the track that you are trying to match. You want an interrupted, continuous sample; the more information the better. For example, if you are trying to match a heavy "chug" tone, you don't want to capture a solo or single note performance.



Step 2: Capture Reference Material

Start playback of the reference material that you are trying to match. Watch your levels and ensure that the input is not clipping. Select the "Reference" tab in the Match EQ and click the "Learn" button. Pay attention to the analyzer as it learns the Reference material. After about 10 seconds, you will notice that the analyzer is no longer making adjustments. In my experience, you get better results if you let the learning process complete. Click the "Learn" button again to end. You should have captured the EQ profile or “fingerprint” of the reference material. Save your work.



Step 3: Capture Raw Guitar Signal from FM3

Connect your FM3 to your computer and select the appropriate input in Logic so that you receive signal. Confirm that you have signal in Logic and adjust the input to ensure that it isn't clipping. This following is very critical in order to yield best results. Start with a tone that is dialed in close to the Reference tone. For example, if you know that the Reference tone was created using a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, Tube Screamer, and a 4x12 Cabinet with V30's, start there and try to rough-in the tone. The closer you can get, the better results. I personally try to get close but really focus on the "feel." Is the bottom-end tight or loose? "Scooped" or "mid-focused?" Highly-compressed or "open and clear?" "Chewy?" "Woolly?" You get the point.

Go to your FM3 and navigate to Setup > Global Settings and change Cabinet Modeling to "Bypassed." Exit to the layout and disable all time-based effects. It should sound awful with the cabinet modeling disabled.

Go back into Logic, select the "Current" tab in the Match EQ. Click the "Learn" button and play your guitar (another approach is to record your performance and play back the track while it learns. Either approach yields similar results). I like to play a bunch of open chords, chromatic scales, and "chugs" to make sure I cover the entire frequency range. Pay attention to the analyzer as it learns. After about 10 seconds, you will notice that the analyzer is no longer making adjustments. In my experience, you get better results if you let the learning process complete. Click the "Learn" button again to end. You have captured the EQ profile or “fingerprint” of your raw guitar signal. Save your work.



Step 4: Match

Click the "EQ Curve" tab and click the "Match" button. Observe the EQ adjustments that the plug-in made to match your tone to the recorded one. Save your work.

Note: I typically set "Smoothing" to zero initially as this seems to yield the closest results. Use your ears. By saving your progress, you can come back and make adjustments later.



Step 5: Move Match EQ Plug-in To Empty Track

You can either open an additional instance of the Match EQ plug-in or simply move it to the empty track. What you will be doing is applying the new Match EQ curve to the test tone sweep sent from Impulse Response Utility, while capturing an impulse response.



Step 6: Configure Routing To Capture Impulse Response

As noted, I will be using LoopBack from Rogue Ameoba to manage the routing. Below is the routing I use. Channel 5 will be used as the output channel in Impulse Response Utility to send to Input 5 in Logic Pro. Channel 7 will be used as the output channel in Logic Pro to send to the Input 7 in Impulse Response Utility.



Open Audio Midi Setup, right-click on LoopBack Audio and set to both "Use This Device For Sound Input" and "Use This Device For Sound Output."



Go to Audio Preferences in Logic Pro and change both the Input and Output Devices to "LoopBack Audio."



Change the Input of your empty track to Input 5 and the Output to Output 7.




In LoopBack, change both the Audio Input and Audio Output to "LoopBack Audio."

(continued next post)

 

[ruso]

Step 7: Create Impulse Response

Impulse Response Utility is located at /Applications/Logic Pro/Contents/Helpers. Alternatively, use Spotlight Search to find it. Change Output Channel for the sweep to Channel 5. Enable recording and change Input Channel to Channel 7. Set “Mode” to 10 seconds and “Reverb” to 1 second. Click "Sweep." Watch your levels in Logic and ensure that the input is not clipping. If you need to make adjustments, enable recording once again, and perform the sweep. Once the sweep is finished and you are satisfied with the results, you will see something similar to the image below. Save your work.



Step 8: Deconvolve and Create Setting

Click "Deconvolve" to convert the capture to an Impulse Response.



Click "Create Setting." When prompted, choose a name and click "Ok." The dialog box will inform you that an SDIR file was created. Make a note of the path shown in the dialog box




Step 9: Locate and Rename Impulse Response

Navigate the above mentioned path and rename the extension of the file from "SDIR" to "WAV."




Step 10: Import Impulse Response, Trim, and Export

Import WAV file into Logic Pro.



Trim the silence from the beginning of the waveform. FM3-Edit will take care of the silence at the end.



Export file.




Import into FM3-Edit, re-enable Cabinet Modeling and time-based effects, replace existing cab with your new EQ Match Impulse Response. Enjoy!

Comments? Questions?

 

[ruso]

Reserved For Content

 

[GlennO]

Excellent! A couple of suggestions:

• It's worth noting that the reference should cover a wide frequency range. If you're matching a cabinet you own, that's simple and you should use a sweep. If you're matching a dry isolated guitar recording, that can be challenging, but it should ideally contain notes played all over the neck. In that case, the goal when you play through your Axe-FX is to play the exact same thing as the reference.
• I find it helpful to try out the IR in Space Designer before exporting it. It may take a number of tries to get good results, and that's a quick way to check your work before you go to the trouble of transferring it to the Axe-FX.
• As you hinted at, it's important to dial in the amp in your preset yourself. The tone matching process will give you a cabinet (or at best the cabinet plus the amp's tone stack) to use in your preset, but it's up to you to get the amp tone, especially drive pedals and amp distortion, before you begin matching the cabinet. In other words, tone matching emulates cabinets, not amps.

 

[ruso]

Excellent! A couple of suggestions:

• It's worth noting that the reference should cover a wide frequency range. If you're matching a cabinet you own, that's simple and you should use a sweep. If you're matching a dry isolated guitar recording, that can be challenging, but it should ideally contain notes played all over the neck. In that case, the goal when you play through your Axe-FX is to play the exact same thing as the reference.
• I find it helpful to try out the IR in Space Designer before exporting it. It may take a number of tries to get good results, and that's a quick way to check your work before you go to the trouble of transferring it to the Axe-FX.
• As you hinted at, it's important to dial in the amp in your preset yourself. The tone matching process will give you a cabinet (or at best the cabinet plus the amp's tone stack) to use in your preset, but it's up to you to get the amp tone, especially drive pedals and amp distortion, before you begin matching the cabinet. In other words, tone matching emulates cabinets, not amps.

Yeah, I like to do a half dozen and pick the best. It's a fine line between too little or too much information when the plug-in is learning. I totally forgot about Space Designer. I usually just enable the input for the FM3 and play back through, but with the Match EQ enabled to get a sense of how it'll sound. Yep, gain staging and all the advanced parameters to tune-in the "feel." I like to do this as the icing on the cake. I would LOVE to have an IR Loader block on the FM3 so I could match using the cabinet emulation enabled.

 

[Intoodeep1113]

Very cool! Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I imagine something similar could be done through Reaper.

 

[ruso]

Very cool! Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I imagine something similar could be done through Reaper.

Yeah, pretty much any DAW as long as you have some kind of Match EQ. I know both iZotope and FabFilter offer plug-ins that do this. There might even be free ones out there, although I haven’t researched.

 

[JTI]

2 things:

1. Excellent thread. Super informative.
2. I read the thread title in the voice of the Tapeman Kevin uses in Home Alone II to pay for his hotel room

 

[Corey5150]

I was wondering if someone could lend me a hand, I’m struggling with this and cannot get a signal at step 7, it sends the empty track clipping beyond belief and no wave is formed. On loop back is shows signal on input 5 but nothing on 7. On the empty track I did change the input to 5 and the output to 7… I’m stumped

 

[GlennO]

It sounds like you might be feeding back channel 5 into itself. Double check that you've got step 6 set up properly.

 

[Corey5150]

It sounds like you might be feeding back channel 5 into itself. Double check that you've got step 6 set up properly.

Thanks for your reply!

There are two points mentioned in step 6 that kind of confuse me. First the initial set up of loop back. Do the ins & out need to be reconfigured? What I have matches the photo posted.

I did the midi audio set up, then the logic I/O to loop back, but then at the end it says in loop back change it to I/o audio to loop back and I can’t find anywhere in loop back where I can do that. (Sorry I’ve never used loopback before)

 

[GlennO]

I did the midi audio set up, then the logic I/O to loop back, but then at the end it says in loop back change it to I/o audio to loop back and I can’t find anywhere in loop back where I can do that. (Sorry I’ve never used loopback before)

That's a typo. I believe he meant to say Impulse Response Utility, not LoopBack.