Part II: Smilefan's Axe II Patch Thread

smilefan

Experienced
Welcome to Part II of the Smilefan Axe II Patches thread. If you are just joining
us, there is a Part I. It contains 50 patches, and two acoustic IR’s (necessary
for 2 of the patches to function). I highly recommend you take the time to read
that thread. It contains a great deal of information. Pt. 1 is here:

http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-fx-ii-preset-exchange/39713-smilefans-axe-ii-patches-thread.html

As with the first thread, the following patches were mixed for live performance
on an Axe II/Matrix GT800/EVM 12L Classic rig. The patches all have stock
cabinet substitutions pre-installed. The custom 3rd party IR’s listed (if any)
are what I use in my personal versions of these paches.

And now, on with the show!

EDIT: 01/27/2012 All patches in this thread now re-edited for 5.0 Firmware.

Link to my comprehensive Zip file with all patches is
from Pt. I & II of this thread with all updates thru 01/27/2012:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42749093/Smilefan 5.zip

A Word txt. document with all patch descriptions/comments from both Pts. I & II,
made by Forum member, LMO, is here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42749093/Smilefans_Patch_Comments.doc
 
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eric-johnson-es-335.jpg


This patch is for Forum member, Adrianni, who stated in Pt. 1 of this thread
that he could find no good Eric Johnson leads tones. Intrigued, I looked at the
stock “Cliffs of Dover” preset, and sure enough, I didn’t think it was as accurate
as it could be.

So here is my take on a singing, edgeless EJ lead tone. It should be noted that
his rig which yielded the famous “Cliffs of Dover” tone had as much to do with
the guitar he used, as his amp, speakers, and effects. He recorded that song
with his bass player’s (Roscoe Beck) 60’s vintage Gibson ES-335. Those guitars
have the famous sugar-sweet PAF pickups, and an ES-335 has maybe half the
string “pop” that a Fender guitar has. Smooth is its game, and explains its
popularity with jazz and jazz fusion stylists. It’s not a commonly used rock guitar.

EJ is well known for using an old B.K. Butler “Tube Driver” (which we have a model of
in the Axe), and reportedly cut "Cliffs of Dover" with it . He also uses an old MXR digital
delay (well represented in the Axe by the “Vintage Digital” Delay model).
So I have included those tonal elements in this patch. The rest of that tone is in
the compression of a vintage ’67 or ’68 100W Plexi head cranked to “10”, and the
speaker breakup of his vintage Marshall 4x12 cabs. I used one of Jay Mitchell's "Far Field"
IR's to help with the big, open, sing-y vibe. I also used a bit of EQ’ing from a PEQ to clean
up the distortion, and a Peaking filter to put an extra dose of gain-y 'sing' at the right frequency.
I think this patch simulates that smooth, honeyed, compressed lead tone he gets, pretty close.

“Strange But True” EJ tidbits:

He claims he can hear the tonal differences that various brands of 9V batteries
have in his pedal effects.

He believes the tone of his pedals is better without metal screws securing the
bottom plates, so uses rubber bands to hold them in place.

He believes his floor pedals produce their best tone when they are
aligned to magnetic north.

It took him SIX years to release a follow up to the Grammy-winning
“Ah Via Musicom” his most commercially and critically successful album
(he kept trashing the masters for “Venus Isle”, never happy with their sound).

EJ plays his leads the way Clapton does. On the Bridge pickup with the tone
rolled off. So, you know what to do. Play leads above the 10th fret with this patch.

In my personal patch I use:
Cab A: Redwirez BasketweaveG12M20s-TC30-Cap-0in. (U87 cond mic)
Cab B: Stock 2x12 Gold 30 Far-Field (U87 cond mic)
 

Attachments

  • EJ's Singing Plexi.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 195
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Thanks again, Smilefan (in advance of me actually getting and Axe-Fx II to try out this stuff).

Something looks wrong with the IR file size of 6487 bytes - that's the size of a Gen 2 patch. 1024 IRs are 8204 bytes and 2048 IRs are 10904 bytes.
 
I also couldn't load the IR. First time I tried loading a user IR - thought I was doing it wrong. Not a total loss since now I know to load them.
 
I knew it!
But seriously your preset does use a user cab... which is?

And thank you again! You're always interesting to read. :)
 
minimoog.jpg



Today we are going to talk about a non-guitar subject, that is
nevertheless extremely cool. The first commercial analog synthesizers.
The “Moogs”. Developed by engineer Robert Moog. They were one of
the coolest sounding electronic instruments ever, still highly valued
to this day (original Minimoogs, like the one above, sell for $3K on Ebay!).

As fate would have it, they were debuted at the 1967 Monterey Pop
Festival, the same event that introduced Jimi Hendrix to the US public.
They had their first commercial hit the following year with musician,
Wendy Carlos’ “Switched On Bach”. The highest selling Classical
music album in American music history. Following that, in 1974, the
German pop music group, Kraftwerk, had a massive worldwide hit with,
“Autobahn” using Moog synths. Afterwards, they were widely adopted by
pop musicians. Stevie Wonder, Yes, The Doors, The Beatles (on Abbey Road),
Keith Emerson of ELP, and the Monkey’s were all early adopters.

Why do we care about all this? Because Moog synths were simple monophonic
devices, just like the Synth blocks in the Axe. Meaning, we should be able to dup
their killer/cool vibe! The secret to making cool Moog-like sounds is the highly
programmable Arpeggiator feature in Axe’s Pitch Blocks. That’s what I did
in the attached three patches. I made three variations for your listening pleasure.

Those old Moogs sound cool as hell, even today. Modern synths don't get the
same fatness as those old analog units. They are the keyboard equivalents of
tube amps. Have fun with these. The 70's-80's genre of "Space Music" was founded
on tones just like these. If you've never heard Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene",
go listen to it now, and you'll hear how to use these patches.

Oxygene_album_cover.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Solar Winds.syx
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  • Among The Stars.syx
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  • Pulsar.syx
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minimoog.jpg



Those old Moogs sound cool as hell, even today. Modern synths don't get the
same fatness as those old analog units. They are the keyboard equivalents of
tube amps. Have fun with these. The 70'S-80's genre of "Space Music" was founded
on tones just like these. If you've never heard Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene",
go listen to it now, and you'll hear how to use these patches.

Oxygene_album_cover.jpg

Wore that record out in college (along with the entire Eno oeuvre).
 
There are two stock cab blocks in the patch, a G12M20 4x12,
and the Jay Mitchell Far-field 30W Golds, as mentioned in the writeup.
No custom IR's. And the "Mojo IR" is just the same patch with a different
title.
My mistake: when I click on the lower cab in your preset in Axe-Edit, the selection is Y and that IR is user cab #49.
 
BlondeTwin.jpg


BlondeShowman.jpg


highpwrtweedtwin.jpg


Time for another vintage amp history lesson (and patches!).
Today we will review a totally forgotten piece of amp history.
The “Big Brown Fenders”. Specifically the “High Power” Tweed
Twin, the Blonde Twin, and the Blonde Showman (all pictured above).
Produced during a lull in Fender’s amp success between 1959-1963,
after the height of the Tweeds and before the Blackface series.

At the time Fender had high expectations of their flagship Tweed Bassman,
but was getting scooped in the marketplace by higher powered amplifiers.
They were receiving frequent complaints about its lack of stage punch from pro
musicians of the time (who played in the days before PA systems).
In response, Leo Fender built the biggest amps he’d ever made. All with
2x12” or 1x15” speakers in big cabs, the amps running four 5881 or 6L6GC power tubes
for about 80-100 watts power output. At the time they were the amplifier
equivalents of jet engines.

Fender didn’t have a real marketing plan for these amps so they languished
in obscurity for the most part. In 1964, when the first Blackface amps were
introduced, they were all phased out in favor of the massively popular BF’s.
Too bad. Because every one of those three amps sounds like a million bucks
(I’ve played all three). They all have a room-filling, mid-centered, ultra warm, honky,
ultra sweet character like no other amps. They give fat, punchy chords, and single note
lines with an edgeless, yet clear beauty. With a very gradual transition into distortion,
they produced a fantastic range of semi-clean, semi-dirty sounds.

So here is a clean and dirty patch to remember those forgotten gems by.
Eric Clapton never forgot though. He’s played Blonde Showman’s in public
many times, and has been touring with old “high power” or “big box”,
Tweed Twins, as they are known, for many years now.
The “Big Brown Fenders” are his amps of choice.

Claptontwin.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Big Brown Fender.syx
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  • Big Brn Fender Lead.syx
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thanks smilefan..cant wait to try them out at home!! but seriously i really want to dig more into the synth sounds of the axe! cant wait to what other sounds we will get out of it
 
PaulJackson.jpg

(above: Funk master, Paul Jackson Jr.)


Today we are going to start a multi-part series on one of my pet peeve
Axe II subjects. Filters! Pound for pound, they are the most potent blocks
in the Axe II arsenal. And you get four of them per patch! With four of them
you could literally have filters filtering filters (not a bad idea!).
We will explore just how powerful and versatile filters are.

The basics: Filter types
Null – flat frequency filter for simple gain or cut (many use as a foot switchable ‘solo’ boost).
Bandpass- A bell curve shaped filter, which cuts off any freq outside the curve.
Peaking-bell shaped curve like a bandpass except its floor is normal freq level (all freq heard,
but those in the peak are amplified).
Notch-A trench shaped curve, eliminating any freq in the trench.
High Pass/Low Pass – cuts off all frequencies above or below a programmed point.
Low-shelf-Sets all frequencies below a programmable level at a higher gain than
those freqs above that point.
High-shelf-Opposite of low shelf.

The good part (what you can modify with controllers):
Frequency - The center freq of the filter
Q – The relative sharpness or broadness of a filter peak or notch
Level – volume of the filter’s effect
Balance-meaning, it’s a Panner too!

Our patches today harken back to the funky analog envelope filters of the ‘70’s,
such as the famous Mutron pedals. Except, when it comes to the Axe
filter’s controllability, they can’t touch this! The bandpass filters in the attached
patches are “breathing” (take a look at your Axe LCD screen on the Filter block page).
What’s causing this is that I’ve got a Sequencer pumping the Q value up and down.
Additionally, there is a looping ADSR controller on the Frequency value running the
frequency up and down. So the filter sounds “alive”. My own mad scientist
version of ‘70’s envelope filters!

The "Junior" version has a 4th order filter, for a very squished, narrowed frequency
response. The other has a 2nd order filter for full range response.

Adds cool texture to arpeggiated chords, funky 9th chord rhythms, and Blues scale noodling.
 

Attachments

  • Magic FunkyFilter.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 93
  • Funky Filter Jr..syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 90
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You're going too fast with them presets, can't keep up! :)
 
Too bad they will be buried in the forum eventually. They are not categorized nor searchable. If someone will join 6 months from now, they will not find what they are interested in or have to read through hundreds of pages. Good luck to them.

Good Stuff though!
 
some one want to post a soundcloud clip of the eric johnson presets?


also when i download these patches do i need to change the cabs to the one you used...? kind of confused by a previous comment asking about a user cab...
 
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