Preset Building: Tone Morphing

ahh.. my guitars have a big fat tone and quite powerful pups..

maybe [just out of interest] try increasing the input level of the Axe when you goof with that preset..
maybe it'll thicken up the tone..

I've just downloaded your preset..
I'll give it a blast tomorrow..
looking forward to seeing what you've come up with

my main new preset is about to go through a major overhaul..
a new project I'm working on has some difficult requirements that my stock presets can't address..
this is certainly a case of "scenes to the rescue"
I'm considering re-jigging the MFC so I get 5 scenes on the front row switches..
kinda feels like Scotty on the Enterprise "I need more power ! !"
thing is... I reckon I'm going to find it..
 
Rex - tried your preset..
haaa.. it all works... cool...

kinda makes sense all this stuff when you actually set it up for yourself don't it..

I like your tone.. it's a lot of fun..
not gainy enough for your average Clarky.. lmao...
tell you what did sound nice though was turning on the bright switch
it seemed to bring a little extra to the party
I liked the dirty tone with the boost on too.. made it gutsier
but the outcome is the morphed clean tone gets way too loud...
but that is easily sorted out right
- just turn down the level of the PEQ
or
- go to your mixer block and reduce the level modifier max value [currently 20dB] that is boosting your cleaned tone

the shifter is a nice touch ain't it [for some subtle 'sparkle']
 
Thanks, Clark.

I played around with your suggestions a bit. I'm definitely liking the Bright switch here. As you say, it adds some punch—it's a keeper. Boost also adds a punch that I like for some things, but not so much for others. It also adds more hair than I care for on the clean side. I know I could compensate for that, but I'll stay with Boost off for now.

You're also getting me thinking about more gain for the riff side of the XP sweep. For some things, my ears are liking that a lot. But for this preset and what I'm applying it to, I'll keep it a little on the tame side—again, for now. Maybe later... :)

Yes, the shifter thickens things a bit, without being as obvious and colored as chorus. Nice!


The sweetest takeaway you've given me so far is the fine-tuning of the modifier curves. I've struggled with those in the past, and you've taught me an approach that makes it smooth and even.


Bumping the input level on your patch did thicken the tone a bit, but I think my pup's resonant peak is combining with you EQ to make a bit of an ice pick. I can see where your preset would really sing with a darker pickup than mine.
 
Knowing your propensity to thicken up tones when the opportunity presents itlsef—and in gratitude for these wonderful private lessons from a tweakmaster—I'll pass along a reverb tip that Jay Mitchell posted a couple of years back. It lets you add "more." :devilish:


Reverb is a wonderful tone sweetener, but it has a drawback: it can blur your notes, hide your phrases, and generally muddy things up. Wouldn't it be great if you could have a thick, lush reverb without the accompanying sludge? Well, you can.

As it turns out, the clarity-robbing part of the reverb is the stuff that arrives at your ears between 50 and 150 milliseconds after the note. If you keep that time span clear by leaving a gap between the early reflections and the reverb tail, your reverb won't interfere as much with your playing.

Go into your Reverb block and set Pre Delay to something less than 50 ms. Then set Tail Delay to a value equal to at least 150 minus the Pre Delay. Example: Pre Delay at 40 ms, Tail Delay at 110 ms or more.

Now you can get away with turning up your reverb more than you could before, and still keep your articulation. I just used this trick to add 4 dB to my reverb level, and it's working out nicely.


If this is old news to you, I owe you a beer. :)
 

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  • Rex's Morph Test 03.syx
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Rex said:
Thanks, Clark.

I played around with your suggestions a bit. I'm definitely liking the Bright switch here. As you say, it adds some punch—it's a keeper. Boost also adds a punch that I like for some things, but not so much for others. It also adds more hair than I care for on the clean side. I know I could compensate for that, but I'll stay with Boost off for now.
Click to expand...

that's the thing with this morphing technique...
you can compensate for the extra hair with a vol block by calming down the level of the signal as it enters the amp
you could even achieve the same thing by assigning the level of the comp block to modifier: extern1
as XP1 moves to heel, the comp level drops to compensate for the extra gain thrown in by the boost switch..
another alternative is to not allow the cleaned tone to clean right up.. allow a little fizz to stick around..
you play soft and it'll be quite pure.. dig in a little and it'll get edgy..
a different application for a different song..
I guess the point I'm making is... you have choice... lots and lots of choice..

Rex said:
The sweetest takeaway you've given me so far is the fine-tuning of the modifier curves. I've struggled with those in the past, and you've taught me an approach that makes it smooth and even.
Click to expand...

the shape, gradient and direction of the curve is the difference between something simply functioning..
and something being able to deliver expressive capabilities in a meaningful way
so you need to think in terms of:
- do you want the tone change to be gradual
- do you want the change to be very gentle and rush in towards to toe down [or heel down] end of the XP's travel

it's too easy to think in terms of straight lines..
but from a performance standpoint, straight lines are not often the optimal lines

Rex said:
Bumping the input level on your patch did thicken the tone a bit, but I think my pup's resonant peak is combining with you EQ to make a bit of an ice pick. I can see where your preset would really sing with a darker pickup than mine.
Click to expand...

interesting.. my V6 guitars are pertty bright
I bet my eq choices are more about my monitoring situatuion than anything else..
my non-headphones practice environment is generally not particularly loud [hense the boosts to the extreme lows and hi's]
my live presets are a whole different deal though and are dialled-in to my Mashall 4x12 cabs [with the GT1000FX set to stun]
 
Rex said:
Knowing your propensity to thicken up tones when the opportunity presents itlsef—and in gratitude for these wonderful private lessons from a tweakmaster—I'll pass along a reverb tip that Jay Mitchell posted a couple of years back. It lets you add "more." :devilish:


Reverb is a wonderful tone sweetener, but it has a drawback: it can blur your notes, hide your phrases, and generally muddy things up. Wouldn't it be great if you could have a thick, lush reverb without the accompanying sludge? Well, you can.

As it turns out, the clarity-robbing part of the reverb is the stuff that arrives at your ears between 50 and 150 milliseconds after the note. If you keep that time span clear by leaving a gap between the early reflections and the reverb tail, your reverb won't interfere as much with your playing.

Go into your Reverb block and set Pre Delay to something less than 50 ms. Then set Tail Delay to a value equal to at least 150 minus the Pre Delay. Example: Pre Delay at 40 ms, Tail Delay at 110 ms or more.

Now you can get away with turning up your reverb more than you could before, and still keep your articulation. I just used this trick to add 4 dB to my reverb level, and it's working out nicely.


If this is old news to you, I owe you a beer. :)
Click to expand...

tell ya what.... owe me a small beer... lol..
cos I am aware of the effects of the tail delay and early reflections
but I tend to dial them out [mostly for my soloing tones]..
the reason is that you can get a slap-back effect when shredding
so my solution for a nice reverb on a lead tone that's geared up for more than the occasional sprinting session...
is to dial out the early reflections and tail delay.. then EQ out the reverb's lows right up to around 400Hz [or even higher]..
the principle here is that the reverb only sounds strongly in the mid's and hi's
you leaving space for the notes themselves but still retain that nice 'ambient wash' in the background..
I want to create some ambience rather than emulate a real space..
but for rhythm / ambient tones, yes this technique is highly effective..

remember...
one size don't fit all..

so the key to setting up all fx [inculding reverb and delay etc] is understanding the needs of the application
not just in a tonal sense but also in a performance sense...
 
clarky said:
tell ya what.... owe me a small beer... lol..
Click to expand...
Fair enough. It's easy to owe someone a beer from across the ocean. :) On day, though...


clarky said:
...my solution for a nice reverb...is to dial out the early reflections and tail delay.
Click to expand...
Help me understand that. It you remove the raely reflections and the tail, what's left?

clarky said:
...then EQ out the reverb's lows right up to around 400Hz [or even higher].
Click to expand...
Gotta try that.
 
Hey Clarky, new to the Fractal, and the blog....nice to see another UK user local to me! Hadn't even thought of using it this way....thanks for the inspiration.....back to the studio now. \m/
 
Rex - your 03 preset seems better to me..
especially the transition from clean to dirty..
seems to be somehow a little smoother..

with the reverb thing, I'm basically saying something like this:
leave just the tail
eq out the low end and tame the low mids

your reverb settings however work really well with your preset..
especially when playing arpeggiated rhythm with open strings..
nice and chiming...
 
Argonaut said:
Hey Clarky, new to the Fractal, and the blog....nice to see another UK user local to me! Hadn't even thought of using it this way....thanks for the inspiration.....back to the studio now. \m/
Click to expand...

hey....
welcome to this place... and to the Axe family...
there are quite a few UK users in here..

this tone morph thing is a highly expressive and usable approach to preset creation..
it adds a whole new performance dimension to your tonal tool kit
works great live too..

the sort of tutorial thing I'm doing in here is a sort of introduction to this technique..
just so folks can get their head around all the 'how too' stuff..

when you take all this to the extremes and start including other features and capabilities, you end up with a whole pile of tones and versatility with seamless transitions..
all within a single preset..
 
clarky said:
Rex - your 03 preset seems better to me..
especially the transition from clean to dirty..
seems to be somehow a little smoother..
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think the bright switch made the morph smoother. Maybe it's the hint of distortion that the Bright switch gives to the clean sode.


clarky said:
with the reverb thing, I'm basically saying something like this:
leave just the tail
eq out the low end and tame the low mids
Click to expand...
Got it. I'll have to try that. Though I am sort of fond of the spank that the early reflections add.


clarky said:
your reverb settings however work really well with your preset..
especially when playing arpeggiated rhythm with open strings..
nice and chiming...
Click to expand...
Thanks. I do like the 'verb on that preset. I've usually avoided the longer 'verbs to keep the smear down. This works, though.
 
Hi, Argonaut. If you're of a mind to, work up a morphing preset per Clarky's instructions above, and play along. :)
 
Rex - the reverb thing is about application..
so if you're soloing with plenty of space or playing rhythm parts..
the open-ness from the pre-delay you spoke of will sound glorious

however, if you start upping the note densities and ripping the neck to splinters
you'll have a similar effect of trying this with a short delay..
get's kinda mucky

so the solution is to have a splash of just the reverb tail with the low end eq'd out
and use sizeable times on the delay block [greater than 400ms - I use about 600 / 660]
I also set my delay 'lo-fi' so it has a slightly different timbre to the source guitar tone..
this way the repeats tend to 'thump' a little less so you can get the level up a little higher but avoid too much rhythmic intrusion / clutter
 
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Argonaut - feel free to join in with all this if you wish...

note that what we are doing is just the fundamentals at this point...
if you want audio examples of more advanced tone morph presets shout and I'll drop in a few links that I popped in an older thread..
 
Rex said:
I do like the 'verb on that preset. I've usually avoided the longer 'verbs to keep the smear down. This works, though.
Click to expand...

my general rule of thumb is

v. short reverb with a highish level for riffing etc
although it's pretty strong, being so short means you hardly hear it, the effect is that it smooths out the tome overall rather than placing your tone in a 'space'

long reverb with a lowish level for soloing and cleans
remember that very high levels [wet / dry ratios] for long reverbs will make your tone retire to the rear of the sound stage..
 
Clarky, my brother...know what you could do if you had tons of spare time? A tonecrafting tutorial. Your approach is clear, thoughtful and very next-level.
 
ok... why not...
I don't have tons of spare time..
but we can do it little by little and maybe take tons of time..
there's no deadline is there.. so we can just keep adding to it..

pick a tone type, style of music, playing style
and let's see where it takes us..
and better.. let's see how many extra gizmos we can add to it..
see if we can populate a single preset with a ton of tone, capability and usability..

we'll all chip in with our various observations, comments, suggestion and audio clips..

it'll be fun..
 
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