Steve Lukather Soldano X88R preset

guitarnerdswe said:
Sorry, I know that it was Lukather who said it :) That's why I said "marketing". There was actually a big mess with Paul Rivera and a nasty split between him and Lukather. Together with the Rivera, Lukather developt (or just put his name on) a subwoofer for guitar. If my memory serves me correct, Lukather wanted credit/money for the whole subwoofer deal, Paul didn't want to give him any since it was his idea according to him etc. I can't remember who was right or wrong, but they split and Lukather was pretty vocal about his opinions about both Paul Rivera and the Bonehead after that. Most of it is probably removed from the internet by now anyway. Lukather actually went to ISP (the guys who make the Decimator) and put his name on their subwoofers for guitar after the Rivera mess. He never ever used the ISP products though, he did at least use the Rivera subwoofer when he was with them.
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Oh yeah! The Los Lobotom (Sub 1 or what it was called)
Remember that one.
I had a couple of 3+(SE)'s and agree that the Bonehead did not sound anything like them at all.
And I remember the feud between Luke and Rivera.
Luke can really get pissed, just see some of the Denander (What a saga..) replies from him this past summer!
You know being from Sweden:)

Thanks for all the cool info on Luke, love reading it.
 
Hi. Thank you for preset. It seems to me that there is too much effects in scenes with delays and reverb and the levels are too high. Is it possible that Steve used that levels of effects?
 
I have FINALLY had a chance to sit down and play your preset !

First impression of the clean …, it is one of the best interpretations that I’ve seen yet ! Frankly it might be better than Steve’s clean tone, and it’s gotta be approaching Landau’s ! With my guitar, I do think it’s THAT good ! I almost couldn’t get off that scene when I was playing it ….

The Chorus surprised me how good it sounds by the way it routed ! And the Reverb too …, but I did have to back down the mix just slightly ….

The MultiDlys are really cool and I have to admit I like the ability to tap tempo whether or not Lukather kept doing it ( or not ) ….

For me ( and with my guitar ) the Dirty Rhythm tone sounds a lot like Only the Children Cry ! Which I love …. Add the other effects in and it goes seamlessly into Luke’s effected rhythm tones ….

I do have a question though …. Is there a reason that the Compressor adds volume to the signal chain ? Was that just because of the settings you’ve used, or did you add volume on purpose ? I was having a difficult time balancing Scene 1 and Scene 2 volume wise, until I noticed that the compressor was adding volume. I switched off the make-up gain, and added a couple more dB to make it more unity and it didn’t seem to change the tone ? But before I keep it that way, I wanted to get your insight, because if it’s needed that way to feed into something further down the line, I’ll put it back the way you had it !

Also, what does the 2nd PEQ provide ? I looked at the settings, and it doesn’t look like it’s doing any tone shaping ? But it does drop in & out as you step through the scenes ….

And the same with the 1st Vol/Pan block ? What does that do for the signal routing ? Other than adding a +4 dB boost I don’t hear any difference with our without it either ?

The Highpass Filter and the PEQ at the end you’ve already explained, so no questions on those blocks ….

The last question I have is …, how would you convert this to his CAE 3+SE rig … ? Would it be as simple as substituting the appropriate CAE Amp block in place of the Solo 88’s ?

Finally, I also have a question about his tone prior to all of the Bradshaw “stuff” …. Do you have any idea what the effect is on his Rhythm tone on Gift with a Golden Gun ( Isolation ) ? Basically it sounds like a Flanger, but at the same time, it’s not a Flanger that I could ever find back then ?

All in all …, this is the best Steve Lukather I’ve played since I picked up my 1st Axe-Fx Ultra back in 2008 !

GREAT JOB !

THANKS for sharing your work !
 
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stralalla said:
Hi. Thank you for preset. It seems to me that there is too much effects in scenes with delays and reverb and the levels are too high. Is it possible that Steve used that levels of effects?
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Effects disappear in a mix, so if you play by yourself, it will seem like a lot. The levels of his delay and verb are nothing compared to say Landau, he used A LOT of delay/verb back in the day :)
 
R.D. said:
sI have FINALLY had a chance to sit down and play your preset !

First impression of the clean …, it is one of the best interpretations that I’ve seen yet ! Frankly it might be better than Steve’s clean tone, and it’s gotta be approaching Landau’s ! With my guitar, I do think it’s THAT good ! I almost couldn’t get off that scene when I was playing it ….

The Chorus surprised me how good it sounds by the way it routed ! And the Reverb too …, but I did have to back down the mix just slightly ….

The MultiDlys are really cool and I have to admit I like the ability to tap tempo whether or not Lukather kept doing it ( or not ) ….

For me ( and with my guitar ) the Dirty Rhythm tone sounds a lot like Only the Children Cry ! Which I love …. Add the other effects in and it goes seamlessly into Luke’s effected rhythm tones ….

I do have a question though …. Is there a reason that the Compressor adds volume to the signal chain ? Was that just because of the settings you’ve used, or did you add volume on purpose ? I was having a difficult time balancing Scene 1 and Scene 2 volume wise, until I noticed that the compressor was adding volume. I switched off the make-up gain, and added a couple more dB to make it more unity and it didn’t seem to change the tone ? But before I keep it that way, I wanted to get your insight, because if it’s needed that way to feed into something further down the line, I’ll put it back the way you had it !

Also, what does the 2nd PEQ provide ? I looked at the settings, and it doesn’t look like it’s doing any tone shaping ? But it does drop in & out as you step through the scenes ….

And the same with the 1st Vol/Pan block ? What does that do for the signal routing ? Other than adding a +4 dB boost I don’t hear any difference with our without it either ?

The Highpass Filter and the PEQ at the end you’ve already explained, so no questions on those blocks ….

The last question I have is …, how would you convert this to his CAE 3+SE rig … ? Would it be as simple as substituting the appropriate CAE Amp block in place of the Solo 88’s ?

Finally, I also have a question about his tone prior to all of the Bradshaw “stuff” …. Do you have any idea what the effect is on his Rhythm tone on Gift with a Golden Gun ( Isolation ) ? Basically it sounds like a Flanger, but at the same time, it’s not a Flanger that I could ever find back then ?

All in all …, this is the best Steve Lukather I’ve played since I picked up my 1st Axe-Fx Ultra back in 2008 !

GREAT JOB !

THANKS for sharing your work !
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Thanks for kind words! I'll try and answer all of your questions.

The routing is true to how those big racks were routed by CAE back then. It might seem illogical to have the reverb before the delays for instance, but that's how Bob Bradshaw did it. The reverb in the preset is set more for the level they used in the studio. For live work, I would take it back about 4dB or more, just set to taste.

I can't find any tap tempo information in the manual for the PCM70, so I think they just programmed a bunch of different presets with different delay times, and used the ones closest to the songs tempo. 110bpm, 120bpm etc. I think they never went slower than the stock times for the two presets though, that's why the delays are quite a bit faster than the actual tempo of "Little Wing" from Paris 1990. I have a soundboard recording from the "Planet Earth" tour were they play "Somewhere Tonight", there he uses the delay in a weird way. It took me along time to figure out that it was the "Pan delays" at the louder settings, but with really really short times. It gives a weird and slightly chaotic effect though for certain chords.

"Only the Children" is actually the Rivera-modded Marshalls. There is no X88R on that album. All the dirty rhythm is Marshalls, and the leads are a Soldano SLO100.

Whether the compressor adds or doesn't add volume depends on a lot of things, playing style, pickup output and proximity to the strings, string gauge etc. If you think the volume of the clean sounds is too much, just reduce the output level of the compressor block. I'm surprised that you have different levels for scene 1 and 2, both are exactly the same, besides the added delays for scene 2. The compressor is on in both, so there shouldn't be an issue with the level of the compressor engaged vs bypassed.

The second PEQ adds a bit of high mids, very slight boost at 6.3k and 4k. The first adds low end and low mids. Both PEQ are supposed to be on in all the scenes. I checked the preset, and they are on over here on my unit. If one of them turns off in some scenes, something is not right.

The vol 1 block is just a solo boost. It's on in all the scenes. Bypass it for a rhythm volume.

I've actually spent the day doing a modern CAE 3+SE version of this, so it will be up when I get the time to finish it :)

"Gift With a Golden Gun" is a flanger. There is flanger all over the "Turn Back" record. "English Eyes" is another good example.
 
Cool Thanks for everything ....

You're right the album was Turn Back, not Isolation ( my bad ). I've been listening to both lately and I think I'm one of the few who dug Fergie Frederiksen's voice ... ! I guess I didn't realize that Luke didn't have his rack going by then ? I thought he was getting it together just after they recorded Toto IV, but I guess not ?

And no ..., I think you mentioned that there was no Tap Tempo on the PCM70's, but Bob B. had to program other patches to change them. But for the power of your preset, the Tap Tempo really adds something ( IMHO ), even if it's not 100% faithful to the original ! ;)

Also, I can't explain why the behavior of some of the block are different ? I'll download a clean copy of the preset and do a re-install and see if that clears it up ? And I'll take a look at all your notes on the other blocks as well !

Finally, I guess I suck at programming a Flanger, cause I can't seem to get that thick sound without all the "swoop" like he does on those tones ... ?

THANKS !
 
Hey Guitarnerdswe!

These are really great patches, well done man! One question though, I think both this and the CAE version might be loading up wrong in my AxeFX. In my version of this patch (the soldano version) only the 1st PEQ block seems to actually have any settings, a boost at 63hz & 100hz. The other 2 PEQ's seem to be set completely flat. The patch sounds good but neither of those blocks are doing anything. Could you give me the settings from your original to compare?

The same thing seems true of the last PEQ in the chain on the CAE version. In this case the on/off states of the various blocks was different to the scene descriptions you gave as well so I think something must've got screwed up in the import.
 
I noticed the same thing when I loaded up .... It looks like there have been adjustments made to the Frequencies & Q's, but there's no gain ( + or - ) associated with those adjustments ? And I think if you don't add or subtract gain then you're not changing anything ?

I was going to PM you on this later, but I'm at work right now ....

THANKS !
 
R.D. said:
I noticed the same thing when I loaded up .... It looks like there have been adjustments made to the Frequencies & Q's, but there's no gain ( + or - ) associated with those adjustments ? And I think if you don't add or subtract gain then you're not changing anything ?

I was going to PM you on this later, but I'm at work right now ....

THANKS !
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I'll check on this later. New years you know, so I can't right now. The PEQs are all doing something and active in all the scenes.
 
I'll check on this later. New years you know, so I can't right now. The PEQs are all doing something and active in all the scenes.
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Yeah right man and Happy New year to everyone on this fantastic forum :p
 
I've just downloaded this, the Luke is plugged in, the headphones are on, and the Axe-FX II XL+ is cranked!! absolutely loving it, thanks for all the hard work,
 
Thanks for posting these presets, a great effort. On a personal level, and as usual with presets I download from others, with my setup the way it is, it sounds like garbage in its existing format, and that's NOT a criticism. My layouts are not just for FRFR. The saving grace is, I can use ideas from it to compare with my own presets that work for me, minus all the frills. I much prefer CAE one which is far superior to the Soldano one, purely because it's a lot less 80's and with that, not buried in effects so much. I know guitarnerdswe is a stickler for detail when it comes to Luke sounds across the various era's so I can feel confident that in comparison, I wasn't that far away with my existing lead sounds, which is a nice feeling.
Thanks again, it's much appreciated, the work that's been put in.
 
Both presets sounded great to me on CLR's.

I did sub out factory cabs though. And both Trem blocks were on in every scene of the CAE preset too but easy to remedy. Love scene 5 of the CAE preset.
 
barhrecords said:
Both presets sounded great to me on CLR's.

I did sub out factory cabs though. And both Trem blocks were on in every scene of the CAE preset too but easy to remedy. Love scene 5 of the CAE preset.
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Yeah, I had that with the trem blocks too. As you say, easy fix.

Which factory cabs are you using?
 
pitmonkey said:
Yeah, I had that with the trem blocks too. As you say, easy fix.

Which factory cabs are you using?
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The IR's I used in the Soldano preset are: F043 4x12 Recto SM57, F044 4x12 Recto M160. Default settings in a stereo Ultra Res Cab. Everything default except the IR's.

(For the Luke CAE preset I used the F061 4x12 Fractal V30 AT4047 mono Ultra Res cab. The CAE preset has the mic sim on SM57. I changed from the SM57 mic sim to none also.)
 
Thanks for those cab recomendations barhrecords. They sound better then the one I chose. I think it was the TAFMarsh_V30 or something. (One of the extra HighRes ones in the mkI/II download folders.)

I also changed the level settings for the amp blocks a little. I did this by bypassing all the extra blocks in the scenes and then making sure the output levels were at the mark on the VU meters in the utility menu. Then turned the bypassed blocks back on. Maybe it's just my OCD, but I feel it made a positive change in my setup. And the patch was already great to start with!

Once again, thanks for sharing guitarnerdswe.:)
 
Ok, I've downloaded and imported my own presets, and they both work fine here. There is data in all the PEQ blocks and all three are on in all the scenes, and the tremolo blocks are bypassed in all of the scenes in the CAE preset, so that's fine too. I have two possible theory's about why some people are running into problems:

1. It can be related to using the user using global blocks.
2. It can be related to the PEQ and tremolo blocks having X/Y switching in the XL, and I made the presets on a Mark I.

There's really not much more I can do from here, besides write down the missing data so you can enter it manually. What's missing exactly?
 
@guitarnerdswe I have an XL+ so it might be a II to XL+ conversion issue? as to the trem blocks and peq.

In the Soldano preset, PEQ 1 is fine. PEQ 2 and PEQ 3 all the gains are set to 0. So they are not affecting the audio.

In the CAE preset, the PEQ at the end also has all the gains set to 0.
 
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