Thinking of jumping ship to the K word

dalep

dalep

Member
I have been a super supporter of fractal since the beginning but its getting frustrating while i love this black box, my kemper friends are getting all kinds of tones and profiles of all different types of music and tones. All the while here we get every metal/heavy 80's tone you could ever want. but we are very hard up to find a brent mason, brad paisley, johnny hiland. maybe its my frustration in tone chasing and not being able to nail that tone down on the axe fx. Someone please explain how to get some tones from the great players like pete anderson, redd volkert. I know its just a wampler eqo comp and a slapback delay into a vox or fender combo but i cant get it to come close as when i plug into one of those amps. Please help.
 
dalep said:
I have been a super supporter of fractal since the beginning but its getting frustrating while i love this black box, my kemper friends are getting all kinds of tones and profiles of all different types of music and tones. All the while here we get every metal/heavy 80's tone you could ever want. but we are very hard up to find a brent mason, brad paisley, johnny hiland. maybe its my frustration in tone chasing and not being able to nail that tone down on the axe fx. Someone please explain how to get some tones from the great players like pete anderson, redd volkert. I know its just a wampler eqo comp and a slapback delay into a vox or fender combo but i cant get it to come close as when i plug into one of those amps. Please help.
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I can't help you get those tones but you can buy a kemper and try it out for 30 days usually from Sweetwater or Musicians Friend and if you don't like it just send it back. That's what I did about 2 years ago.
 
All those tones are in there. I've moved this to preset exchange, where if you would be specific (not 'these 15 tones') then folks can help. If you do a search here, you might find something that works. FWIW, I do very little 80's/Metal tones, and I've found everything I've wanted when I was willing to dig in and work with it.

And there's no shame in trying something else that might work better for you.

R
 
dalep said:
All the while here we get every metal/heavy 80's tone you could ever want. but we are very hard up to find a brent mason, brad paisley, johnny hiland.
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All those tones are there in spades. You have Keith Urban's literal amp modelled in the unit so it can't be all metal and djent, right?

Check out @Cainer's clips for stuff that's more inline with what you're looking for. He's often just playing the factory preset and when he's not he's usually pretty nice about posting a preset if you ask:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/happy-straturday.124921/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/feelin-good-on-the-bassguy.118195/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/blackface-fender-sound.117544/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/hot-tele-tone.118709/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/spanky-strat-work-on-gopro.114066/

Of course, sometimes it just ain't the right fit and you've got to go with what works for you. No harm in that.
 
dalep said:
my kemper friends are getting all kinds of tones and profiles of all different types of music and tones.
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keep in mind that it's human nature to simply want what we don't have. if you're truly not able to dial in the tones yourself or find presets already made, then that's one thing. but make sure you don't just want gear because others have it.

have you considered Glenn's presets? https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/glenn-delaune-axe-fx-presets-launch.129147/#post-1534199
 
Thanks guys, I am not bashing by any means. I am still working on it. I put down the anderson and picked up a telecaster and that has helped probably more than the last hour of tweaking.
 
iaresee said:
All those tones are there in spades. You have Keith Urban's literal amp modelled in the unit so it can't be all metal and djent, right?

Check out @Cainer's clips for stuff that's more inline with what you're looking for. He's often just playing the factory preset and when he's not he's usually pretty nice about posting a preset if you ask:

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/happy-straturday.124921/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/feelin-good-on-the-bassguy.118195/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/blackface-fender-sound.117544/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/hot-tele-tone.118709/

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/spanky-strat-work-on-gopro.114066/

Of course, sometimes it just ain't the right fit and you've got to go with what works for you. No harm in that.
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Cheers man, thanks for the mention! Just to clarify, I've actually never used factory presets. They never worked well for me, so I've always built my own patches form scratch.
 
I've got both a Fractal XL+ and the KPA rack.

If you A/B using clean(ish) sounds, the KPA, with good clean profiles, is a little more hyped right away.

It feels almost like using an expander. Hyped dynamics. Very satisfying to play with little or no tweaking (the Definition setting is almost always needed to fine tune to your guitar.)

Using the Fractal output comp in feedback mode, pushing the front of the amp block and some other "juice", can get you in the ballpark.

But no harm, no foul on getting the KPA. It's a cool piece of kit.
 
I'm not jumping, I was just frustrated.

I was having a bad day and sometimes when you go to create a sound you just want to see the top of an amp and grab knobs and in two minutes go "yeah, thats the tone i was looking for". and yes i bought the fractal because it could be a one box shop.

I bought Glenn's pack, and they are very good!

I have found creating from scratch is what I do best, and will continue to do that but Glenns were the best i have downloaded and tested.
very clear and spot on with the tones direct to ears..
 
Well...you can check these Axe-Fx Vintage clips out, I think this 700+Naked Amps TonePack product at www.austinbuddy.com is going to save a lot of people the kind of grief you have at the moment...

I'm more focused on the vintage sounds myself! My Soundcloud page has more examples...

Your Fractal CAN GET GREAT VINTAGE TONES!





 
Using the Fractal, one of the best ways to cop someone else's tone (IMHO), is to know/learn what their rig is like. If you know what amp/cab/speakers/FX they use, it is relatively easy because the selection in the Axe pretty much covers everything. Knowing some gear history and electronics type info helps too (i.e. knowing which amp is similar to or clone of another, etc). Then it is a matter of setting up a similar virtual chain and dialing it.

I am all about the 80s/90s era heavy tones. So a lot of the presets people share are cool for me... but at the same time... a lot of tones I don't even bother looking for a preset because I've seen the "rig rundown" or or the magazine article discussing the gear and can build a virtual chain that is very similar.

Then you can dial it to your personal ear rather than sifting through presets or profiles or whatever that some other dude has setup. That is the great advantage to having truly accurate component level models of stuff in your signal chain.

In fact once you get your chain setup you always have the tone match route if you can get a recording source, too for that last bit of alignment if you are really enamored with someone else's sound.

In fact, this may sound crazy but you could tone match your friend's KPA using the direct method (which is really accurate) if you get the target chain dialed close.

TBH, I am not super into 'owning' another dude's exact tone for most of my sounds. I like to get in the ballpark for my target genre but am not trying to form a 'tribute' band, thankfully. I'm willing to let EVH be EVH or Iommi be Iommi, they don't need to be cloned. Reverse engineering the sounds I like is a good learning experience but that minutely detailed tone chasing some folks get trapped in can be a distraction.
 
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