Deep Dive into Adam Jones's Tones

[Stone]

I can’t remember if I was listening to something off Fear Innocculum or 10,000 Days, but I remember sitting in my studio one night getting lost in the guitar tones, just listening and realizing how much Baressi’s mixing/blending of the amps/mics is a performance in itself. Those aren’t set it and forget it mixes, that’s for sure.

Agreed, often times the Producer/Engineer is the unspoken member of the band

 

[theimageofall]

Here's a similar exercise using Amplitube 5 running the two Tonex Mirror Profiles captures (Mesa and AJ Marshall) out of the box, just blended. I had to tweak the input gain into the Marshall with the Slash boost pedal to get it to crunch the right amount as it was undergained in my opinion by default in A5. No other processing, so I would obviously EQ in a song, but it is a fun tone to play! It is using the same DI track that I ran the previous example through:

A5 two Amp Example

The benefit of A5 over Tonex is the complete chain, so I can run delay’s, modulation, wah etc in front of the amps as well.

 

[deadpool_25]

I still haven't seen Tool live, when I watch stuff on youtube the 90's gigs in smaller venues look way more energetic and appealing than what they do now. I still feel like they're a band I need to see live at least once though.... Does it suit being in a massive arena? or worth trying to get as close as possible?

They are absolutely a must-see-live band. Remember they're aren't a typical band though, in that they're not preening there. The show is about both the music and visuals. As such I typically recommend folks sit a little ways back. Think of it like a movie theater where you don't really wanna be too close or too far. I'm almost always in the middle but if I had to choose to be in the first few rows or way towards the back, I'd take the back (I've been in row two so I'm speaking from experience lol).

 

[DrewJD82]

Yeah, I could have scored a cheaper ticket closer to the stage than where I got mine, but I don’t go to Tool shows to see the guys onstage.

I dug what they did on the 10,000 Days tour with their stage, we had seats pretty high up on stage left, but the entire stage was white and primed for the projectors, it didn’t matter if you were looking down at them from the sides or not, you were getting a good show. It was also cool to see the projectors behind the stage working at that gig, there were 6-8 of them working in tandem.

 

[deadpool_25]

This sounds bang on honestly. I don’t have an axe fx, I assume it’s a Diezel / Marshall combo.. Any chance of detailing what cabs & mics are used?

The amps are VH4 and USA Lead Bright (which definitely caught me off guard). Cabs are a 4x12 German Boutique and a 4x12 Recto New Mix respectively. Both are Legacy cabs so I don't know what the mics are.

 

[deadpool_25]

That 10,000 days tour stage was amazing. I love all of their stages but that one was special. I haven't missed a tour in many years now. I even went to the music clinic thing they did where it was Adam, Justin, and Danny--no Maynard. It was in like seven cities iirc. I flew from Phoenix to Cleveland for it.

 

[Porkpie]

Last one -



This one’s using a few of Mirror’s IR’s that I ended up getting. I’ll be honest I was skeptical as to whether they’d add anything new over what I already have but honestly they’re really great. I don’t know if it’s Tonex, the IR’s or what but these amps blend like they’re meant to. I’ve tried blending amp sims before using all sorts of York and OH IR’s but unless one amp is way lower in the mix it always sounds terrible. I don’t get that with these.

This was made with the AJ Marshall Tonex patch from MirrorProfiles through his greenback IR’s and one of the Adam Jones VH4 settings patches on Tone.net through Mirror’s Mesa v30 IR’s. A mix of 421 and 57 on both. Then a little room reverb after to knock a bit of top end down. The Marshall is about 2db louder than the VH4.

Good fun

 

[EOengineer]

Stumbled over this video and thought some of us here might enjoy it. He’s not really a tool guy, but IMO you can hear part of the magic in sections of this.

Around 3/4 of the way through you get a great demonstration of the crazy transformation that happens with Superleads when you kill the bass and crank the mids - it comes to life with a LP.

Oh. Major bonus points for his Burny lemon drop LP too.

 

[DrewJD82]

That 10,000 days tour stage was amazing. I love all of their stages but that one was special. I haven't missed a tour in many years now. I even went to the music clinic thing they did where it was Adam, Justin, and Danny--no Maynard. It was in like seven cities iirc. I flew from Phoenix to Cleveland for it.

This was actually the show I was at, I was just on the opposite side. I'm glad there's boots out there, but JFC, when the people filming just focus on Maynard the whole fucking time while there's ALL THAT CRAZY SHIT going on blow my mind.

Good example of the whole stage getting some action (killer setlist, too. I hadn't realized I already saw "Rosetta Stoned" live)

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Stumbled over this video and thought some of us here might enjoy it. He’s not really a tool guy, but IMO you can hear part of the magic in sections of this.

Around 3/4 of the way through you get a great demonstration of the crazy transformation that happens with Superleads when you kill the bass and crank the mids - it comes to life with a LP.

Oh. Major bonus points for his Burny lemon drop LP too.

Ha - this is my amp

 

[EOengineer]

One of these days I’m gonna yank my 1959 out of the basement and do this stereo like it should be done.