Fractal Talk

[Boudoir Guitar]

(via Duncan 170)

 

[la szum]

Most of the distortion is generated after the tonestack in the phase inverter and power tubes, so typically you lower bass and push treble to get tighter response and more gain, and push presence to maximize power amp gain.

I'm into the Al DiMeola method of dialing in a Plexi at the moment. Never did it before,
and then also found out Micheal Schenker also dialed in Superleads and 2204s the same
way.

Bass cranked. Mids cranked. Treble at Zero. Presence to taste. Sounds surprisingly amazing.
Ok, I guess it should not be that surprising given their iconic status.

 

[la szum]

Immensely

 

[paisleywookiee]

Not owning a Fractal or a 5150, the TMP 5150 sounded as good as the Fractal 5150. And with tweaking the knobs or swapping IRs, I am certain you could get virtually identical result with either one.

Nope.

 

[jellodog]

Bass cranked. Mids cranked. Treble at Zero. Presence to taste. Sounds surprisingly amazing.

Jumped?

 

[Karl Houseknecht]

I was aprehensive on moving to Fractal because the more obsessive, neurotic fanboys always annoyed me.

Seems to have been a massive improvement in the atmosphere on their forum lately. There are one or two folks there that can be a tad insufferable but it’s nothing like it was years ago. Most are really helpful and kind.

 

[metropolis_4]

I'm into the Al DiMeola method of dialing in a Plexi at the moment. Never did it before,
and then also found out Micheal Schenker also dialed in Superleads and 2204s the same
way.

Bass cranked. Mids cranked. Treble at Zero. Presence to taste. Sounds surprisingly amazing.
Ok, I guess it should not be that surprising given their iconic status.

I’m a fan of the Al DiMeola settings too!

I also sometimes go with mids all the way up, bass/treble/presence at zero. Or I use that as my starting point and then bring up bass/treble/presence to taste.

If I’m going for clean tones I’ll usually clip the bright cap and start with everything at noon and adjust from there

 

[la szum]

Jumped?

Nope. Al and Michael didn't, so I am not currently either. :lol

6550s in the Power Amp, too.

I didn't know Schenker and he did mostly the same thing when it came to "dialing in" their Marshalls.

Hard to argue with.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

How many of us spent tons of time hooking up different combinations of pedals, rolling tubes, swapping out speakers, clipping caps, removing negative feedback loops, etc. with analog gear?

The only difference is that with digital it’s all in one box so I’m not buying as much stuff to experiment with.

Honestly, I didn’t even experiment a whole lot with pedals before digital, let alone modding amps or swapping out speakers. The amount of wasted money and time just did not appeal to me - much less did I have any clue about most of the amp circuit stuff. I don’t think I ever would have had a drawer full of overdrive pedals to experiment with stacking, etc. I would have gone to a store, tried out overdrive pedals and bought the one I liked the most. Lived with it unless/until I couldn’t anymore and then sell it and repeat. Before “modeling”.

Honestly, at this point, I also feel like I’ve explored enough options in both digital and analog world to know what I want. I’m pretty well past the”I wonder what happens if Input X into Y? Is that a sound I might find useful or inspiring in a different way?”

Yes, I expect to need to turn some knobs to get a new device working. But I don’t want to feel like I’m having to search for a sound in the device - like, if I just want the sound of a reverb tank into a tweed-style amp with a Celestion speaker and not-a-dynamic-mic, I don’t want to have to get into “hmm, maybe if I use the the Kuku boost and then run the reverb parallel full wet and compress the tail of the reverb in front of the Supro style amp and then make sure I have a tape saturate on the back end it might get closer to what I’m looking for than just reverb-tweed-cab?

 

[laxu]

I'm into the Al DiMeola method of dialing in a Plexi at the moment. Never did it before,
and then also found out Micheal Schenker also dialed in Superleads and 2204s the same
way.

Bass cranked. Mids cranked. Treble at Zero. Presence to taste. Sounds surprisingly amazing.
Ok, I guess it should not be that surprising given their iconic status.

With the knobs like that, you basically have pretty flat highs and mids with a hump in the bass/low mid frequencies. Plus it's not like a Marshall tone stack has a lot of range in the first place...

 

[2112]

Here's how Yngwie had his main amp dialled in when we opened for him on his Aussie tour. Running into a stock backline 1960B cab with T75's. Sounded pretty glorious. For the shows they couldn't backline an actual 1987 or 1959 he used a DSL in the green crunch mode with the volume and gain maxed.

 

[metropolis_4]

Honestly, I didn’t even experiment a whole lot with pedals before digital, let alone modding amps or swapping out speakers. The amount of wasted money and time just did not appeal to me - much less did I have any clue about most of the amp circuit stuff. I don’t think I ever would have had a drawer full of overdrive pedals to experiment with stacking, etc. I would have gone to a store, tried out overdrive pedals and bought the one I liked the most. Lived with it unless/until I couldn’t anymore and then sell it and repeat. Before “modeling”.

Honestly, at this point, I also feel like I’ve explored enough options in both digital and analog world to know what I want. I’m pretty well past the”I wonder what happens if Input X into Y? Is that a sound I might find useful or inspiring in a different way?”

Yes, I expect to need to turn some knobs to get a new device working. But I don’t want to feel like I’m having to search for a sound in the device - like, if I just want the sound of a reverb tank into a tweed-style amp with a Celestion speaker and not-a-dynamic-mic, I don’t want to have to get into “hmm, maybe if I use the the Kuku boost and then run the reverb parallel full wet and compress the tail of the reverb in front of the Supro style amp and then make sure I have a tape saturate on the back end it might get closer to what I’m looking for than just reverb-tweed-cab?

Yeah, I get that. I was the same way with pedals. I never had a drawer full of lots of them, I only had what was in my rig. Usually just one overdrive pedal and I’d change it out for another one when it started bothering me, but I changed them out a LOT.

I’ve always loved experimenting and tinkering, and I love trying to get gear to do something it wasn’t designed for. I used to play country gigs with an Ibanez RG 7 string.

With digital I love doing things like trying to play Metallica with a Princeton. Just for fun

 

[KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!]

With digital I love doing things like trying to play Metallica with a Princeton. Just for fun

 

[metropolis_4]

I just stumbled on one of my favorite clean tones I’ve ever had.

Plexi 50w High 1

Gain: 2.96
Bass: 10
Mid: 0
Treble: 6.27
Presence: 7.14

Fat: ON
Bright Cap: ~70pF

Preamp Tube Type: 7025
Power Tube Type: 6V6GT GE

Negative Feedback: 10

4x12 1960TV dyna cab

The added negative feedback gives it a similar attack to a Fender, the lower bright cap fattens it up, and the tubes push it more into Fender territory. But it still has the flatter EQ of a Marshall, the tighter and more focused low end of a Marshall, and a bit more character to the tone than a typical Fender.

It’s like a Marshder… or a Fendshall?

 

[dk_ace]

I just stumbled on one of my favorite clean tones I’ve ever had.

Plexi 50w High 1

Gain: 2.96
Bass: 10
Mid: 0
Treble: 6.27
Presence: 7.14

Fat: ON
Bright Cap: ~70pF

Preamp Tube Type: 7025
Power Tube Type: 6V6GT GE

Negative Feedback: 10

4x12 1960TV dyna cab

The added negative feedback gives it a similar attack to a Fender, the lower bright cap fattens it up, and the tubes push it more into Fender territory. But it still has the flatter EQ of a Marshall, the tighter and more focused low end of a Marshall, and a bit more character to the tone than a typical Fender.

It’s like a Marshder… or a Fendshall?

I didn’t go quite that far, but I did something kinda similar recently with a plexi model dumping the mids to 0 to get a fendery sound with a different bottom end. It was a great sound IMO.

D

 

[blandified]

I just stumbled on one of my favorite clean tones I’ve ever had.

Plexi 50w High 1

Gain: 2.96
Bass: 10
Mid: 0
Treble: 6.27
Presence: 7.14

Fat: ON
Bright Cap: ~70pF

Preamp Tube Type: 7025
Power Tube Type: 6V6GT GE

Negative Feedback: 10

4x12 1960TV dyna cab

The added negative feedback gives it a similar attack to a Fender, the lower bright cap fattens it up, and the tubes push it more into Fender territory. But it still has the flatter EQ of a Marshall, the tighter and more focused low end of a Marshall, and a bit more character to the tone than a typical Fender.

It’s like a Marshder… or a Fendshall?

Saving this to try out later

 

[la szum]

I just stumbled on one of my favorite clean tones I’ve ever had.

Plexi 50w High 1

Gain: 2.96
Bass: 10
Mid: 0
Treble: 6.27
Presence: 7.14

Fat: ON
Bright Cap: ~70pF

Preamp Tube Type: 7025
Power Tube Type: 6V6GT GE

Negative Feedback: 10

4x12 1960TV dyna cab

The added negative feedback gives it a similar attack to a Fender, the lower bright cap fattens it up, and the tubes push it more into Fender territory. But it still has the flatter EQ of a Marshall, the tighter and more focused low end of a Marshall, and a bit more character to the tone than a typical Fender.

It’s like a Marshder… or a Fendshall?

Scoop them Mids like it's a Blackpanel Fender in disguise!

I'll try it out. I never use a Clean Channel, though. Unless it is
a NMV amp like a Super or Bassman.

 

[Orvillain]

So if I wanted to expand my Axe3 setup to include my two Meris pedals, as well as run in 4-cable-method with my Mark V.... how would I do that?

And what would the setup look like... a 5U rack case with the Axe3 at the bottom... Meris pedals on top... EM midi switcher next to them.... maybe a little patch bay....

I'm thinking very naughty things.

 

[laxu]

So if I wanted to expand my Axe3 setup to include my two Meris pedals, as well as run in 4-cable-method with my Mark V.... how would I do that?

And what would the setup look like... a 5U rack case with the Axe3 at the bottom... Meris pedals on top... EM midi switcher next to them.... maybe a little patch bay....

I'm thinking very naughty things.

Maybe something like this?

• Guitar -> IN 1
• OUT3 L -> Mark V input
• Mark V fx send -> IN3 L
• OUT4 L -> Mark V fx return
• OUT 1 L/R -> Meris pedals
• Meris out L/R -> IN2 L/R

Preset routing:

• Row 1: IN1 -> pre-fx -> OUT3
• Row 2: IN3 -> post-fx -> OUT1 -> IN2 -> more fx -> OUT4

If you want to really get crazy with each Meris pedal in its own loop, then:

• OUT 1 L/R -> Meris 1 -> IN 2 L/R
• OUT2 (XLR -> 1/4" cables) L/R -> Meris 2 -> IN 4 L/R

Then your preset routing would be something like:

• Row 1: IN1 -> pre-fx -> OUT3
• Row 2: IN3 -> post-fx -> OUT1 -> IN2 -> more fx -> OUT4
• Row 3: merge to row after IN3 -> OUT2 -> IN4 -> merge before OUT4

 

[Orvillain]

Maybe something like this?

• Guitar -> IN 1
• OUT3 L -> Mark V input
• Mark V fx send -> IN3 L
• OUT4 L -> Mark V fx return
• OUT 1 L/R -> Meris pedals
• Meris out L/R -> IN2 L/R

Preset routing:

• Row 1: IN1 -> pre-fx -> OUT3
• Row 2: IN3 -> post-fx -> OUT1 -> IN2 -> more fx -> OUT4

If you want to really get crazy with each Meris pedal in its own loop, then:

• OUT 1 L/R -> Meris 1 -> IN 2 L/R
• OUT2 (XLR -> 1/4" cables) L/R -> Meris 2 -> IN 4 L/R

Then your preset routing would be something like:

• Row 1: IN1 -> pre-fx -> OUT3
• Row 2: IN3 -> post-fx -> OUT1 -> IN2 -> more fx -> OUT4
• Row 3: merge to row after IN3 -> OUT2 -> IN4 -> merge before OUT4

Cheers man.

It could be something to try. I'm quite curious about putting it all in a rack box. I sorta wish I had a rackmount Mark Five as well now!