Fractal Talk

Shredder777 said:
I think you know exactly what I mean. If a 1959 marshall is getting death metal with a boost, the model can't be all that accurate. Nothing wrong with that unless you are a purist, which many Fractal afficianoes seem to be.
Click to expand...
how did we get from “super aggressive” to assumptions about “tight bass”, gain level, and death metal? Iommi, with period correct gain levels, is aggressive AF.
 
dk_ace said:
Thanks guys! I got just a few minutes to try this stuff tonight, and now I get what I was missing. More experimenting needed, but this may be a new favorite high gain tone for me.
Click to expand...
The real thing to understand is - bass/mid/treble comes BEFORE your distortion... those are your booty shapers. The graphic EQ comes AFTER your distortion... those are your money makers.

Something no-one ever really talks about is... the Mark (at least the Mark V and VII, not sure about the earlier ones) can do a LOT of different tones, just be using those pre-EQ controls.

I've made my Mark V sound like a super sludge doom amp, like a Matamp or something, simply by boosting the bass instead of cutting it. There are tons and tons of colours in these amps.

I was in love with my Dual Recto before I got it, but at the moment I only have eyes for my Mark. And if you'd asked me about them even 4 years ago, I would've scoffed and said that they weren't any good for the kind of thing I want. Which would've been a huge mistake!
 
Orvillain said:
The real thing to understand is - bass/mid/treble comes BEFORE your distortion... those are your booty shapers. The graphic EQ comes AFTER your distortion... those are your money makers.

Something no-one ever really talks about is... the Mark (at least the Mark V and VII, not sure about the earlier ones) can do a LOT of different tones, just be using those pre-EQ controls.

I've made my Mark V sound like a super sludge doom amp, like a Matamp or something, simply by boosting the bass instead of cutting it. There are tons and tons of colours in these amps.

I was in love with my Dual Recto before I got it, but at the moment I only have eyes for my Mark. And if you'd asked me about them even 4 years ago, I would've scoffed and said that they weren't any good for the kind of thing I want. Which would've been a huge mistake!
Click to expand...
Which is why it sucks that it's genuinely hard to find examples of alternative ways to dial these things, when almost every clip online goes for that V curve metal tone. Which to be fair, the Mark series does very, very well.

But there's a lot of other flavors in there from really juicy clean channel, to thick blues leads on the MK1 mode of the Mark V, to sludgy overdrive, Plexi-ish crunch...

I've been thinking of buying a used Mesa Mark V 90W as a "just own a nice tube amp" thing. A few head/combo candidates available but I'm still not sure if I want to put down over 2000 euros for one.

I've been revisiting the ML Sound Lab Amped ML5 2.0 plugin since it's afaik the only Mark V model in existence apart from the Fractal, which I no longer own. Plus also trying out NAM captures, NDSP IIC Suite, the IV models on Helix Native and JP2C/IIC/IV models on Hotone...but obviously none of that is a substitute for the real thing.
 
Orvillain said:
I KNOW THE TRUTH NOW!!!
Click to expand...

test matrix GIF
 
Shredder777 said:
If its a real plexi, I wouldn't expect it to have a tight bass at all.

When you boost a plexi, are you talking about 5150 levels of gain? Or early 80s rock level of gain?

IOW, I wouldn't expect a boosted plexi model to get tones that aren't "period correct". When people were playing plexis and boosting with a Tube Screamer (1979), I'm thinking late 70s, early 80s metal. (Angus Young). I wouldn't expect anything heavier or tighter than that.

If you are somehow getting late 80s+ metal out of it, the model can't be that correct. SLO100 and ADA Mp1 were released in 1987 and took it up a notch. I got my first MP1 in 1990.
Click to expand...

It really depends on what kind of “metal” you mean.

I know, for example, Slip of the Tongue had 1959 Plexi all over it and Vai’s tour rig had 4 1959s in it. That was 1989

 
metropolis_4 said:
It really depends on what kind of “metal” you mean.

I know, for example, Slip of the Tongue had 1959 Plexi all over it and Vai’s tour rig had 4 1959s in it. That was 1989

Click to expand...

Did he not have them modded though
I thought his Marshall’s were Jose mods
It’s funny because if you read an article he says he dislikes Marshall’s because of that fizz and thin bitey top end
Probably explains the smoother legacy and Bogner
 
GTR37 said:
Did he not have them modded though
I thought his Marshall’s were Jose mods
It’s funny because if you read an article he says he dislikes Marshall’s because of that fizz and thin bitey top end
Probably explains the smoother legacy and Bogner
Click to expand...

Yep, those were all Jose modded.

That said-



Pretty sure the majority of this album is boosted Plexi’s.
 
Damn this new firmware really is the Gilmour-edition! And with updated Axe Edit I can check out the "mods" for the muffs too, really awesome.
Easter egg is the Ibanez Mostortion. Sounds great and I can understand it's a Nashville staple, very versatile eq on it.
 
metropolis_4 said:
I’m just saying I don’t see anything that says to me the models in Fractal aren’t authentic.

He said if a Plexi could do late ‘80s tones it wasn’t a realistic model.
Click to expand...
(was not a knock on your info at all; just me stuck in a feedback loop of "wait, was the guitar tone on Trixter's album somehow more 'aggressive' than early AC/DC just because it had more gain?!?!?")
 
DrewJD82 said:
Yep, those were all Jose modded.

That said-



Pretty sure the majority of this album is boosted Plexi’s.
Click to expand...

It could be , they had huge racks though
Wilton had and ADA, CAE3+
Fish , X88r into a boogie coliseum but that might have been Empire

Kind of of topic but man they had a killer bass sound I always remember that song the Thin line it’s just a great sound , I hear it in the clip you posted too maybe just his technique but it stands out
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Eagle
Fractal’s gift of tone.
2 3
Replies
42
Views
1K
Eagle
Eagle
Lysander
Line 6 mystery product speculation
15 16 17
Replies
329
Views
21K
Digital Igloo
Digital Igloo
deadpool_25
Anyone else getting sick of GAS?
15 16 17
Replies
326
Views
23K
KingsXJJ
KingsXJJ
L
Shenanigans Local #666 -- You Paid Your Dues, Now Kick Off Them Shoes!
46 47 48
Replies
958
Views
24K
FuzzyAce
FuzzyAce
Sascha Franck
We NEED to talk about triads!
2
Replies
34
Views
789
Sascha Franck
Sascha Franck
Back
Top