Category: Studio Diary

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Studio Diary #48: Dialling In The 65 Blackface Amp & Cab

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

I’ve just finished documenting the thought process behind the scenes that I will use for my beloved tweed tone pedals. Now it’s time to switch my attention to the scenes that most pedals will use: a ’65 Fender “blackface” tone.

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Studio Diary #47: Dialling In The 57 Vintage Amp & Cab

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

Over-arching decisions have been made. So without further delay, let’s get into the heart of the pedal platform patch: the amp and cab emulations. And I’m going to start with the tones that are dearest to my heart: a vintage-voiced platform for my tweed-tone pedals.

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Studio Diary #46: My Philosophy For Building Pedal Platform Presets For Digital Modellers

When I started building my own pedal platform presets for the Axe-FX 3, my goal was to recreate the sound of my old valve amp rig. I really wanted to demonstrate how these pedals might sound if you put them through your own valve amp at home.

I’m not trying to do that any more.

In this blog post, I’m going to do my best to explain why. Grab a drink, there’s a lot to talk through!

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Studio Diary #44: Key Decisions About Cab IRs

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

Before I get into detail about dialling in each amp and cab, I want to first discuss some more general things I’ve learned about impulse responses (IRs for short), and how that’s led me to some key decisions (or, if you prefer, design constraints) that I’m going to use to guide me as I dial in the amps and cabs.

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Studio Diary #43: How I Level-Match Demo Tracks In Universal Audio’s LUNA

I’m just prepping the audio for an upcoming blog post, and I thought it would useful to document how I go about it …

… because there’s a couple of gotchas that I’ve run into, that I don’t want to forget about.

And if I didn’t know this, maybe it’ll help someone else who needs to do the same thing? Or maybe someone who knows better will see this and leave a comment with helpful advice?

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Studio Diary #42: Why I Need To Support Different Guitars In One Preset

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

In this post, I want to explain something that I haven’t seen other people do; namely, why I build support for different guitars into the same pedal platform patch.

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Studio Diary #41: Revoicing The Axe-FX 3 Pedal Platform Patch – Amp & Cab Requirements

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

The heart of the preset is the amp & cab combination, so let’s get straight into that, and work out what I actually want.

Continue reading “Studio Diary #41: Revoicing The Axe-FX 3 Pedal Platform Patch – Amp & Cab Requirements”
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Studio Diary #40: It’s Time For A New Pedal Platform Patch

Fractal Audio have recently overhauled their amp modelling in the Axe-FX 3 / FM-9 / FM-3. And my recent dive into the Orange Getaway Driver has shown me that I need to revoice my signal chain. I’m taking this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything about the pedal preset I’ve built for the Axe-FX 3.

So let’s start by taking a step back, and revisit how the Axe-FX 3 sits in my overall signal chain.

The discussion here applies to anyone who’s swapped real amp & cab for a digital modeller of some kind. It’s not specific to Fractal Audio’s Axe-FX 3; it’ll work with any modeller that supports the four-cable method (4CM for short).

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Studio Diary #39: Why I Use DAW Plugins For Delay And Reverb On My #TweedTone Comparisons

‘Studio Diary’ is an occasional series where I talk about building a home recording setup for hobbyists and enthusiasts like us. I share my personal experiences, and the thinking behind some of the decisions that I’ve made along the way.

This time around, I want to answer a question that nobody has asked me. Why am I using DAW plugins for delay and reverb, instead of my Axe-FX 3?

Read on if you’re interested in my thinking behind this decision. And if you’re not interested, no worries 🙂

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