Category: The Hermit’s Cave

“The Hermit’s Cave” is my little home recording studio. This is a general catch-all tag for anything about me and my gear.

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Studio Diary #52: Level-Matching The Pedal Platform 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.

Now that I’m done with the gain-staging, I want to quickly cover level-matching scenes within the preset. I promise: this will be a much shorter post!

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Studio Diary #51: Gain-Staging Through The Pedal Platform 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.

I’ve dialled in the amps and cabs for my 57 Vintage, 65 Clean and JTM pedal platform presets. Now I want to (briefly) explore the topic of gain-staging, and how it impacts my pedal platform preset (if at all).

[It turned out not to be a brief exploration at all – Ed]

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Studio Diary #50: Dialling In The JTM 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.

Most pedals that interest me will work best into a clean amp – either my 65 Clean preset or (for many tweed-tone pedals) my 57 Vintage preset. Every now and then, though, I take a look at a pedal that’s designed to run into a dirtier amp.

That’s where my JTM preset comes in.

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Studio Diary #49: The 65 Clean Speaker Toolkit

‘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 the last blog post, I went through the amp & cab settings for my 65 Clean pedal platform preset. We’re not quite done with that preset yet though. You see, while testing it, I realised that I needed even more speaker choices …

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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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