Virtual Suite Part 2
This, the second installment in the "Virtual Suite" series, covers some ways of getting good guitar tone from the VS-880 FX board.
Two factions exist: 1 maintains the VS-880 guitar amp sims are supreme, and the other maintains they are useless. And there are in-betweens. I am part of the first faction. I use those damn sims in da morning, at noon, and at night. The amp sim is like a toothbrush that I perpetually chew on. I route drumz through em. I route keyboards through em. I route guitarz through em. I route mixes through em. Few are the lucky signals that escape the COSM.
I accuse the second faction of being misguided. True, the amp sims are tricky beasts to get right. But then so is micing a stack. It's just that using the sims necessitates picking up a new skill set-- no ad hoc studio trix here.
One way to liven a "thin"-sounding distortion? You know, doubling, right? Yeah, but you don't even have to double your guitar parts. Take your clean guitar signal, and route it through two amp sims. Pan one hard left, pan the other hard right. Check VS-880 Faq. It's there, encrusted in time. To save you the tweaking, I've created some smoothy patches which are included in this edition of the suite. Read.
Problem 2: Your distortion sounds buzzy. You could tweak amp sim parameters endlessly. Another solution is to route your buzzy guitar distortion through another amp sim. Try one of the analogify sims I listed in the first edition of the suite. Try reducing presence, and treble. Change the speaker cabinet. Change the MIC setting to simulate micing from the edge of the speaker cone. Reduce the DI level. Increase the MIC level. All amp sim tricks.
Problem 3: You are using the GUITAR MULTI algorithms but can't get a realistic distortion. Solution: Don't use the GUITAR MULTI FX algorithms. Nude Guitar man Ed & I agree: A good amp sim takes the processing power of a whole FX board. That's why the GUITARAMPSIM algorithm doesn't have any fancy extras like chorus & pitch shifting-- the true amp sims are too mathematically complex to allow for that other bull. Use a watered down algorithm like the GUITAR MULTI, and you get a little of everything, but the guitar tone isn't so hot.
But you want chorus, you want reverb, pitch shifting to thicken the guitar soup that is your music. Worry not, child. I have included a couple of patches that use the good guitar amp simulations to get nice tone, and use the vocal multi algorithm to tweak that tone and add thickness.
Also in this edition, a SPANDEX patch I ripped from the GX-700 guitar guru box which demonstrates how drastic EQ (+/- 10dB on multiple bands) can totally change your guitar tone.
Kidz, go and enter these in:
PATCH: Heavy Left BASED ON: Guitar Amp Sim algorithm (not guitar multi) NS: ON Treshold: 80 Release: 30 PREAMP: ON SLDN Lead Vol: 60 Master: 82 Gain: High Bass: 25 Mid: 68 Treble: 49 Presence: 68 SPEAKER: ON "MS Stack 1" MICSetting: 3 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 0
PATCH: Heavy Right NS: ON Treshold: 10 Release: 30 PREAMP: ON BG Lead Vol: 70 Master: 73 Gain: Middle Bass: 67 Mid: 64 Treble: 50 Presence: 80 Bright: OFF SPEAKER: As above
PATCH: Lead 1 Left NS: ON Treshold: 16 Release: 19 PREAMP: ON Metal Lead Vol: 61 Master: 86 Gain: High Bass: 0 Mid: 0 Treble: 60 Presence: 55 SPEAKER: ON "Built In 4" MICSetting: 1 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 29 (credit is due, but I can't remember who)
PATCH: Lead 1 Right NS: As above PREAMP: ON Metal Lead Vol: 75 Master: 75 Gain: Middle Bass: 0 Mid: 0 Treble: 100 Presence: 71 SPEAKER: ON "Built In 4" MICSetting: 2 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 26
PATCH: Lead 2 Left NS: ON Treshold: 16 Release: 19 PREAMP: ON MS1959I Vol: 50 Master: 75 Gain: High Bass: 100 Mid: 55 Treble: 0 Presence: 0 SPEAKER: ON "MS Stack 1" MICSetting: 2 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 0
PATCH: Lead 2 Right NS: As above PREAMP: ON MS1959I+II Vol: 50 Master: 70 Gain: High Bass: 40 Mid: 60 Treble: 58 Presence: 40 SPEAKER: ON "MS Stack 1" MICSetting: 1 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 0
PATCH: Lead 3 Left NS: ON Treshold: 80 Release: 30 PREAMP: ON Metal Lead Vol: 67 Master: 86 Gain: Middle Bass: 13 Mid: 6 Treble: 50 Presence: 47 SPEAKER: ON "Built In 3" MICSetting: 2 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 0
PATCH: Lead 3 Right NS: As above PREAMP: ON Match Drive Vol: 70 Master: 80 Gain: Middle Bass: 50 Treble: 60 Presence: 0 ** Match Drive doesn't have a Mid setting SPEAKER: As above
PATCH: Lead 4 Left NS: ON Treshold: 80 Release: 30 PREAMP: ON Metal Lead Vol: 67 Master: 86 Gain: Middle Bass: 13 Mid: 6 Treble: 50 Presence: 47 SPEAKER: ON "Built In 3" MICSetting: 2 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 0
PATCH: Lead 4 Right NS: As above PREAMP: ON SLDN Lead Vol: 66 Master: 88 Gain: Middle Bass: 43 Mid: 31 Treble: 20 Presence: 83 SPEAKER: ON "Built In 3" MICSetting: 3 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 0
Watch your master level for the guitar amp sim. If you raise it too high you will cause the FX to clip internally, which you might not see on your VS meters. Result: digital clipping, buzzy guitar tone.
OK. Pick a pre-distortion guitar track. Route it to the AUX bus. Assign 2 other tracks to get input from the AUX bus. Pan one hard left, pan one hard right. You now have 2 copies of that track, which you can distort. Insert, say, the "HEAVY Left" patch on the first track (FX1). Insert "Heavy Right" (FX2) on the second track.
Or, if you haven't got your guitar track recorded, set monitor on two tracks set to your guitar input. If you have two pickups on the same guitar, use two independent inputs for a thicker sound.
Moving on.
Now enter these puppies:
PATCH: Clean AmpSim BASED ON: Guitar Amp Sim algorithm (not guitar multi) NS: OFF PREAMP: ON Clean Twin Vol: 42 Master: 100 Gain: Low Bass: 80 Mid: 97 Treble: 14 Presence: 26 Bright: ON SPEAKER: ON "JC-120" MICSetting: 3 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 25
PATCH: Clean FX BASED ON: Vocal Multi algorithm NS: OFF LMT: ON Mode: LIM Thresh: 75 Rel: 20 Lev: 100 ENH: ON Sens: 5 Freq: 5.0 kHz MixLvl: 10 Lev: 100 EQ: ON Low Type: Shlv -3dB @ 120Hz Q1.0 Mid +2dB @ 250Hz Q1.0 High Type: Shlv +2dB @ 20kHz Q10 OutLvl 100 PS: ON CPitch: 0 Fine: 7 EfLvl: 70 DiLvl: 100 DELAY: ON 400 ms Feedback: 27 EfLvl: 18 DiLvl: 100 CHO: ON 0.6 Hz Depth: 30 EfLvl: 60 DiLvl: 100 PreDly: 18 ms
PATCH: SPANDEX AmpSim BASED ON: Guitar Amp Sim algorithm (not guitar multi) NS: ON Threshold: 60 Release: 15 PREAMP: ON Metal 5150 Vol: 47 Master: 50 Gain: Middle Bass: 84 Mid: 67 Treble: 59 Presence: 63 SPEAKER: ON "Built In 1" MICSetting: 3 MICLvl: 100 DILvl: 0
PATCH: SPANDEX FX BASED ON: Vocal Multi algorithm NS: OFF LMT: OFF ENH: ON Sens: 6 Freq: 8.0 kHz MixLvl: 10 Lev: 100 EQ: ON Low Type: Shlv -7dB @ 800Hz Q2.0 Mid -9dB @ 1000Hz Q8.0 High Type: Shlv -9dB @ 1.4kHz Q1.0 OutLvl 100 PS: OFF DELAY: ON 16 ms Feedback: 0 EfLvl: 30 DiLvl: 100 CHO: ON 1.0 Hz Depth: 20 EfLvl: 80 DiLvl: 100 PreDly: 4 ms
For the above patches, choose the guitar track or input you want to affect. Insert the AmpSim patch on FX2, and Insert the corresponding FX patch on FX1. You can also PSTFADE the FX patch, but don't do this for the SPANDEX FX patch because of the drastic subtractive EQ.
The signal will run through the guitar amp sim on FX2 first, then through the insert on FX1 (the vocal FX algorithm), where all of your chorus & delay & other goodies are added. This emulates closely the signal path on Roland's more expensive guitar processors (GT/GP, GX, VG series).
So, what have we learned kidz? Facts don't really matter. If nothing else I hope you tweak this patches, and gain confidence that your guitar gear will do what you want-- that you don't need to buy, buy, buy. I've shown a couple semi-innovative ways of reaping the power of da sims, but it's up to you to write the music and put the patches to use. Like they say in the skateboarding world, "stop reading, go skate".
Ian - J Pekau
25 Jan 1998
1998/03