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David Gilmour Pink Floyd tones


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Hi everyone

 

Looking to get into the Helix to replace my Axe FX Ultra. Floorboard solution is what I want.

 

Before I do (they are very rare here in Australia), surely there are some Gimour tone nuts that have a Helix by now?

Can anyone post some Gimour patches/tones you have made. I'd be interested in tones from songs like

 

Run like hell

Time

Comfortably numb

Sorrow

The wall

Coming back to life

 

I'm quite OCD when it comes to Gilmour tones. For my Run like hell patch on the Axe I use a compressor, tube drive, two delays in parallel to the main signal chain, a chorus or rotary to get swirly stereo effect, and a multitap delay with lowpass filter also in parallel to the main signal chain. So I really go all out to get as close as I can. Would the Helix run out of CPU? And most importantly how does it sound?

 

I'm sure there are lots of Gilmour afficianados who'd like to hear some of these tones as well!

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While a Gilmour lover, I am not too OCD about recreating the exact same tone... But on the thread I link I posted a Shine On You Crazy Diamond clip and the patch I used.

 

http://line6.com/support/topic/16240-helixers-i-really-would-like-your-opinion/?do=findComment&comment=120296

 

(a few posts later you can find the patch, wich has everything disabled, you need to enable the blocks. Also, I use an additional external exp. pedal)

 

The Helix has enough CPU to do what you're asking. It comes in handy to chain the 2 paths together in order to use both DSPs.

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there are at least two Gilmour presets I can think of without being in front of the unit - run like hell & have a cigar. i believe there is also "another brick Pt 2", complete with switching for the straight to the board comped sound for the rhythm and the mesa combo for leads. head on down to your local dealer, or perhaps another end user can use these presets to give some more sound examples.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi everyone

 

Looking to get into the Helix to replace my Axe FX Ultra. Floorboard solution is what I want.

 

Before I do (they are very rare here in Australia), surely there are some Gimour tone nuts that have a Helix by now?

Can anyone post some Gimour patches/tones you have made. I'd be interested in tones from songs like

 

Run like hell

Time

Comfortably numb

Sorrow

The wall

Coming back to life

 

I'm quite OCD when it comes to Gilmour tones. For my Run like hell patch on the Axe I use a compressor, tube drive, two delays in parallel to the main signal chain, a chorus or rotary to get swirly stereo effect, and a multitap delay with lowpass filter also in parallel to the main signal chain. So I really go all out to get as close as I can. Would the Helix run out of CPU? And most importantly how does it sound?

 

I'm sure there are lots of Gilmour afficianados who'd like to hear some of these tones as well!

 

Maybe your lucky day or not... Anyway I play in the NZ Pink Floyd Project and just picked a Helix up to see if it would work for me.

Yes it will work for you from what I can tell thus far (spent about three days messing with it) and no I have not run out of CPU as yet but I am using the FX loop to outboard FX as well, however I am still messing around with it and seeing if it will really do what I need it to do for me.

Sorry no patches to give you and they may not help you anyway as I will still be using some of my other FX units in the loop for now.. I will see how I go.. The thing about changing over to a new rig after years of doing things one way is that I am now faced with months of resorting the tones for each and every Floyd song we play (that is most of them by the way).

 

Anyway I may post a patch or three on here at some point depending on if it is all Helix patch or not.

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I would think you could probably not have to worry about running out of DSP with your described setup.

 

I'll second the Glenn Delaune PF preset.  I purchased it as well.  When using only one amp/cab pair, you have to hammer

the heck out of the Helix to run out of DSP.

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There are some good starter DG patches in there already that just need some tweaks to get them closer, I will upload my when I'm done ... and I figure out how to upload them. 

 

I am a little shocked to see people 'sell' patches !! 

As long as people buy them, there will be people selling them - nothing wrong with that. Obviously there is a market for that.

Basically you're paying for the time the seller puts in to create the patches. You save some time yourself.

 

I don't need to buy because I can dial in everything I need pretty fast. For me the patch sharing doesn't work anyway: I would say that over 80% of the patches I downloaded from cutomtone ended in the trash. There are way too many variables. It is a good starting point though and you can get an idea of different approaches.

 

But there are people who prefer buy them.

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Glenn Delaune his patches are pretty good.

Also you can copy the DG patch from his tutorial for free, if you want to program it yourself (which I recommand, to learn more about the Helix).

 

No problem paying for them, but once you get the hang of programming some difficult patches yourself, it becomes pretty easy.

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Strangely with Gilmour's sound, less is more - if you know what i mean. Just work a really good sound out of the Whowatt and the 4x12 Greenback cab, then add in a smattering of 3 -4 effects (compressor, drive, modulation, echo/reverb). On the PULSE tour, even though he had, at least, a dual channel amp system and numerous effects in numerous signal chains, he really only ever utilised 3-4 effects for each sound, relying on the Hiwatt (whowatt) - with an Alembic bass guitar preamp - for the tone. He did sculpt his sound with a couple of graphic EQs in the chains. He also used doppler/leslie speakers on nearly all his sounds at the end of the signal chain, mixed in with the main channel sound to varying degrees.

 

And of course his technique, which is maybe the the ingredient you're going to have trouble replicating.

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  • 3 months later...

And of course his technique, which is maybe the the ingredient you're going to have trouble replicating.

That, right there...which is why I don't obsess too much about the amps or effects I use to try and approximate his tone.  Mostly just a compressor, OD, uni-vibe, chorus, flanger, delay and/or reverb, depending on the needs of the song.  But I don't use the Helix amp models, just running the effects into my Marshall.  I know that no matter what I do, I'm only going to get so far trying to sound like Gilmour.

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 I know that no matter what I do, I'm only going to get so far trying to sound like Gilmour.

 

As with all the great ones, that is the best we can do. But getting close is where the practice and fun pays off in spades!

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