Tone question, Marshall

[nib2000]

Hey guys,

 

I am struggling with setting up a nice, punchy (but not brittle), convincing Marshall crunch on Helix.

For the lack of a better example, below (the intro) is what I consider to be closest to my personal holy grail crunch tone as far as Marshalls go. Any tips on how to get there?

Thanks!

 

[spikey]

You want good and close Marshall tones (and a dozen or so more) buy a Helix. If you wants the exact same tone above, buy a Diamond amp. 

 

Helix should be able to get you real close.

 

Personally, I didn't really care for the overdriven tones above from Diamond, buts that's just me... Hope you get the tones you desire!

[nib2000]

Nah, I was just talking about PremierGuitar "theme" intro, first 7 seconds

[nib2000]

any ideas anyone?

 

to clarify, not talking about the review (haven't seen it even), just first 7 seconds of PremierGuitar intro riff

[MGblade]

imo the Marshall models sound quite convincing to me, the plexi bright model is the one I use the most, te clip to me sounds like it is not close miced but rather with a room mic of some sort but I could be wrong.

[DunedinDragon]

Yeah...sounds more or less like a plexi bright to me as well.  But it definitely has some room ambience in it.  You could maybe play around with  a short single echo combined with 12" mic distance and a fair amount of early reflections on a stock 4x12 cab and see what you get.

[nib2000]

thanks guys, good point on the room mic

[ric1966]

I won't have my Helix until next month, but I'm dyin to try these two setups:

1970's - a Plexi Bright with Celestion G12M Greenback IR

1980's - a Plexi Bright, Tube Screamer and Celestion Vintage 30 IR

Maybe somebody could try/has tried these combos...

[MGblade]

i run the plexi bright model with a combination of 2 3sigma ir's mostly the Marshall basket weave 412 (greenbacks) and 3sigma 1960v 412 (celestion g12 75) really love this combo.

when I use stock cabs I usaly run 2 412 greenbacks with a 57 and a 121 mic

[DunedinDragon]

I won't have my Helix until next month, but I'm dyin to try these two setups:

1970's - a Plexi Bright with Celestion G12M Greenback IR

1980's - a Plexi Bright, Tube Screamer and Celestion Vintage 30 IR

Maybe somebody could try/has tried these combos...

 

You do realize there's more to an IR than just what speaker it is, right?  There's the mic, the placement of the mic, or even the various mixes provided by Celestion that really determine a LOT about what those combinations you point out will sound like.  Not to mention, of course, the type of guitar you're using or rig setup one is using.  So I'm not sure how good the feedback is going to be on this.

 

I've personally used the Plexi Bright with both of those type of setups in the past on some higher gain rock tunes, but I've recently replaced most of my Greenback and Vintage 30's with Redbacks which I find to be much more well behaved using my FRFR setup with a DXR12.

[ric1966]

Yes, I do realize there are many, many factors that go into creating these tones. I found a few demos that appear to showcase the Celestion blended IR mixes that use three different microphones/placements. I'll definitely check out the Redbacks and some other IR vendors when I'm up and running, as well as the stock cabs. I'll be running FRFR into a JBL EON 612 custom EQ'd to emulate the response of our JBL 515XT mains. Thanks for the advice!

[megadupe]

IMO the Helix Marshalls sound nothing like a Marshall.  The 800 doesn't sound even close.  That is one of my big problems with Helix.  I don't own an Axe-FX, but I have played one and the Marshalls sound like Marshalls. :)

[MGblade]

 

nothing Like a Marshall??

[megadupe]

that sounds like a Marshall. :) Maybe its my guitar? I use an Ernie Ball Sting Ray guitar and a Tele.  Can you tell me the settings you use?  That is one thing I don't get...the Plexi doesn't have a gain or drive knob.  where should this be on the Helix model to be like a Plexi?

Thanks for any help.

[MGblade]

hi it,s not me in this video, but I remembered this video when I saw you're post, pretty awesome tone.

My personal plexi settings are gain:9 bass:2 treble and middle:10 presence:2 master:10 sag:0 (keeps it tight) other settings on default.

I use a 3sigma 1960v 412 ir or a basketweave greenback 412 ir.

sounds pretty good.

[MGblade]

the master set on 10 is a default setting for old plexi' s as they didn't had a master volume control.

[HonestOpinion]

I actually find the Marshall models on the Helix to be very convincing. I apply EQ with high/low cuts on the top and bottom end as well as parametric cuts in a few other spots. I play through an FRFR and find that I require low pass and high pass cuts at 10khz and 75-110hz. I will usually cut around 5.2khz, 3.4khz or 2.2khz as well. I use a combination of the parametric filter and the low and high cuts on the cab/IR to get my EQ dialed in. For example, I will often apply a 10khz high cut with the cab/IR high cut so I can allow the cab to pass as much signal as possible to the parametric which I apply after the cab/IR. I will then apply a parametric cut or even a parametric low pass cut around 4.2-5.8khz (adjusted depending on the amp and cab used). I use the sweep method on the parametric to fine tune the EQ.  I also assign my cab/IR and parametric parameters to snapshots so that for instance a snapshot for a clean sound will get different and generally less cuts than a snapshot for a crunch or lead sound. If you use a guitar cab rather than an FRFR you may find you need to do less or even no EQ depending on what you are playing through.

Your requirements may vary depending on what you are using as a monitor. I am able to get all the grit, crunch, and singing lead you find with a Marshall without the harshness through proper EQ. I can play a gig with little to no cuts on these patches but when I listen back to recordings I find that the sound is a little brittle or harsh through my system without proper EQ. My goal is to get as close as possible to the EQ curve published for various Celestion speakers when using Marshall models and I use their frequency curve and my ears as my guide.

[willjrock]

I’ve owned many marshals over the years and I too found the helix models to be pretty true. Marshall tones seem to be The easiest re-created.

 

80% of the tone is in the cabinet when it comes to modeling and I don’t find helix cabinets to be even the least bit convincing, so if you are not using and IR but are using helix cabinets, that could be some of the problem right there

[Charvel2]

If sticking with stock cabs, I'd go with the Plexi Bright set to taste (it pays to work with the deeper parameters like Bias X), gain set around 5.0, running into the Greenback 25 cab, with a duplicate cab on a parallel path. For one cab use something like the 121 ribbon, and the 67 Cond for the other. Add a generous dose of early reflection to both, and experiment with distance. Finally, a high/low cut eq block to tame the high end - I set my hi-cut to 8.0khz. A little bit of subtle room reverb helps to warm things up too.

[ric1966]

Update - got my LT and I’ve been trying out several Celestion IRs with the Plexi bright model. Very convincing! I’m running about the same deep edits as I did on my Firehawk... Sag at 7.2, Bias at 6.0 and Bias X at 4.0. Master and Drive are on 10. Responds well to a TS808 with default settings. No high or low cuts on the IRs as they seem very well EQ’d out of the gate. I’m running a custom EQ on my EON monitor intended to make it sound more like a JBL 515XT (our mains). The speaker EQ includes a high cut, so that may be part of the reason why I don’t need to run any high cut with the IRs. To me, the stock dual cabs with different mics can sound pretty good, but the Celestion IRs are a definite game changer. It’s hard to explain, but they seem to kill the harshness of the amp models and almost sound “three dimensional.†As suggested by DunedinDragon, the Redback IRs really work to tame the fizz and cut through a band mix. After trying all of the mic combos in the 4x12 package, my favorite is the “hi gain - all†IR, which combines an SM57, an R121 and an MD421. The Greenbacks and V30s sound better to me on the 2204 model, but if I had to pick one IR it would be the Reds. Having owned a 2204, I’ve been able to get very close to the tone I remember (it has been a while). I’ve never owned a Plexi, but the sound I’m hearing out this setup sounds a lot like the many records out there cut by guitarists using them.