Helpful ReplyAC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock

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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/22 19:46:12 (permalink)
batsbrew
 
but the power and the glory of a cranked well made tube amp,
has magic,
not found by pushing buttons on a computer.
 



On this we agree!!

Grem

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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/25 11:23:51 (permalink)
I listened to For Those About to Rock earlier this morning to get a reference point for the tone. I may not get around to fully trying this out but am going to be fiddling with some guit tones so may see what I can come up with...
 
However first impressions... it really should not be that hard to get that specific tone from a sim. It actually almost sounds pretty sim-my on the original recording. I'd say keep the gain/drive on whatever Marshall sim you use low. Base it on the opening chords where it's a single guitar sound (it may be doubled but it's not as thick as when the song kicks in). You'll see it's just slightly overdriven. From there it sounds like they just used that same general low driven tone and layered the hell out of it and squashed it with some pretty agressive (almost undesirably so) compression. It almost sounds like up to six layers of the same part using the same tone low gain/drive tone.
 
The older school AC/DC would be harder dial in because it really is that serious glowing tube crunch. This can be heard even more on ealry Bon era live recordings of theirs. For the track you referenced... not so much. Just a bit of grit, layering and compression. I think they may have really spread all the layers out across the stereo field too but IDK.
 
This is NOT expert engineering advice. Just an extreme guitar hound's advice. Mr. Danzi could really give you some good advice on this I think but sadly I have not seen him around for a while. Hope he's okay.
 
Cheers.
 
 
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/25 11:27:41 (permalink)
Oh and don't forget about the bass. AC/DC bass stuff is extremely simple but I think it really supports their guit tones/compositions so be sure to get a nice fat dull-ish bass tone in there before giving up on your settings. You may nail down the tone but not know it because the bass isn't there to give that crucial interplay with the guits.
 
 
 
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/25 14:01:03 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby Mesh 2015/01/26 13:53:32
Okay, Mesh. I found a sound preset in TH2 that is pretty much the exact Malc tone from For Those About to Rock.
 
First though... it requires the full version of TH2 so when you said you had TH2 did you mean the one that came with Sonar or did you upgrade to the full version? If it is the full version then you have this tone. It is part of the Lynchbox set of plugs.
 
I will add to this post with the various instructions, tweaks and thoughts as I play around with it. This is obviously going to depend on your pickups and what guitar you are using but I think I've figured out which controls are the best ones to screw with to accomodate whatever set up you may have. Also I'm doing this with a direct line in using the Inst setting on my Scarlett TH2 instead of doing my usual input through my amps so no mics, mixers or any other outboard crap to gum up the works. I'm using a Yamaha Pacifica that has been modded with a "Hot Strat" style pickup scheme so actually these pickups aren't particularly the best for this tone but in the Hot Strat scheme I do have a bridge humbucker so this should translate reasonably well to a Gibson humbucking set up. Single coils would not be advisable.
 
For reference I am basing the tone on this youtube upload of the original studio song...
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKhTk0IynHM
 
It should also be noted that I personally would try for the older AC/DC sound which to me capture more of the tube sound of a cranked amp AND I am not really including the Angus tone in this (because you asked for Malcolm). Angus' rhtyhm guit on this is significantly fuller and slightly brighter as is the norm for AC/DC stuff but could probably be easily obtained with further tweaks to this preset.
 
In TH2 full (not the severely crippled TH2 Producer that came with Sonar X2/X3 Producer) click the "Search" button underneath the Line Out Meter/Knob. If you do not see the Search/Write buttons click the Master button on the upper left corner of the GUI beside the TH2 logo and the preset navigator will appear. So press the search button and navigate to Bank: #002, Bank Name: Meet the Randalls, Sound #03, Variation 2: Plexi & Room. Click the patch name so it is highlighted the press the Load Sound button at the bottom of the Preset window. The main GUI should pop back up so you are looking at the amp/effect chain window.
 
First thing you are going to want to do is turn of the reverb module in the patch. It's the orange BREVERB RoomRev thing. Just press the glowing red button on the right of the module. That verb is way too agressive for this particular tone. The tone from the song is pretty dry with just a touch of room verb (or natural room sound)  and you can add that in the Prochannel or via a reverb bus after the fact.
 
Play around and you'll see it's pretty darned close as it is. If you play lightly you'll get those subtle chords at the start of the song. Play a little harder and you'll get the crunchiness oof when the song kicks in.
 
Remember Malc is a punchy player and a lot of the meat of the tone comes from the fact he's playing full 6 string chords for the G5 and D chords while the B and low E are power chords (which he is really wailing on). Edit: On the E power chords he is also letting the open B and high E strings slam out with the power chord for many of the chords which is adding a lot of dimension to those chords.
 
This is one thing I REALLY like about TH2. The models respond to pick attack and various chords/note combinations like a real amp would.
 
Now this tone isn't EXACT but no presets ever are because the guys who program them have no idea what guit you are using but for simple stuff like this it's not too hard to take the preset and tweak it a little to work with your gear. I think this one would actually sound better if I were driving it with one of my amps padded by my mixer but for the sake of just getting the tone by the simplest means I did the line in thing.
 
Click on the amp head in the TH2 navigation window (that's the top window where all the modules are small and you can see a large portion of the chain). The lower window should jump to the amp head which is one of the Randall LynchBox heads. The controls on this that I find help tweak in the Malc tone a little better, in order of importance, are Presence (I found turning this up a bit more gave some more of the crispness and bite from the recording), Gain (this helps give it a bit more drive for when the song kicks in but with layering may not be necessary but too much and the sound starts falling apart), Level (this seems to add a different type of gain to the sound so try out different level variations of the Gain and Level knobs to see what works best for your set up). The only one that really needs to go up more than a little seems to be the Presence knob but that just may be due to my pickups and this could be dealt with on the track EQ. An instance of the Sat Knob or Tube Drive in the PC may result in better gain but I'm just focusing on the Sim end of things. The Density knob on the amp head seems to help fatten things up a little bit but I don't think it's all that necessary.
 
Next go to the Compressor pedal (the blue stompbox labelled RSS Comp). I found turning up the sustain a bit and turning down the release time to very fast helped clean up the tone even further and got rid of a bit of the "sim" sound.
 
Next click on the cabinet in the navigation window. In the main window double click on the cabinet so the mic controls pop up. I'm still messing with this but I found turning up the Rear Mic level really brought the sound together. 
 
These are preliminary findings and I only messed with it for a little while but that is sounding pretty darned close to the rhythm guits in the song. I'm guessing layering this a few times and adding some bus compression to those layers and you'll have a very good emulation of the tone on the track.
 
As I said though I think this isn't really the greatest AC/DC rhythm tone but I'm a die hard Bon fan and prefer the older, raunchier stuff so I may be biased.
 
I may post more on this later and maybe some examples for Bats. It really was very easy to put it together with TH2 and this is exactly the type of thing that made me immediately drop the coin on the full version as soon as I saw what the program was all about. Soooooo much better and more realistic than Guitar Rig... and I really like GR5.
 
Cheers.
 
Edit: During the more powerful chorus parts there seems to be an extra layer added that is just single notes of the chord roots blended in with the chords. They have a really wide spread and there seems to be a major bass boost at those points that I'm not sure what is being applied to. These are likely Angus parts.
post edited by Beepster - 2015/01/25 14:34:41
#34
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/25 14:27:03 (permalink)
Okay... so in the Cab/Mic settings for this preset you'll see that Mic A is set to use a "Square" mic while Mic B is using an "American 57". Switch Mic A to an American 57 as well. I think this helps get the preset sounding even closer to the recording.
 
Also there are the "Ambience Type" settings for the cabs. I'm finding Wooden Room is sounding nice with this.
 
There is a ten band EQ pedal as well that if put after the compressor pedal can add a little bit of clarity but I think this is something that could probably be better done in the ProChannel.
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/25 19:38:56 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby Mesh 2015/01/26 13:53:56
Sooooo I kind of got a little sidetracked (more like obsessed) with this today and here are the fruits of my labors...
 
https://soundcloud.com/us...4/acdc-malcom-sim-test
 
NOTE:! You are going to want to fast forward to 5:20 to hear the final results. The first example is the untweaked sim and then I build it up from there.
 
I recorded multiple takes for layering and to show various examples of the sim and how I built it up. I think I actually ended up making it sound brighter and more live sounding than the actual recording I was referencing and ended up with more of an old school AC/DC sound but whatever. It could easily be dialed back/tame a bit to match the later AC/DC tone.
 
On the recording above I just put the intro part over and over again tweaking and building it up from the TH2 sim I was talking about earlier and did some of the tweaks I mentioned. Then I made doubled/tripled and panned versions and the final take at 5:20 I took a tripled version and did some bus effects. 
 
Here is the timesheet and a brief description of what each section is:
 
00:00 Original TH2 Plexi Room Preset with BREVERB disabled Centered
1:20 Beeps Tweaked Preset Centered
2:40 Beeps Tweaked Preset Doubled Track Panned 70%/70%
4:00 Beeps Tweaked Preset Doubled Track Panned 70%/70% plus a third track using original preset Centered coming in on the build up
5:20 The tripled 70%/70%/0% track with bus FX (in order): QuadCurve = Slight Hi Shelf, Sat Knob barely turned on and said to Keep Low, PC2A set to Compress - R57 set all the way to HF and threshold set so compressor is just touching the signal, Consule Emulator set to N-Type and drive set to -2.5 (turned down).

Concrete Limiter on Master bus which only affects the final mix at 5:20 because everything else is too quiet to touch it.


===================================================
 
So I think on the actual AC/DC recording there is a LOT more layering going on but that seems to be a pretty decent start to getting that tone. Keep in mind I'm not a master engineer or anything. There is noise floor hiss but I think that is because I had the project foolishly set to 16 bit.
 
It should be noted that I did not use ANY outboard gear for this (which I normally would these days to get a better input). This is direct in to my Scarlett 18i6 using the Inst. setting (Hi-Z). Also I think if I had my old SG with the chrome humbuckers this would have been even better. My Yamaha is more of a strat type bluesy job although it does have a bridge humbucker which is what I used. So considering that and that I spent very little time tweaking the actual sim (all the REAL work went into screwing around with getting the tracks set up and making the comp and apparently I forgot how to export properly lol... oh and Soundcloud was being a dink) I think this is a pretty darned good.
 
Anyway... it ain't a tube amp but yanno, pretty darned close I think.
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/25 19:44:43 (permalink)
Oh and it should be noted that I had never played this song in my life before today. I probably could have gotten the pick attack a little better which would have helped the sound even more.
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/25 23:08:24 (permalink)
Just a thought... try a JTM45 instead of a plexi.

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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/26 13:56:53 (permalink)
Thanks Beeps for doing all this testing out!!! I only have TH2 that came with X3 Producer (not sure if it's included in Platinum (which I also have))......anyway, there's a lot of stuff in there that I'll have to slowly digest and will be re-reading. Good work again brother beeps!!  

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#39
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/26 14:00:51 (permalink)
tlw
Just a thought... try a JTM45 instead of a plexi.




Listening back to it this morning in comparison the intro part I did ended up too clean but I think the crunch parts are pretty close. There are no setting changes between the two though. That's just the sim responding to the input which I think is actually pretty impressive for a sim. Other sims I've used (outboard and in the box) don't respond like that (mind you there are still quite a few I haven't tried). If I picked a little harder or maybe turned up the gain a bit more that might have worked out more like the original recording.
 
I think because I never really listen to anything by AC/DC after Back In Black as I was goofing around with it I drifted more toward the pre 1980 tone but I still think that could be a decent starting point for a Malcom sound. I really only tried out a few different presets (there are a LOT in TH2) so there probably are some that would get even closer. A lot of the dedicated Marshall sounds just weren't cutting it though so I ended up in the Randall section (which has it's own section of Marshall type tones of which this was one) and they funnily enough seem to behave more like a real Marshall to my ears.
 
I was really focusing on the Malc tone based on the intro before Angus kicks in which is kind of a brighter, twangier sound. Those guys just really sound great together and always have. This also made me miss my old late 70's SG. The Yammie is great for most things but although it does most things very well it kind of stops just little short of emulating specific tones. Still a great axe for the $300 I paid for it (including the hot strat electronics which are just awesome).
 
Anyway... as usual I was just kind of hacking around and have probably shown my lack of real engineering skills but it was fun and educational goofing around with this and I still think it's a pretty good example of how TH2 can mimic a live tube amp. Honestly I don't think even in an ideal environment with the right mics I could get the tone of a real Marshall much better on tape.
 
Never particularly liked Marshalls anyway to tell the truth aside from the JCM 2000 and some crazy souped up custom anniversary jobbies I've had the opportunity to jam/record through. I like HiWatts and 5150's much better. Those sounds are quite a bit harder to duplicate with a sim unfortunately... especially the HiWatt top end and input response.
 
Cheers.
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/26 14:08:49 (permalink)
Mesh
Thanks Beeps for doing all this testing out!!! I only have TH2 that came with X3 Producer (not sure if it's included in Platinum (which I also have))......anyway, there's a lot of stuff in there that I'll have to slowly digest and will be re-reading. Good work again brother beeps!!  




Cool, man. Wasn't sure if you saw it (you posted just as I was replying to tlw... whom BTW is a very smart fellow in regards to this type of thing... he has helped me with some crucial concepts in the past). As I said it ain't the exact FTATR tone but I think it's still pretty AC/DC. I think the layering is what really does it in the end though and IIRC there are some decent Marshall tones included in the basic version that comes with Sonar. Not sure if there is the same blue compressor pedal in that package but if there is that really seemed to help as well as setting up the cab properly to use 57's, getting some of that rear mic in there and picking the right room.
 
Anyway, it was a neat little experiment and I actually learned/remember some important stuff while doing it so it was my pleasure. Hopefully it'll help get you a little closer to where you want.
 
Cheers, bud.
 
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/26 14:27:10 (permalink)
Oh and one REALLY important thing I didn't do or mention is the Anderton trick of creating a notch filter with the EQ to get rid of that slight fizzle/buzz that DI sim stuff produces. You can hear the slight buzz throughout the track but I left it alone to just show the most unaffected tone as possible.
 
You are probably familiar with this method but you essentially just create a super sharp peak filter using the hi-mid band (I do this with the Quad Curve... make the Q as tight as it will go) then slowly sweep through the higher frequncies until that buzz becomes really obnoxious. Then you just reverse the peak into a cut and widen the Q a little bit. I just fiddle with the gain and Q a bit so that it's just barely removing the offending frequency. That way you aren't totally sucking out the hi-mids at that point but the buzz/fizz becomes less apparent.
 
Using the direct outs on my amps seems to minimize the need for this (but I'll still do it on super high gain signals produce by outboard stuff like my Metal Zone pedal which is biznatch to deal with).
 
Again I did not do that to this so the buzz is still there. In the mix though it might get buried.
 
There is something else that Craig does in that process that for the life of me I can't recall but he has written abotu it multiple times all over the intertubesincluding an article on SOS and posts here on the forum so a google of "Anderton + Guitar + Sims" should bring up the full process he uses.
 
Cheers.
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Re: AC/DC Tone from Those About to Rock 2015/01/30 06:25:41 (permalink)
Beepster
Never particularly liked Marshalls anyway to tell the truth aside from the JCM 2000 and some crazy souped up custom anniversary jobbies I've had the opportunity to jam/record through. I like HiWatts and 5150's much better. Those sounds are quite a bit harder to duplicate with a sim unfortunately... especially the HiWatt top end and input response.


Only just spotted this. For some reason the forum software decided to unsubscribe me from this thread.

As it happens I'm not an AC/DC fan, but I grabbed a couple of tracks from itunes when I saw this thread and I did see them two or three times back when they first toured the UK. I suggested a JTM45 rather than plexi because I've seen stuff about the band by knowledgable people and a pretty common story is that they used two or three Super Leads each live to get the volume, but recorded using JTM45s.

I'm not a Marshall fan either.....

I have a plexi 50watt Lead I bought very cheaply in the late 70s but never use it nowadays, partly because my taste has changed a lot over the years and partly because the point where picking dynamics or guitar volume can make it go from clean into breakup is stupidly loud. Another reason I'm not a fan is I've owned three different models of Marshall amps and two of them were the most unreliable bits of gear I've ever used.

I know what you mean about amp sims. If you're after a "real amp" sound and reaction to the guitar it takes a huge amount of tweaking to get a sound that's almost as similar to the "real thing" as instant coffee is to ground. For amp emulation I much prefer Sansamp Character series pedals to anything digital, and even with them the Tech21 recommended settings usually have far more gain and distortion than the real amps. And don't get me started on the many failings of digital imitations of overdrives and fuzzes :-)

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