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How to get a highly processed 80's guitar tone?

12K views 25 replies 11 participants last post by  shreddingjoris 
#1 ·
There's a tone I'm looking to achieve and I'm hoping that someone here can help me find it. I want to get one of those really heavily processed, dirty 80's lead guitar tones. I want it to sound like the guitar solo in this:



The solo starts right around 2:40 if you want to skip the rest of it or hate that kind of music. Everything I come up with is just way too clean and lacks any real bite.

I can tell you that I'm 99% sure the guy who wrote that song recorded using an Orange TH30 combo amp with the gain turned either all the way or almost all the way up and the "dirty shape" control pretty near the top, which produces scooped mids. I assume that there has to be one or more pedals in front on that to get that tone. Some kind of drive/distortion? A compressor?

I have an Axe-Fx II so my options for trying different combinations are pretty much endless.
 
#2 ·
First of all, lots of reverb!
Hall of stadium on many processors-

A good amount of mids and lots of presence to make the whole tone fizz.
Keeps the bass pulled down to a normal level, not thundering like today's modern tones.

Add a tri chorus effect to make it really wet if you want to make it sound extra processed.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Compressor - overdrive - chorus - overdrive channel of amp w/lots of reverb.

Edit - Not trying to sound definitive, but thats what I use to get close to what you are looking for... I love that sound too.

OR

One of them "Rockman" boxes that everyone used in the 80's... made by Tom Sholz of Boston. Supposedly thats what a lot of producers used to get that sound when recording... though I've never tried one personally.
 
#4 ·
Rockman sound, definitely.

Clean sound, Roland JC-120 standard of the 1980s will get you there. The bands, U2/The Alarm/Big Country, used this set up a lot. Many knew it was a sound used by the Edge of U2 and had all those right balances and wet sound. I first saw the JC120 when I saw The Alarm in SF. A Rockman distortion on top of a clean amp is a great tone for that 1980's vibe.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Thanks, I'll mess around with this more this weekend. I played around with it a bit last night and did something with a Rockerverb 50 head with the gain turned way up and a ProCo Rat and a compressor pedal driving it. Wasn't really right and I definitely got a WAY dirtier sound but holy hell, it was noisy. Just constant feedback unless I was playing. I can see how it would work as a recorded tone in a mix but there's no way it's usable at all for just playing guitar. Made me understand why all my tones end up much cleaner.


I'm definitely very familiar with the Rockman sound and also really like that. Obviously the most widely known Rockman sound is Boston, since Tom Scholz invented it, but the entire Hysteria album by Def Leppard is supposedly recorded direct out from Rockmans. That's actually funny because I distinctly remember the album booklet saying that Def Leppard uses Randall amps "for that rad Def Leppard sound" :lol: No idea where you'd get one today and Fractal Audio seems like they're too snooty to model something that isn't a real amp. Perhaps a DAW plug-in?

Re: The Edge, I'm pretty sure he's known for playing through Fender amps like Twin Reverbs, no?
 
#7 ·
Can I just say "don't, please, for the love of all that's holy?" :lol:

I'd guess some sort of JCM800, modeled in such a way as to have the poweramp running hard, with a ton of digital hall reverb to the point where it sounds kind of awful on its own, and maybe a light ping-pong stereo delay with a fairly slow repeat, maybe quarter notes, just for kicks. Compression would probably help too.

If this is for a recording, I'd consider adding the reverb in the mix and then high passing aggressively. If this is for live, well, the whole thing should probably be high passed somewhat anyway, maybe 120-200hz, so just go for it.
 
#10 ·
Can I just say "don't, please, for the love of all that's holy?" :lol:

I'd guess some sort of JCM800, modeled in such a way as to have the poweramp running hard, with a ton of digital hall reverb to the point where it sounds kind of awful on its own, and maybe a light ping-pong stereo delay with a fairly slow repeat, maybe quarter notes, just for kicks. Compression would probably help too.

If this is for a recording, I'd consider adding the reverb in the mix and then high passing aggressively. If this is for live, well, the whole thing should probably be high passed somewhat anyway, maybe 120-200hz, so just go for it.
Definitely for recording. I've heard guitar sounds like this in a ton of 80's stuff, usually more pop or pop rock stuff. I think you're right, it does sound awful on it's own, which is probably why I never arrive at tones like that.

As far as Cliff modeling a Rocktron, I swear I've seen a number of requests on the Fractal forum to do it but they never go anywhere.
 
#12 ·
The Rockman tone has lots of mids and highs!
My first rack setup was a Rockman Distortion Generator, Rockman Smart Gate, Rockman EQ, Rockman Stereo Chrous and a Rockman MIDI Octopus.
I controlled it all with an ART X-11 MIDI foot controller.

I ended up getting the Rockman Sustainor just before I dumped the whole rig and bought an ADA MP-1 and an ART SGE Mach II.
 
#15 ·
C'mon Jesse- you were there for this stuff!!! You were just a little behind me.

ADA-MP1, Alesis quadra-verb or midi-verb, Boss-GE7. I don't think your axeFx will do it, but a GK250ML in stereo to a stereo cab will finish it off.

I'll send you my GK 2100SEL to use as a pre-amp if you want to use it for a while....... I'm not using it now.
 
#20 ·
I always run my Axe FX 2 through a 4x12 cab.
I know you don't use a cab.
What are you using headphones or FRFR?
Do you find yourself using certain cab simulators a lot.
What are your favorite cab sims, that way I can work with those cab sims when I build the patches.
 
#21 ·
chorus, delay and reverb...the sound on the video is a little smoother tone than the rockman x100b but could possibly be one of the rockman modular amps...the key to that sound lies in that chain of effects and an upper midrange heavy eq setting without too much bass in your tone...

if i were using a modeler i'd start with a good hot marshall style tone (for the mids) as that was what tom scholz modeled the rockman sound after (it was a marshall on the first 2 boston albums...the rockman didn't show up on his stuff until 3rd stage)...d.m.
 
#24 ·
I've gotten leads similar to that many times. Takes compressing and pushing your signal (mine, coming through the MkIIC channel on my MkV) with a TS808 or other mid-boost, adding lots of digital delay and reverb, and coloring the tone with a trichorus set to modulate very slowly. Did it just this week.
 
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