Mesa TriAxis - Kristian?

[Leandro8570]

Kristian, I hope you read this, or anyone else with a Mesa/Boogie TriAxis. Do you have any tips for setting up some crunchy and lead tones?

You menctioned in the past that your first unit was sold when you were going to Hollywood, and the second one back in Sweden because you couldn't get decent tones out of it.

But anyways, do you remember anything when Sirius B, Lemuria or Gothic Kabbalah were being recorded, such as keeping the bass or gain around a certain value, or any other parameter that you might remember, which modes were used for crunch and lead tones, or comments from Chris?

I've noticed how good it sounds after recording and listening to some samples, and how close it sounds from those albums using Lead 1 Red and Dinamic Voice around 5, but it's quite loud and full from bass to treble when you're actually standing in front of the speakers.

Any help will be appreciated. Please let me know,

Leandro :Smokedev:

 

[Kristian Niemann]

Hey bro!

I dont remember any exact settings but I seem to remember that "Lead 2 Yellow" was the voicing used pretty much for everything.
When dialing in sounds, I think you are off to a good start if you keep everything balanced, with the mids slightly pushed above the bass/treble (ie. dont scoop the sound too much)

 

[Leandro8570]

Hey, Kristian! Thanks for the reply!

I've been dialing it almost every day lately, but with V30 speakers, keeping the mids above bass and treble makes it sound over the top. I'm not keeping it scooped either, or it would sound empty and I hate that. My crunch and lead presets have mids around 4.5 and 5.

The clean sounds barely need any tweaking at all. Factory presets 4 and 5 are immediate, as well as some lead tones. Lead 2 Yellow from preset 9 and Lead 2 Red from preset 10 are almost perfect with slight adjustments. It only comes to reaching the desired amount of Dynamic Voice for a compressed and agressive, vintage or liquid lead tone.

But I certainly can't tweak any patch on Lead 2 Yellow and make it sound good for crunchy tones as heavy as Sirius B, Lemuria and Gothic Kabbalah, just for leads. I could be very wrong about this, but Lead 1 Red for Sirius B and Lemuria and Lead 2 Red for Gothic Kabbalah sound more like it.

One thing I've noticed is that most of your solos were played on LD2 Yellow indeed, but shorter lead parts such as the beginning of An Arrow From The Sun or parts from Typhon and many others were played with a heavier lead tone, possibly the same crunch preset used for rhythm guitar but just slightly boosted to cut through.

I'll be posting some videos very soon to show where I'm at.

Don't you have a Voodoo modded JMP-1? There's a video about it on Youtube and it sounds killer! Pure tube sound, smooth and agressive at the same time.

Cheers,

Leandro :Smokin:

 

[Kristian Niemann]

Ah, I forgot to tell you probably the most important thing: the speakers, cabs and miking.
For rhythm guitars we used Chris´ JCM900 cab with the usually-crappysounding 75W Celestions but his cab is the best Ive ever heard. A lot of the sound is there. They were miked with a 57 right in the center, straight into the cone. Usually I find this to be too abrasive and thin-sounding but his cabinet is THE SHIT. Awesome. The V30 are way middier so those ampsettings would probably sound pretty bad with your cab. Lead Red was never used, I can guaratee that. That voicing sounds like a fizzy, fuzzy chainsaw (a bad one too!) to me.

For melodies and solos we miked my 1960BX which has the sweet-sounding 25W Greenbacks. They were also miked with a 57 straight in but this time right in the middle between the center and the edge of the cone. The preamp was boosted with a Ibanez Tube Screamer, the cheap TS-10 version.

Also very important: a lot of EQing was done to the guitartracks during the mixing of SB/L. The rhythmguitars sounded fantastic when we recorded them as they were just competing with bass and drums of course. Then the vocals and orchestra came in and we had to make room for that = a less than great guitarsound. But thats always the case. I think I should make an album with just drums, bass and rhythm guitars. It will sound REALLY great

I think I used my JMP-1 for the solos on GK and that was a huge mistake, as was the fact that I was talked into using a shorter, almost slapback-type delay sound. I hate the leadtone on that record. Totally my fault though because I KNOW what I like and how to achieve it but I settled for something different as an experiment....never again
Voyage Of Gurdjeff has my fave sound of all solos I´ve recorded. Wide, smooth, not too dry or too wet...just perfect.

My JMP-1 was modded by this guy http://www.tommy-folkesson.nu/ (sorry, it in swedish only i think).
I listened to the Voodoo clips you mentioned but I didnt like it, probably mostly because Im tired of that sound. I sold mine about a year ago. Again it sounds too fuzzy and fizzy for me, not enough clarity and punch.

 

[Leandro8570]

Thanks for the update. I can't even imagine what you and Chris have been through after so many recording sessions, tweaking knobs and buttons, adjusting things, testing pedals, EQ's and all that stuff to sound really good and keep all guitars and orchestra instruments peaceful together. Another thing I can't imagine is how those albums would sound if you could simply record it the way you wanted to. Ball shaking and brain melting, I guess. :Shedevil:

But unfortunately my TriAxis has let me down. My crunch tone comes from Lead 1 Red and I can't change any Drive settings on any Lead 1 voicing anymore. The numbers change but the amount of distortion itself is stuck somewhere up high. It's not quite the LD1 Red tone you have in mind because my TriAxis is old, when LD 1 Red still had no "phat-mod", as they call it.

It's at a repair shop now, and it will take a few weeks until they find what's wrong and fix it. I'm talking with Kris from Mesa and my idea is to sell it cheap locally and get a new one for a more reasonable price, if he can arrange that.

So who came up with the short, almost doubling delay idea?

I haven't listened to Voyage of Gurdjeff many times yet, but some of the best lead tones EVER IMO are from Asgard, Ljusalfheim, The Evocation, Typhon, Three Treasures, Trul and many others. Way beyond all metal bands out there. I wonder how many strings you broke playing Typhon. That bend from C# to E, dude. That bend...no comments.

 

[Kristian Niemann]

Wow, sorry to hear about your amp problems. That sucks bigtime. Hope you get it sorted.

The short delay idea came from the mixing guy. Again, not his fault. I shouldve just told him that I didnt like it right off the bat. But whatever, GK is cool anyway despite that little annoying detail

Thanks for the compliments!!

 

[Leandro8570]

So the TriAxis is back in the house. I was asked for US$330 and a 6-month wait to fix 2 buttons that stop working once in a while.

Kris at Mesa said they could fix it for free, but I'm probably selling it to get a(nother) JMP-1. Making the TriAxis sound like Iron Maiden is almost impossible.

Cheers!

 

[Kristian Niemann]

Whoa, they really tried their best to rip you off! That price is insane for a simple repair like that. Fuckers

Are you sure you need to sell it? If you play the right notes I dont think anybody's gonna mind that the tone is coming from a Mesa rather than a Marshall.

 

[Leandro8570]

So the JMP-1 should be here next week after all the wait. I've purchased 2 JJ tubes off Ebay to replace the stock Sovteks.

As for the TriAxis, my crunch and clean tones are totally unmodified factory presets with reverb. Now the lead tone is one of the factory presets as well, with 500ms delay and 250ms sub-delay, slightly tweaked and with a higher setting for the middle frequency as you suggested. That was a good suggestion, probably the best when it comes to tweaking.

Great results, I tell you. All on Lead 2 Yellow, Mark IIC+ style.

Samples, very soon.

 

[Kristian Niemann]

Cool, looking forward to hearing it!

 

[Leandro8570]

This is not exactly to show the presets, but the Dimarzio Crunch Lab that arrived yesterday and will be removed tonight. The Evo 2 is much better.

It should be an improved version of the D Sonic, but it's very thin, dry and trebly for soloing. For powerchords it has tons of definition and crunch.

 

[Leandro2019]

Kristian,

This was recorded with a cell phone and none of these devices capture da bass well, but otherwise it's one loyal and acceptable demonstration of what's going on.

I can't stop cranking my mids anymore. The louder, the better they sound.

One thing I would always notice was how Abraxas appeared to have a better and heavier guitar tone than any other track from Sirius B or Lemuria, until I realised that the reason behind that is the fact that Abraxas among other tracks had less orchestra instruments, choir etc, leaving more room for the guitars in the final mix.

I've noticed how the Dynamic Voice feature (adapted 5-band parametric EQ for this 1-rack space unit) degrades the tone, making it very scooped, so here's a short video showing how it sounds when that feature is totally flat.

I don't even need to ask. I KNOW that most solos from those albums were recorded like that, including the ones on Riders of the Apocalypse, because leaving it totally flat makes it very particular sounding and therefore easy to recognize.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umYM8Qgbm8E&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

I might edit this text later since I'm at work now. Cheers.