Two-Notes Torpedo.. to buy? Well lets test some shit to decide!

Hey,
I can do that for sure ;) Let me a few days to find some time and I'll record some comparative stuff.
You can also try it yourself with the PI-FREE, you'll have a better feel of what it does.
 
Yep, I'm an idiot. It is in PI-FREE, so I will try it out for myself (in a few days when I get Sonar reinstalled--I recently put an SSD in my desktop)! I was thinking of buying a Torpedo live, and wondered if I should spring for the VB-101 in order to not miss the overload feature. Hence my original question, just wondered if the effect of the overload would even be discernible on high-gain stuff (for referece I like these tones: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/751608-yt-bogner-uberschall-clip-emg85.html http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/782322-celestion-g12-t75-bogner-vs-marshall.html http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/758433-brett-loves-torpedo-torpedo-live-content.html). I have a mesa roadster head, so I will play around with the PI-FREE in the near future. For clean tones I would guess that the overload feature is not very useful anyway.
 
mesatron said:
Yep, I'm an idiot. It is in PI-FREE, so I will try it out for myself (in a few days when I get Sonar reinstalled--I recently put an SSD in my desktop)! I was thinking of buying a Torpedo live, and wondered if I should spring for the VB-101 in order to not miss the overload feature. Hence my original question, just wondered if the effect of the overload would even be discernible on high-gain stuff (for referece I like these tones: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/751608-yt-bogner-uberschall-clip-emg85.html http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/782322-celestion-g12-t75-bogner-vs-marshall.html http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/758433-brett-loves-torpedo-torpedo-live-content.html). I have a mesa roadster head, so I will play around with the PI-FREE in the near future. For clean tones I would guess that the overload feature is not very useful anyway.
Click to expand...

From what i remember, it is quite discernible on hi gain stuff (more than the comparison clips Lasse puts out IMO at least :) (where to me the stuff sounds amazingly similar from one setup to another). If you compare overload at 0% and 20% you will clearly hear a difference (provided you have a good listening system and some good ears of course). On my latest main rythm tone, with the overload at 20% it was adding something i didn't like in my sound, but that might please others. Even at 10 or even 5% i could still hear it.
On my older patches i used to have it around 20% and liked it.
Also, keep in mind the PI-FREE is only one cab/mic combination, so only one flavour per se, that might suit you or not, and that will translate the overload thing more or less compared to other cab/mic combinations.

Curious to hear what you'll think of this feature !

EDIT : you can hear it in action on a bluesy kind of riff (i find the sweep is a bit too fast and extreme (up to max value) in that clip for a real comparison though, and you might end up not going further 40% or something, unless you're looking for something really fucked :) ) in this video :

 
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Here are some quick recorded guitars with different amounts of Overload.
It's the only changing setting between each clip.
Sorry for the dirty non metal riff and tone, I was trying to sound close to the original.

FULL MIX (with gentle EQ on guitar bus and soft mastering)
TEST Overload 00 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 10 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 20 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 30 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 50 MASTER.mp3

TOTALLY RAW GUITARS (no EQ, no FX at all :D)
TEST Overload 00 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 10 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 20 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 30 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 50 GTR.mp3

Each step of 10% is compensated by +0.5dB of gain on guitars bus fader, as using the overload decrease the overall level (and I think I didn't compensated enough, as you can clearly hear that guitars with no Overload are a bit louder).

As you can hear, it smooth the tone but you have to be very careful with it, as it's starts quickly to sound like a destroyed HP.
I generally use it between 0 and 20-30 MAX.

For those interested, here is the gear I used :
DRUMS : 100% SD2.0 Allaire kit, except snare blended a bit with Avatar NirZ custom. No additional triggered samples.
BASS : Signals ZomBass
GUITARS : ESP Horizon FRII + Maxon OD808 + Marshall JMP1 + Torpedo PI-101 (EL34 + Mesa Cab 4x12 + SM57, with a little bit of HK GreenTri + SM57 blended)
MASTERING : Nebula CDSM tapes + Hardware RND Portico 5043 comp (2dB of GR) + soft RME FF400 converters clipping + Voxengo Elephant (3dB of GR)

Hope it will help ;)
 
Thanks for the test man! Not a huge difference between 0 and 20%, and if anything I prefer the 0% (hopefully not just because it's louder).
 
You're welcome !
I personnally prefer the 10 and 20 versions, even 30 is cool to my ears, and generally when using the plugin I think it sounds better with a little bit of overload.
But I agree it's not an essential feature (but still pretty cool and useful) and I could easily deal without it.
 
TRUIE said:
FULL MIX (with gentle EQ on guitar bus and soft mastering)
TEST Overload 00 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 10 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 20 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 30 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload 50 MASTER.mp3

TOTALLY RAW GUITARS (no EQ, no FX at all :D)
TEST Overload 00 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 10 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 20 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 30 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload 50 GTR.mp3
Click to expand...

DYING DEGREE !!! Love that freakin' song and that riff ! NOFX rules !
The guitar tone on this album is very smooth but yours is even smoother (too much IMO). I would say it sounds too polite and compressed (I'd say kind of digital and fizzy, but then again i'm not a huge fan of that kind of tone (for some reason i think the "Legion" ampsim could work nice/better for that context, and HyBrit too for more grit), whereas the original one has more attitude/rawness/pick attack to it. I'd have used a tad less gain, maybe ditched the Maxon, and picked harder or something.

For the other people : this is the original song (sorry for the poor quality, couldn't find something better) :

Funny how you have this signature sound going on recently. I can tell this sound is very close to the one you posted on the Nebula thread. I guess you've found your signal chain and settings now.

Now back to the topic :
-as you said, the comparison is a bit biat here since the clips with more overload needed more gain compensation.
-the default tone with 0 overload was very compressed sounding already, and increasing the overload resulted in a more compressed and less direct/in your face, which is overkill for that song IMO
-i think that feature is better for tones that sound very direct and need to sound more compressed and fucked-up, like tones that are very direct-sounding or dynamic and that could use something to sound more wet : clean tones, crunch tones (to a certain extent), and maybe lead tones
-as you said, i think it's a good feature/tool, but not an essential one (i think the real-time mic positioning and the variphi are much more essential for instance)

Thanks for taking the time to do this btw !

By the way, the reason i left the overload at 0% on my metal rythm main patch was that it was adding some kind of annoying trebly distortion (not surprising considering my amp settings (presence almost dime) and mic positioning (straight in the center, quite close), and removing the in your face-ness of the tone, which is something i wanna keep.
Still, i think that for some other tones/applications this feature can be cool.
I might give it a shot and post something here for other tones : clean arpeggios, bluesy riffing, lead tone, etc...
 
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Haha I'm a huge NOFX addict too, this song reminds me my youth a lot.
I was sure you were going to notice where that riff come from and my shitty wordplay (no FX at all on the guitar bus :D).

You're right about the digital and too much compressed sound, I'll do another try tommorow (and I didn't take DI's so I'll have to play it again).
I'll be more accurate on the level compensation too, I think it's very important (I did the exports one by one on the fly, so I wasn't able to compare them next to each other).

Believe me, it's harder than it seems to pick hard with these turbo little palm mutes everywhere, and keep the sound sharp/edgy while using not too much gain (the Maxon was great to give that character to the tone, but I'm a shitty guitarist and I'm pretty sure they didn't use a TS to sound like that).
I know they used "a Marshall" on this record from a post from Ryan Green on Gearslutz about Punk in Drublic recording (I'm shure you'll be interested in reading it, here it is), so I think I should be able to approximate that sound, while giving it a little more modern touch.

See you tommorow !
 
TRUIE said:
Haha I'm a huge NOFX addict too, this song reminds me my youth a lot.
I was sure you were going to notice where that riff come from and my shitty wordplay (no FX at all on the guitar bus :D).

You're right about the digital and too much compressed sound, I'll do another try tommorow (and I didn't take DI's so I'll have to play it again).
I'll be more accurate on the level compensation too, I think it's very important (I did the exports one by one on the fly, so I wasn't able to compare them next to each other).

Believe me, it's harder than it seems to pick hard with these turbo little palm mutes everywhere, and keep the sound sharp/edgy while using not too much gain (the Maxon was great to give that character to the tone, but I'm a shitty guitarist and I'm pretty sure they didn't use a TS to sound like that).
I know they used Marshall on this record from a post from Ryan Green on Gearslutz about Punk in Drublic recording (I'm shure you'll be interested in reading it, here it is), so I think I should be able to approximate that sound, while giving it a little more modern touch.

See you tommorow !
Click to expand...

Missed the "no FX" pun :)

I love NOFX and punk rock in general, reminds me of my youth and i'm back into that these days, now that i have a Fender tuned in E standard and such.
When i hear your clip, it sounds like your tone from the Nebula clips, so not far but not exactly the tone needed for that NOFX clip, but as you said, it has as much to do with the playing as with the settings/signal chain.
I feel you about the fast palm-muted riffs, it's hard to do those right (Pennywise has that kind of fast-riffs too), and the guys in NOFX are pretty awesome and tight guitar players IMO.
To me the difficulty is :
-sounding gritty and in your face -> means picking hard and with some angle
-sounding consistent and not too unbalanced (as in the up and downstrokes must not sound too different from one to another) while doing those fast up-and-down strokes palm-muted riffs -> hard to do when picking hard and with some angle !

Not surprised about the Marshall thing (hence my suggestion for Legion and Hybrit ampsims btw). I'd try less gain, maybe a single coil mode if available on your guitar, and picking hard and with some angle to the point where it still stays consistent and balanced enough.

EDIT : what pickup you use might make a huge difference too by the way ! To sum it up, you need a sharper attack, not too much of a round one like you have now (which would be suited for "clean cut" prog metal a la Dream Theater where you want to keep things nice and not too agressive, but not for that NOFX song (where the guitar still sounds too nice/polished even in the original version IMO)).
 
Thanks a lot for the great advices, I'll try that tommorow (my first band was a punk rock one and I did a lot of that little gimmicks... that I totally forgot and remove from my playing when I learned more metal oriented stuff).

I'll try the other JMP1 distortion channel too, wich sounds way less compressed and modern, but for the pickup I think I'll stick with humbucker as I feel more comfortable with it (and the original was LesPaul, so humbucker right ?)
 
TRUIE said:
Thanks a lot for the great advices, I'll try that tommorow (my first band was a punk rock one and I did a lot of that little gimmicks... that I totally forgot and remove from my playing when I learned more metal oriented stuff).

I'll try the other JMP1 distortion channel too, wich sounds way less compressed and modern, but for the pickup I think I'll stick with humbucker as I feel more comfortable with it (and the original was LesPaul, so humbucker right ?)
Click to expand...

Yeah i guess humbucker on the original, but maybe trying single coil can yield some good results.

That kind of fast punk-rock riffing chops can be handy for old-school thrash (rethrash a la Municipal Waste for instance)/grindcore/hardcore IMO.
 
Here is a new version, I think it shows better the action of the Overload setting.

I played the guitars again, trying to pick harder and using the OD1 channel (which is way less compressed and more rock'n'roll souding) with less gain.

Concerning the PI-101, I used EL34 tubes in pentode mode (more headroom) for the power section, and the GreenTri Cab + SM57 (H&K 4x12 with Greenbacks), blended with a little touch of XTCab + U87 (Bogner UberCab).
Some slights corrections on mix and master too (I hited the hardware master bus comp a little bit harder, and used more clipping).

All raw files are aligned watching RMS levels, so everything should sound at the same volume now.

FINAL MASTER
TEST Overload2 00 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload2 10 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload2 20 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload2 30 MASTER.mp3
TEST Overload2 50 MASTER.mp3

RAW GUITARS
TEST Overload2 00 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload2 10 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload2 20 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload2 30 GTR.mp3
TEST Overload2 50 GTR.mp3
 
Mmm, kinda sounds like there are "sleigh bells" on the overload 20% Gtrs only track... weird.
 
Sleigh bells ?!
Anyway, I never said every settings sounded good :D
You always have to try different values, and sometimes it's better at 0, depending on what you're after.
Anyway, I think you can hear better what the overload do to the tone with these last clips (it simulate an overdriven speaker, at 100% it sounds like a totally destroyed one).
 
TRUIE said:
Sleigh bells ?!
Anyway, I never said every settings sounded good :D
You always have to try different values, and sometimes it's better at 0, depending on what you're after.
Anyway, I think you can hear better what the overload do to the tone with these last clips (it simulate an overdriven speaker, at 100% it sounds like a totally destroyed one).
Click to expand...

As i told you on our dear French guitariste.com forum :


-this series sounds way better than the previous one IMO
-the gain compensation seems fine from one clip to another this time
-the overload effect is way more noticeable now
-in the previous series, i felt adding the overload was ruining the sound, but in this new series i feel it adds something nice to an already cool sound : it adds some edge/highmids/detail/presence and removes some roundness/lowmids/dullness... my fav. being 30%
-50% sounds like too much : weird filtered black-metallish tone

It would be interesting to hear a sample with the left guitar with 0% overload and the right one with 30% overload, and see if it blends nicely or not.
 
Getting interested in their plugin version... Since you guys are specialists now, is the plugin using the same models/algorithms as the units ? Also, how does it compare to say Recabinet and Nebula ? Is the WOS really that useful ? Because the price of one single plugin is tempting. I'm too lazy to browse through folders of impulse responses, and end up using always the same infamous catharsis impulses !
 
LeSedna said:
Getting interested in their plugin version... Since you guys are specialists now, is the plugin using the same models/algorithms as the units ? Also, how does it compare to say Recabinet and Nebula ? Is the WOS really that useful ? Because the price of one single plugin is tempting. I'm too lazy to browse through folders of impulse responses, and end up using always the same infamous catharsis impulses !
Click to expand...

-exact same models/algorithms
-Nebula and Recabinet seem awesome in their own way (and they have their own sound/models), but the Torpedo stuff seems one step above and it's fuller-integrated product IMO, and it offers models that are not available in the other libraries
-the WOS is really useful since it saves you tons of time and CPU when using several miking setups, which is awesome IMO

If you have an iLok2 you can try the PI-101 WOS as a 30-day-trial version (full version) IIRR.
Maybe you can also try out a Recabinet demo or something ?

To me :

-if there was no Torpedo or i had less cash i'd go :
-Recabinet because it seems nice and well-integrated (but maybe not as realistic and good-sounding as the Nebula impulses ?)
-Nebula because it seems very realistic and good-sounding (but it seems more difficult to use and less integrated than Nebula)
-to me the Torpedo stuff is more expensive but does what's good with Recabinet and Nebula but even better and some other stuff as well

Also, don't forget to consider the really nice commercial libraries such as redwirez, ownhammer and stuff (which to me are somewhere in between free 3rd party IRs, Recabinet (because they are kind of integrated) and Nebula (for the realism and quality)).

If i were you i'd try out the PI-101 WOS demo and go from there, really.
 
thought i'd join the discussion, since my live unit arrived finally! :)

Quickly plugged it into some amps and first attempts came out like this.

5153 mini: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5382960/First play with torpedo live/5153.mp3

Dual rec: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5382960/First play with torpedo live/Mesa.mp3

JVM: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5382960/First play with torpedo live/JVM.mp3

Cheers to Lasse and Mago for the DI's.

Can't wait to play with it over the next week or 2 so i can get the hang of it and post some better results. Can see the potential of it already!

Cheers

Phil
 
philby82 said:
thought i'd join the discussion, since my live unit arrived finally! :)

Quickly plugged it into some amps and first attempts came out like this.

5153 mini: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5382960/First play with torpedo live/5153.mp3

Dual rec: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5382960/First play with torpedo live/Mesa.mp3

JVM: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5382960/First play with torpedo live/JVM.mp3

Cheers to Lasse and Mago for the DI's.

Can't wait to play with it over the next week or 2 so i can get the hang of it and post some better results. Can see the potential of it already!

Cheers

Phil
Click to expand...

Glad that you got it finally !

Care to tell what Torpedo settings (power amp / cab / speaker / mic / mic placement / etc...) you used in those clips ?
 
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