Fractal Axe-FX III Tutorial - True Stereo Rhythm Patch
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- The double tracked and hard panned rhythm guitar sound is popular for metal and can be heard on tons of recordings. To get this sound, the rhythm guitar part is recorded twice. One performance is panned hard left, and the other performance is panned hard right. The result is a super wide stereo wall of distorted goodness. Can we build a patch on the AXE FX that achieves a similar effect?
Here's a link to the patch. I ended up tweaking it a little more and adding some EQ to tame certain frequencies and boost others. Enjoy!
Chris Cavera - Stereo Rhythm
axechange.fract...
Gear used:
Ibanez Rocket Roll II - RR400
Jackson JS32 DKA
Harley Benton DC Custom Cherry
Ibanez PGMM11
Fractal Axe FX III
Peavey Ultra Plus
Boss Katana
Avatar 2x12 Cab
Celestion Vintage 30
Propellerhead Reason
Custom Drum Samples
If you have a guitarist plug into a splitter and send his signal to two different amps and you mic both amps then pan the recorded signals hard left and hard right, you will get the same end result as we are hearing here, which is very little separation. (There is some separation in the artifacts, but it's not dramatic.) You can add distortion, EQ, compression etc independently to each channel and you will still not get much separation. The reason for this is that the audio waveform, at its core, is the same on both channels. Colouring it does not change our overall perception of it, ear to ear. To get more noticeable separation, you need to offset one of the channels in time, relative to the other. Introducing a ~13ms delay to one channel will have a much more dramatic effect. The reason double tracking guitars is so much more effective is because it is humanly impossible to recreate the exact same musical signal out of a guitar twice, and that's more just the nature of the instrument than it is a human limitation. It is very tricky to take a single-take recorded guitar track and make it sound nice. It's very possible, but it takes finesse in post. For a good example of this, listen to the Texas Flood album from Stevie Ray Vaughan. They did an amazing job creating a lush stereo guitar sound out of a single guitar track. Listen with headphones and switch between mono and stereo and notice the difference. There is some time separation, there is some stereo room added-in, there is some nice stereo reverb. All of this was achieved in post, yet it sounds very natural. If his guitar was left mono, it would have been an extremely different audio experience, much "dryer". You hear a lot of smaller artists with a single-track guitar dead centre and it just sounds dead. Edit: Just wanted to add, in this video, the distance that is being added is having the same effect as shifting the wave form, which is why it has a more noticeable effect. So my comments are not to criticize the creator, just to add some additional context for those who were asking the question in the comments.
Excellent explanation!
That sounded big!
Hi Chris, is this 1984 Ibanez Rocket Roll. If you ever sell this guitar could you please let me know. my first guitar is Flying V rocket roll exactly like yours. I really want to buy this. Please let me know. Thanks for creating this. Thank you thank you
Thanks! It’s a 1982 RR400. I’ve owned it for just over 20 years. These guitars are special! It almost plays itself. I remember the first time I played it, I noticed right away that it was easy to play, but it also really sings above the 12th fret. I’m afraid I have no plans to sell this one. I do notice them on Reverb now and then. Good luck with your search my friend!
Why not just make a copy of the track in your software and pan one left and one right?
Excellent question! If you think about a mono sound, it's the same sound coming out of both speakers equally, so it sounds like it's in the center of your stereo field. If I make a copy of a mono sound, stick it on another track, and then pan them hard left and right, I'm essentially recreating the original mono sound. It will just be a little louder. The only way it will work is if you alter the copy in some way by adding a phaser or flanger or some other effect. If you offset the copy by a few milliseconds, it will result in phase cancellation which sounds a little weird. If you invert the copy so that the left and right speakers are moving with opposite motion, it can actually make you feel a little ill. So the key to the widest stereo image is to have your left and right speakers moving differently, either by recording two different takes, or using two different amps and/or cabs. This is a great question! If you want, I could do a video on this topic with some audio demos.
Because that way is NOT double tracking. Simply panning an exact copy L+R will just sound louder it’s the slight differences in tone, EQ, and actual playing on each side that make it sound so great and huge
@@SharpEdgeStandardOfficial well obviously not the EXACT same track, but if you were in pro tools or something, you could add EQ changes/ compression/ etc to make the tracks slightly different
@@dickiedewar it’s the nuances and slight differences in the playing that are important and make all the difference that lead to the goal of huge sound. double tracking separate tracks is the standard for big sound for a reason
Could you insert a stereo delay after the two cabs?
That should work, as long as the delay is set up to receive and process a stereo signal.