I am looking to achieve the subjectively more creamy tube distortion effects I had in the ES8 with the XF style distortion effects available. I have tried endless combinations of overdrive, presence, output levels and wet/dry and of course cabinet/amp setting’s, but they all sound kind of sterile or brittle to me vs the ES.

This is not to comment on the usefulness or to be unappreciative of the expanded choices in these effects, but rather to solicit advice if I am missing some “secret” sauce towards this goal.

All thought and comments are welcome.

mitchk000 - 24 November 2013 02:27 PM

I am looking to achieve the subjectively more creamy tube distortion effects I had in the ES8 with the XF style distortion effects available. I have tried endless combinations of overdrive, presence, output levels and wet/dry and of course cabinet/amp setting’s, but they all sound kind of sterile or brittle to me vs the ES.

This is not to comment on the usefulness or to be unappreciative of the expanded choices in these effects, but rather to solicit advice if I am missing some “secret” sauce towards this goal.

All thought and comments are welcome.

Do you have the DCP “Axxe” XF library?
There are dozens of different amp/distortion
settings in that, I’m sure you’d find some you
like.

Here’s the thing...while a “good”
distortion sound is subjective, achieving
it is not just a function of trying different
amp simulator or distortion settings
at random. The sound you get is as
much a function of what is being fed
TO the effect as it is the effect itself.

Rather than go into a long tutorial
about distortion effects, I suggest you
get Axxe, if you havent already,
and take a look at the voices and their
effect settings.

Dave,

I purchased Axxe for the ES years ago. (Along with all your libraries.. I love them..) I ended up editing one of your voices to mesh better with our band sound. Its been serving me well for years.

I purchased a MOXF last month and using a series of ES to XF to MOXF conversions I have the identical sound with effects turned off in both cases. When I say identical, I did a lot of work to make it identical. Now I was just trying to replicate the resulting sound with the addition of the effects between boards. They’re damn close but yet there’s something missing in the XF version that I just can’t dial in and I’m beginning to think its just the “sound” of those particular effect algorithms.

I will probably be purchasing Axxe for the MOXF soon, but since this particular voice is not one of your stock voices that came with Axxe, I feel I need to get a handle on the “distortion sound” of the effects in the new board.

Do you have any generic observations about the sound of the distortions between units when you went about creating the XF versions that you could share. Again I’m just looking for your opinions on the differences. I realize its all very subjective.

Thanks in advance…

mitchk000 - 24 November 2013 06:12 PM

Dave,

I purchased Axxe for the ES years ago. (Along with all your libraries.. I love them..) I ended up editing one of your voices to mesh better with our band sound. Its been serving me well for years.

I purchased a MOXF last month and using a series of ES to XF to MOXF conversions I have the identical sound with effects turned off in both cases. When I say identical, I did a lot of work to make it identical. Now I was just trying to replicate the resulting sound with the addition of the effects between boards. They’re damn close but yet there’s something missing in the XF version that I just can’t dial in and I’m beginning to think its just the “sound” of those particular effect algorithms.

I will probably be purchasing Axxe for the MOXF soon, but since this particular voice is not one of your stock voices that came with Axxe, I feel I need to get a handle on the “distortion sound” of the effects in the new board.

Do you have any generic observations about the sound of the distortions between units when you went about creating the XF versions that you could share. Again I’m just looking for your opinions on the differences. I realize its all very subjective.

Thanks in advance…

No generic observations, other than to
me the XS was a vast improvement over
the ES in terms of sound quality and the
XF was an improvement over the XS.

So I’m not the person to ask about
getting an approximation of an ES sound
in the XF because personally I feel that
is taking a big step backwards.

Mitch, the distortion effects do seem to have changed over the years. I tried to duplicate the old S30 “tube” organ sound on a MOX, and couldn’t find anything that did it. I got the non-effect sound between the two keyboards to sound about the same, but I couldn’t find a MOX distortion effect that sounded like the effect from the S30. I think the effects processing changed more between the ES and XS than it did between the S30 and ES, so I wonder if you may be running into the same kind of issue I did.

One source of the older effects might be a used Yamaha A3000, A3000/Version2, or A4000/A5000 Sampler, if you can tolerate an external (rack-mount) unit.

The A3000 in particular doesn’t go for very much on eBay, especially if it doesn’t include the ASIB1 SCSI interface. Without the ASIB1 you can’t save files except to the built-in floppy disk drive, but if you’re only getting the unit for use as an effects processor that probably isn’t an issue. I can’t guarantee you’ll get the effects you want, but the monetary risk isn’t very great - buy-it-now pricing is often around $100US. Three effects can be used at once, in parallel or serial, with more flexible routing on the A3000/V2.

Make sure the seller guarantees that the rotary encoders are working reliably.

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/music-production/tone-generators/a3000_version1/
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep98/articles/a3000.html
http://www.synthony.com/vintage/a3000v2.html

See pages 335-346 of the manual (pages 337-348 of the PDF) for details of the effects and parameters that can be adjusted:
http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/emi/english/synth/A3000E.PDF
A3000/Version2 additional information:
http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/emi/english/synth/A3000V2E.PDF