Michael Landau, RECOGNIZE!!!!!

[Digital Jams]

another great one from the "tales from the bulge" CD

the golden era of rack tones. this, dann huff/giant first 2 cds, holdsworth secrets era---there was definitely a difference between these guys and the rest of the pack. i think even eddie was trying to play catch up by the late 80s to these guys...

the one i could never figure out was how landau and lukather were so close, but luke didn't have nearly as much tone as landau.

vai was the dark side of rack tone..too weird for me with pitch, thinned out more with wah and vibrato bar nervousness.

IMO Luke was too busy with his moments where as Landau stayed more in control until that moment. Luke would get up there and just try too hard to dominate, never let his stuff breath until his easy listening toto years but even then when the lights hit him the fuse was lit. The skill and awe factor were there but never hit it out of the park tone wise.

Eddie's catalog and demographic held his rack exploration back, as much as he held Holdsworth on that thrown he never had to get to that next level. His job was to fill the sonic realm with detune and chorus later on while hiding SLOs under the stage.

The much spoken about Vai patches are too intense regarding the H3000, every 3rd, 5th,6th, etc is covered but in normal context are useless. Several of his area verb and delay patches are huge and fun but cut begins to be a problem.

Come on now Pat and make space for Vai's Big Trouble and Ladies Night solos in the vault of greatness that you and Snider log and catalog over, those two solos alone were enough to cement Vai's legacy.

 

[Gainzilla]

mike definitely sounded like he listened to a lot of VH tones as well


but this was the song and tones from '89 that killed me and made me a fan for life as i started acquiring more of his catalog--benchmark clean and dirty rack tones

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

The TONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love reading these threads and the whos who start chiming in with knowledge and wisedom, brings to full circle what you have been about with your chase and clips the past 10 years Pat

That tone might have been something special in 89 but 22 years later, I think that it can harldy be considered breakthrough or hard to achieve....

Just my opinion of course but I dont see it being hard to agree with

 

[mentoneman]

Come on now Pat and make space for Vai's Big Trouble and Ladies Night solos in the vault of greatness that you and Snider log and catalog over, those two solos alone were enough to cement Vai's legacy.

his live playing and tone on eatum tour was his peak but the album:

interesting at best, but it didn't define an era of music for me...intermission music in rock history that neutered DLR's image.

i liked this much more-especially the clean section--and to think this was originally a carvin amp demo on a flexidisc in a guitar player mag--what does that say???:

his best crunch tone (until the wah wah foolishness

his best clean tone (but i'd much rather listen to it without having to see him at all

and one of the best songs he ever wrote and played...great clean tone and straightforward playing; not a ton of effects and nonsense whammy abuse until it gets distorted later in the song. then he loses me with his circus soundtrack habits.

 

[mentoneman]

mike definitely sounded like he listened to a lot of VH tones as well


but this was the song and tones from '89 that killed me and made me a fan for life as i started acquiring more of his catalog--benchmark clean and dirty rack tones

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

The TONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love reading these threads and the whos who start chiming in with knowledge and wisedom, brings to full circle what you have been about with your chase and clips the past 10 years Pat

That tone might have been something special in 89 but 22 years later, I think that it can harldy be considered breakthrough or hard to achieve....

Just my opinion of course but I dont see it being hard to agree with

"unclean.....UNCLEAN!!" (as i clap two pieces of wood together and ring a bell to herald your banishing out of tone town..)

i'll say this much Kagey. if you could accurately reproduce those exact tones, you would be achieving a goal some of rackdom's greatest minds have been at for 22 years. and even though you probably don't have a desire to chase these tones, i guarantee you wouldn't be able to just whip these bad boys up with an intellifex and a marshall as easily as you might think you could.

 

[Gainzilla]

i liked this much more-especially the clean section--and to think this was originally a carvin amp demo on a flexidisc in a guitar player mag--what does that say???:

Really, I thought that The attitude song was the Flexidisc guitar player mag pullout?( My fave after Cliffs of Dover, I didnt play back then but thought that it was all ridiculously cool)

his best clean tone (but i'd much rather listen to it without having to see him at all

and one of the best songs he ever wrote and played...great clean tone and straightforward playing; not a ton of effects and nonsense whammy abuse until it gets distorted later in the song. then he loses me with his circus soundtrack habits.

Great song and playing . Dug the tone but found that it could have used less compression for my tastes( it sounded a little squashed to me)

 

[Gainzilla]

"unclean.....UNCLEAN!!" (as i clap two pieces of wood together and ring a bell to herald your banishing out of tone town..)

i'll say this much Kagey. if you could accurately reproduce those exact tones, you would be achieving a goal some of rackdom's greatest minds have been at for 22 years. and even though you probably don't have a desire to chase these tones, i guarantee you wouldn't be able to just whip these bad boys up with an intellifex and a marshall as easily as you might think you could.

So what are you saying Pat? That no one has achieved these magic tones? Who are these great minds that have been slaving away at this grail tone for 22 years with no joy?

I wouldnt use a Marshall and I bet that the Intellifex would be a great place to start. Id bet that Ralphie and I could whip ups something close enough for rock and roll

 

[mentoneman]

"unclean.....UNCLEAN!!" (as i clap two pieces of wood together and ring a bell to herald your banishing out of tone town..)

i'll say this much Kagey. if you could accurately reproduce those exact tones, you would be achieving a goal some of rackdom's greatest minds have been at for 22 years. and even though you probably don't have a desire to chase these tones, i guarantee you wouldn't be able to just whip these bad boys up with an intellifex and a marshall as easily as you might think you could.

So what are you saying Pat? That no one has achieved these magic tones? Who are these great minds that have been slaving away at this grail tone for 22 years with no joy?

I wouldnt use a Marshall and I bet that the Intellifex would be a great place to start. Id bet that Ralphie and I could whip ups something close enough for rock and roll

all i'm saying is that you yourself claim to have never been an exacting rack tone tweaker guy. i am. i know roughly what makes that tone tick and it's neither cheap nor easy. i've never heard anyone nail his tone and use of it, to this day. if you know of someone who has, post a clip of it--dave phillips and irwin thomas are landau freaks and got closest imo. italo on HRI is probably the most impressive authority on all things rack i've ever spoken with on any forum. he programmed many of the heaviest algorithms on the eventide units. ask him how simple landau's rack tones are to achieve. doable, yes. simple, NO WAY.
but is it worth it to *you* to go through the trouble of reproducing those sounds?
from your reaction to it i'd say nope.

landau's recorded work is the legacy of a tone fiend with amazing ears and production skills. in the end, if you'd been down that path of madness more heavily, you'd respond to his rack tones with deep admiration for how precise and 3D he tuned it in and recorded it.

 

[DeezDemos]

but this was the song and tones from '89 that killed me and made me a fan for life as i started acquiring more of his catalog--benchmark clean and dirty rack tones

[/quote]


Pure frickin' Magic!!!

 

[ratter]

Spotify appears to have all of ML's stuff on it...for anybody interested in checking it out for free/legal...

 

[petejt]

another great one from the "tales from the bulge" CD

the golden era of rack tones. this, dann huff/giant first 2 cds, holdsworth secrets era---there was definitely a difference between these guys and the rest of the pack. i think even eddie was trying to play catch up by the late 80s to these guys...

the one i could never figure out was how landau and lukather were so close, but luke didn't have nearly as much tone as landau.

vai was the dark side of rack tone..too weird for me with pitch, thinned out more with wah and vibrato bar nervousness.

haha, I know what you mean. I've always found it hard to get into "rack tones"- always sounded too plastic-y and processed, or just too clicky sounding. All the Tri-Stereo Chorus clips I've heard never seem to have the warmth and rippling effect that I've read about.

Mike Landau somehow knows how to get a good balance- I guess its from splitting his signal six times and only processing some of the splits? Some magic going on there, magical but logical. I think Steve was too heavy with the grease, and Vain even more so to the point his tone was thinned out as you said. I'm listening to I'm Buzzed right now- yep I bought the whole album

 

[petejt]

mike definitely sounded like he listened to a lot of VH tones as well


but this was the song and tones from '89 that killed me and made me a fan for life as i started acquiring more of his catalog--benchmark clean and dirty rack tones

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

The TONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love reading these threads and the whos who start chiming in with knowledge and wisedom, brings to full circle what you have been about with your chase and clips the past 10 years Pat

it is pretty cool to have seen my main tone hero at ground zero in the center of his w/d/w soundscape at the baked potato, in his home element, just pouring his world famous clean arion chorus sound all over the audience like warm honey, and then dropping the hammer of thor on you with his ultra angry sounds the next moment.

regretfully i haven't seen him live with his studio super rack, but maybe one day he'll treat his fans to the full monty!

but the VIBE at his live show is always so HEAVY ....i got shellacked on the plexi palace after seeing him for the first time and comparing it to people seeing a modern day hendrix...the hard core old timers thought me out of my mind, but eventually the tone speaks for itself now doesn't it....

IS this his rack now?

nope.



This is his studio rack:

 

[MiKeGTR]

Mikes full set-up. Found this on his website




Live pedal board setup (all pedals are before the amp in this order)
Maxon SD-9
Lovepedal COT 50
Real Mccoy Wizard Wah
Arion Stereo Chorus (in mono, true bypass mod)
Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe
Boss Volume Pedal FV500H
Line 6 DL4

I sometimes use a Lexicon MPX-1 in the effects loop of the amp with a Suhr Mini Mix for reverb and delay, or I take a speaker line out of the amp into a Palmer PGA-4 Speaker Simulator into the Lexicon MPX-1 into a Marshall Valvestate 8008 power amp into 2 Custom Audio 2x10 cabs with Celestion Vintage 10 speakers. These 2 cabinets have the wet sound only.

Amps I use live:
Custom Audio OD100 Classic Plus
Dumble Slide Winder head
Fender Hot Rod DeVille 2x12 with Eminence Tonespotter speakers
'64 Pro Reverb with Eminence Tonespotter speakers
'64 Super Reverb with Dumble Ultra Phonix mod
Kerry Wright 4x12 open back slant cabinet with Celestion Heritage Series G12-65's
Kerry Wright 2x12 open back cabinet with Celestion Heritage Series G12-65's

Studio setup:
I mic the cabinet with a Shure SM57 through a Chandler LTD-1 mic pre, that signal is fed to the line in on the Custom Audio Interface. The rig was designed by Bob Bradshaw @ CAE.

The effects rack has the following:

Tri Stereo Chorus 618
Eventide H3000 D/SE Harmonizer
Lexicon MPX-1
Two Line 6 Echo Pro's (1 in line, 1 in the Custom Audio mixer)
TC G-Force processor
Two Lexicon PCM 42's (left and right)
Boss SE-70
Custom Audio Super Tremolo

I use this setup only for recording because the line level processing is after the dry cabinet (in other words, I insert the rack effects between the dry cabinet and the recording console)

Amps I use for recording:
Dumble Slide Winder head
Custom Audio OD100 Classic Plus
Suhr Badger 18 watt
'64 Deluxe Reverb with Dumble Ultra Phonix mod
'67 Plexy Marshall 100 watt Super Bass head
Phil Jameson custom 30 watt head
Kerry Wright 4x12 open back slant cabinet with Celestion Heritage Series G12-65's
Kerry Wright 2x12 open back cabinet with Celestion Heritage Series G12-65's
Bogner 4x12 straight cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30's

These are the guitars I use live and in the studio:

'63 Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster.
'68 Sunburst Fender Stratocaster with Suhr SSV in bridge.
'69 Black Fender Stratocaster with Suhr FL's neck and middle, Suhr SSV in bridge,
Suhr Silent Single Coil System.
'63 Gibson SG.
'68 Gold Top Les Paul with Seymore Duncan Antiquity Humbuckers
'52 Telecaster
Suhr Stratocaster with Suhr FL's neck and middle, Suhr SSV in bridge,
Suhr Silent Single Coil System.
'97 Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster with Suhr FL's neck and middle,
Suhr SSV in bridge, Suhr Silent Single Coil System.
Suhr Telecaster with Suhr S-90 in neck, Suhr Classic Tele in bridge.
Tyler Stratocaster with EMG pickups

 

[Badronald]

Wow. That's a lot of stuff. Like I said, when I saw him last year he used a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and a small pedalboard. Good tone for sure, but nothing magical.

Couldn't and Ax FX II replace all that stuff mentioned above? The rack stuff? Seriously.

 

[Digital Jams]

mike definitely sounded like he listened to a lot of VH tones as well


but this was the song and tones from '89 that killed me and made me a fan for life as i started acquiring more of his catalog--benchmark clean and dirty rack tones

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

The TONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love reading these threads and the whos who start chiming in with knowledge and wisedom, brings to full circle what you have been about with your chase and clips the past 10 years Pat

it is pretty cool to have seen my main tone hero at ground zero in the center of his w/d/w soundscape at the baked potato, in his home element, just pouring his world famous clean arion chorus sound all over the audience like warm honey, and then dropping the hammer of thor on you with his ultra angry sounds the next moment.

regretfully i haven't seen him live with his studio super rack, but maybe one day he'll treat his fans to the full monty!

but the VIBE at his live show is always so HEAVY ....i got shellacked on the plexi palace after seeing him for the first time and comparing it to people seeing a modern day hendrix...the hard core old timers thought me out of my mind, but eventually the tone speaks for itself now doesn't it....

IS this his rack now?

nope.



This is his studio rack:

Shazam!

Bad Ronald, the answer is no. The Axe is not going to re-create that rack's output. If I was gigging yeah close enough but re-create would be a no.

 

[Badronald]

mike definitely sounded like he listened to a lot of VH tones as well


but this was the song and tones from '89 that killed me and made me a fan for life as i started acquiring more of his catalog--benchmark clean and dirty rack tones

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

The TONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love reading these threads and the whos who start chiming in with knowledge and wisedom, brings to full circle what you have been about with your chase and clips the past 10 years Pat

it is pretty cool to have seen my main tone hero at ground zero in the center of his w/d/w soundscape at the baked potato, in his home element, just pouring his world famous clean arion chorus sound all over the audience like warm honey, and then dropping the hammer of thor on you with his ultra angry sounds the next moment.

regretfully i haven't seen him live with his studio super rack, but maybe one day he'll treat his fans to the full monty!

but the VIBE at his live show is always so HEAVY ....i got shellacked on the plexi palace after seeing him for the first time and comparing it to people seeing a modern day hendrix...the hard core old timers thought me out of my mind, but eventually the tone speaks for itself now doesn't it....

IS this his rack now?

nope.



This is his studio rack:

Shazam!

Bad Ronald, the answer is no. The Axe is not going to re-create that rack's output. If I was gigging yeah close enough but re-create would be a no.

Understood. I've never used a rack so I have no idea. I'm a Strat/Wah/Boost/Boost/Delay/Plexi sort of guy. Pretty much a caveman.

 

[petejt]

Couldn't and Ax FX II replace all that stuff mentioned above? The rack stuff? Seriously.

Remember that Mike Landau is the King of the Effects Rack.

His sound is a lot more to do with how the individual effects units are routed and mixed together. Sure enough you can set up parallel routing in the Axe FX II, but it wouldn't be as elaborate or be customised as much as Mike would require.
That's why his rack tone sounds so pure, and a lot of other imitators just sound like soup.

 

[mentoneman]

i'd say that if you really wanted to purchase a rig that went to that level of tone, and you wanted it in the most timely fashion, i'd suggest having the rack built at la sound design.

dave phillips would help you get as close as you'd imagine being able to get. he knows the tones and the rack/pedal gear that will do it, and how to program the sounds. that YT clip in this thread is a good idea of what i'm talking about, and his CD he recorded a few years ago is chock full of landau type rack tones and playing.

martin, who physically builds the racks, used to work with bradshaw, so he understands the proper wiring methods for power, grounding, optimum audio signal path, heat, etc.

 

[bigdaddyd]

i liked this much more-especially the clean section--and to think this was originally a carvin amp demo on a flexidisc in a guitar player mag--what does that say???:

Really, I thought that The attitude song was the Flexidisc guitar player mag pullout?( My fave after Cliffs of Dover, I didnt play back then but thought that it was all ridiculously cool)

his best clean tone (but i'd much rather listen to it without having to see him at all

and one of the best songs he ever wrote and played...great clean tone and straightforward playing; not a ton of effects and nonsense whammy abuse until it gets distorted later in the song. then he loses me with his circus soundtrack habits.

Great song and playing . Dug the tone but found that it could have used less compression for my tastes( it sounded a little squashed to me)

The Flexidisc was for Blue Powder I think and he used a modified, late '70s strat.

 

[lordriffenstein]

the one i could never figure out was how landau and lukather were so close, but luke didn't have nearly as much tone as landau.

IMO Luke was too busy with his moments where as Landau stayed more in control until that moment. Luke would get up there and just try too hard to dominate, never let his stuff breath until his easy listening toto years but even then when the lights hit him the fuse was lit. The skill and awe factor were there but never hit it out of the park tone wise.

I gotta disagree here, Luke definitely had killer tones and he knew how to hold back, check out the clip below, the 1st solo (starts at 2:45) and then the outro, that´s pretty fantastic playing and killer tones if you ask me.

 

[mentoneman]

luke had moments for sure although i always thought his emgs held back some of his tone potential
one of the first albums i ever got was toto and i used to think i was going to play drums after hearing jeff pocaro lay it down on hold the line and georgie porgy and roseanna--can there be a more infectious groove than that one?

still kick myself for not picking up a luke sig valley arts for $500 when i had the chance!

i couldn't imagine being in that band and having to find a replacement for a player like pocaro after he passed away