Knopfler's "Money For Nothing" tone match attempt

[CyberFerret]

Originally Posted by zentman

^ Um Andrewsimon posted the original clip from Mark,

A classic example of ears deceiving I believe! At one stage, I was going to take the original clip and slice and dice it a little and post it with no other processing and see how many people say "Meh! Close, but not the original tone..."

[manatarms]

Originally Posted by CyberFerret

A classic example of ears deceiving I believe! At one stage, I was going to take the original clip and slice and dice it a little and post it with no other processing and see how many people say "Meh! Close, but not the original tone..."

I think your brain add something in there. You think you are going to hear a clip of someones recording and then when you hear the real thing (minus the rest of the band) you still thinking it is it.

[CyberFerret]

Originally Posted by BadMelonFarmer

Knopfler used a parked Wah to get that Nasaly tone... I saw him talking about this on a documentary once.

Does putting a wah before the amp get you any closer.

But I would have thought "ToneMatch" would have picked that up.

Just thought ... To see if it gets closer.

My first couple of clips had the cocked wah in the preset blocks, this latest one doesn't and I tried adding that effect in post processing with the Runciter plugin from U-He. I was hoping the tone match would pick up enough of the wah accented frequencies...

[buddaman71]

I always just assumed it was a wah pedal cracked halfway. that's what i've always done when it's requested live

[Ben R]

Yeah... I always thought that it was a half-cocked Wahh pedal sitting stationary, too.

Either way, one thing that you can do to make the experience similar is to add a stereo enhancer block to your Axe FX II chain. If you listen to the original, there's some stereo imaging going on, which makes it sound fuller (and cooler).

.

[Hoth]

Originally Posted by manatarms

I think your brain add something in there. You think you are going to hear a clip of someones recording and then when you hear the real thing (minus the rest of the band) you still thinking it is it.

Hearing is so incredibly subjective and contextual, but people still talk about it like it's science. I am fine with admitting I have the hearing of a rock and am completely tone deaf. No matter, still love playing guitar . Because of this, I like to focus on the "art" in people's tone and playing rather than the "exactness" of something being a little more/less compressed.

[derek_32999]

My fave is AndrewSimon's "YOUR CLIP PHASED AND DELAYED" take. It is just a lil piercing in the highs.

The redone clip is a little too roomy sounding, IMO. Hard to tell from soundcloud anyways,though. Cool stuff!

[AndrewSimon]

Originally Posted by derek_32999

My fave is AndrewSimon's "YOUR CLIP PHASED AND DELAYED" take. It is just a lil piercing in the highs.

The redone clip is a little too roomy sounding, IMO. Hard to tell from soundcloud anyways,though. Cool stuff!

Thanks but it is clear now that the intro is double tracked.
The "PHASED AND DELAYED" part is just a poor attempt to simulate double tracking.
What CyberFerret should do is tone match the second phrase in the original clip
http://www.andras-shimon.com/TEMP/Money4Nothing.mp3
then simply double track the intro. (panned hard)

There will still be the issue of "distance" and "smoothness" but it should be much closer.
I don't own the AXE-FX II but from what I understand the "room reverb" in the CAB section suppose to address this issue.
Do you have "room reverb" in the Tone Matching block?
If not I assume you can create an IR from the Tone Matching block, re-import it into a user slot... then you can apply some "room reverb" to try and get that "distance".

[manatarms]

Originally Posted by Hoth

Hearing is so incredibly subjective and contextual, but people still talk about it like it's science. I am fine with admitting I have the hearing of a rock and am completely tone deaf. No matter, still love playing guitar . Because of this, I like to focus on the "art" in people's tone and playing rather than the "exactness" of something being a little more/less compressed.

Feel exactly the same way!!

I'm much better at setting up tones I like than trying to dial in someone else's.

[meambobbo]

I like take 3 the best. I think the cocked wah approach is wrong. The original clip doesn't sound that burpy - it does have some high end in it. I think the right approach would be to eq a heavy lower mid frequency boost before the amp. Don't use anything in front the amp that'll cause compression. And then slowly roll off the guitars tone knob until you get the right amount o high end. Also use a low pass after the amp to roll off the highs. Don't try to dial them out solely before the amp or you'll get not enough crunch to the distortion

[Funky Monkey]

Originally Posted by manatarms

Feel exactly the same way!!

I'm much better at setting up tones I like than trying to dial in someone else's.

Yep. I've always tweaked based on what's in my head and what sounds best with my own gear. But I think it becomes especially cool to stumble upon a tone completely by accident that makes me think of another guitarist or song that I hadn't thought of for a while. Stuff like that can get me noodling for hours.

(or...better yet...writing for hours.)

Still, the tone-match thing is a fun exercise and very useful. For signature riffs like "Money For Nothing", my stance is that I won't even bother without ALL of the ingredients. In fact, this is one of a small group of tunes that hearing a cover band butcher really turns me off. Chasing (or witnessing the chase) has been fun for me, and when it reaches a wholly passable end result, that will be pretty sweet.

[fr8_trane]

Originally Posted by AndrewSimon

OK I got the original isolated guitar tracks.
From this it sounds like the intro is double tracked and it has some extra reverb on it
But the second verse is a single guitar, probably a great section for the AXE-FX tone matching.

Enjoy, and show us your results:

http://www.andras-shimon.com/TEMP/Money4Nothing.mp3

I hear hall reverb on the intro. During the verse it switches to either a small room or an early reflection/ambience patch make it sound much smaller, tighter and closer. There also appears to be some subtle stereo chorus (providing thickening and widening) on the guitar which would have been very typical of 80's sound production. For instance the opening riff of Owner of a lonely heart does exactly the same big then small reverb effect.

I don't hear double tracking on the intro or 1st verse. There is definitely double tracking on starting on bridge (we got to install microwave oven's)


Here's MK playing it solo for an interview. Definitely some kind of cocked wah happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH-1iExLXKI

[manatarms]

I had decent success getting a similar "Money For Nothing" tone with a Rockman setup I had. The Rockman has quite a mid-range bump (around the 800hz range I believe), so it kind of has that fixed wah sound to begin with, then on top of that, the stereo chorus does a great job with a "doubling" sound. It's very wide a spacious.

For a long time I thought Knopfler had just used a Rockman until I learned otherwise.

[derek_32999]

Tryin to dial that tone on my HD500 makes me wish I had an axe, but here is my attempt.

http://soundcloud.com/dwalker1/money-4-nada

EDIT: this is JTV-69 with LP middle out of phase into HD500 into DT50. Recording used the DT50 cab simulated out. Forgot to bump up the reverb on the track...doh!