This preset is inspired by two songs that have instantly recognisable and iconic guitar tones, which both appear on one hit album from the band ‘Dire Straits’. Brothers In Arms was released in 1985 and was received with overwhelming popularity. The epic title track and stadium rocker ‘Money For Nothing’ both feature incredibly recognisable riffs and tones from the hands of the maestro Mark Knopfler.
For this preset I have decided to focus on replicating the sound of the amazing guitar tones on these two tracks. They are allocated to different snapshots, with a 3rd snapshot to cut the reverb from the signal as per the dry hard hitting quality of Money For Nothing’s guitar for the majority of the song. There is also a volume pedal in the signal chain to allow the user to reproduce the volume swells found on the title track. ‘Whale sounds’ galore!
A slight disclaimer for this preset - be careful with how you actually play the guitar in order to accurately recreate the sound of the records. This is obviously always true for any of my ‘SOUND LIKE’ presets, but even more so in this case. The touch of your fingers on your plucking hand can alter the tone of each note dramatically, and this is a VERY touch sensitive tone and style to play with. A combination of the right touch/playing, the right guitar and this preset for your Helix, should get you firmly in the sonic territory for these amazing songs!
The preset was put together using a Sire Larry Carlton L7 modded with Seymour Duncan pickups (a ‘Jazz’ in the neck, and a ‘59’ in the bridge) and tested on studio monitors and headphones. It was designed for use with the Helix Floor/LT as it uses a fair amount of DSP and both signal paths in the unit. It was made on firmware version 3.50 but should have no problems with later versions.
Brothers In Arms – Using the neck pickup on a Les Paul type guitar, you should find yourself within that warm and ambient tone very quickly!
Money – Using the bridge pickup on a Les Paul type guitar, you can instantly get all the throaty bark and bite as found on ‘Money For Nothing’. The intro with the solo guitar features a fair amount of reverb so I have included that on this snapshot.
Money-VERB – Exactly the same sound as ‘Money’ but without the reverb to get the dry tone used for the rest of the song. Hits you like a train!
This preset is best used when connected to a PA console, audio interface or FRFR speaker as it has cab sim (IR) enabled. If you intend to use it with an amp and cabinet please disable the amp/cab block.
RAW AUDIO CLIPS ONLY, NO POST-PROCESSING EFFECTS
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