I’ve been working on this for months – longer and harder than anything I’ve done before, except the Pink Floyd pack. Up to now, the presets I made reflected the tones that I liked – they were never meant to be exact copies of existing sounds, just sounds that worked for me, both for playing alone and for my rock and metal cover bands. I’ve always had technical knowledge in sound engineering and guitar gear – how to use this or that amp model, which guitar or amp a famous guitarist uses – but I was also always very intuitive when making presets, often thinking outside the box. First and foremost, it needed to work for me. And very importantly, it needed to inspire you to play for hours. I think that was always one of my biggest strengths: providing sounds that make you want to pick up the guitar and not put it down.With Guitar Heroes Vol. 1, I kept that approach but pushed the technical side further than I ever have before. Every preset still starts like before, with my mix of technical knowledge, knowledge of what was used in the original recording + out of the box thinking. But this time, every decision was also verified against the original studio recordings using advanced spectral analysis – comparing frequency response, gain structure,pick dynamics, reverb character, delay timing, all of it.
Let’s be honest — achieving a perfect copy of a recorded guitar sound is impossible. The player, the guitar, the studio chain, the room, the moment, the hands — too many variables. But getting as close as humanly possible while keeping the sound musical and inspiring? That was the target, and I genuinely think I hit it, despite the Tone Master Pro’s limitations : the amp models needed for these artists tones are not available in the TMP. The original presets of this collection were made on the Axe-Fx III, which has a Carvin Legacy model (used by Steve Vai), several Mesa MK series models, including the JPIIC (John Petrucci signature amp), different Dual Rectifier models (again, for Petrucci tones), the Marshall JS (Joe Satriani signature amp), or idealized version of the Marshall Plexi amp suitable for Van Halen’s famous brown sound. So, a lot of work was needed to port it to the TMP !
EVERY PACK INCLUDES:
- Dedicated custom IR per preset – built from two-pass advanced Tonematch + deep EQ calibration
- Scenes: rhythm, lead, and live-optimised versions in many presets; single scene for Vai and EVH
- Detailed Excel reference file: full preset list and several details, like the cabs used etc.
Packs details
The Vai Universe
Steve Vai’s tone is one of the most distinctive and elusive sounds in guitar. Liquid, expressive, otherworldly — somehow both pristine and alive. 12 presets built to capture it: For the Love of God, Erotic Nightmares, Juice, Die to Live, Tender Surrender, Here and Now, Touching Tongues, The Crying Machine, Fire Garden Suite, Jibboom, Windows to the Soul, Zeus in Chains. Every sound calibrated against the studio recordings, with the same advanced methodology used across the entire Guitar Heroes series.
