Making Noise with Born A Ghost.
The backing tracks are finally locked in, and the tone search has taken on a life of its own. The drum foundation came straight from the Superior Drummer Death & Darkness collection — that familiar Tue Madsen punch anchoring everything in place. On bass, I blended the AxeFX “Born A Ghost” grind tone with a direct input track shaped through NeuralDSP’s Darkglass plugin, using one of Alex Webster’s signature tones as a reference. The DI track’s phase was flipped to carve space, and a custom “Metal Bass” EQ preset added the final glue to the low end.
For guitars, the signal chain combined an Orange OR15 head with a Line 6 Helix Rack, wired up in the four-cable method to allow effects both in front of the amp and within the loop. This setup gave the flexibility needed to sculpt each part — surgical precision up front, and ambient movement in the back end.
Lead Guitar
The lead tone came first — a screaming setup driven by a classic overdrive pushing the amp’s front end. Gain hovered around the middle range for clarity and bite, with a touch of delay (666 ms at 90 BPM) floating behind the notes for atmosphere.
Rhythm Guitar
For rhythms, the same front-end drive pedal kept things tight, while a Horizon Gate in the loop tamed any rogue feedback. The result: a percussive, chest-punching crunch that cut cleanly through the mix.
Cabinet Shootout
Take 01: Zilla Fatboy 2×12 loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s.
Take 02: Zilla Fatboy 2×12 loaded with Eminence DV-77s.
Take 03: Both cabs blended — DV-77 and Vintage 30 together, with the Vintage 30 phase-flipped.
Each cabinet was mic’d with a Shure SM57, tracked directly into the DAW. The final shootout crowned the Vintage 30 with the SM57 as the clear winner — full, aggressive, and perfectly balanced for the project’s mix.
Clean Tones
All clean layers came from the AxeFX II XL+, centered on a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 preamp and an Eminence DV-77 “Angry” impulse response. The result is a wide wet/dry/wet soundstage designed to breathe inside the mix. These tracks are meant to be balanced via the Reaper session template — always mix from the bus, never from the individual tracks.
Drone Textures
The droning ambience came from dual AxeFX rigs:
Left: ProCo Rat → British Preamp (Marshall JMP) → DV-77 IR, with chorus and reverb.
Right: Fuzz Face → Deluxe Tweed → DV-77 IR, with flanger and a 666 ms delay.
Together, they form a dark, swirling undercurrent — the kind of uneasy foundation that sits beneath the heaviest riffs like a storm waiting to break.
Experimental and Effects-Driven Tones
The Line 6 Helix took over for the weirder stuff — heavy layers built around a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier fed by a Metal Zone, with a Univibe and Whammy in front for chaos. The cabinet stayed consistent: an ENGL 4×12 with Vintage 30s, captured by an SM57. This patch will keep evolving as new textures are needed.
Acoustic Layers
To contrast all that grit, the acoustic textures were shaped through a Boss Acoustic Simulator feeding into the Helix, into a clean amp model paired with a DV-77 Clean Scoop IR. Compression, delay, and reverb round out the signal — just enough to give it shimmer without washing it out.
Synth Elements
For synth layers, Serum handles the heavy lifting. Custom patches live directly inside the Reaper preset directory, ready to drop in whenever a track needs a haunting low-end swell or crystalline top layer to fill the atmosphere.
Final Thoughts
This tone-finding session was one of those rare times when everything aligned — the right cabs, the right mics, and the right combination of analog and digital grit. The Vintage 30s brought the warmth and edge the mix was missing, while the hybrid routing between the Helix, AxeFX, and DAW allowed each tone to breathe without stepping on the others.
Each step in the process has been another layer of discovery — and this session finally feels like the foundation of the sound I’ve been chasing.