ULTIMATE "80s Rack" Pedalboard Build | Lukather Landau Huff Tones

[@LeonTodd]

This is absolutely GLORIOUS. Solid choices as well. Tricerachorus has dedicated detune section that can do the +/- stereo microshift thing on top of tri-chorus so it's a great "instant 80's" box.

[@RJRonquillo]

Thanks Leon! Yeah that Tricerachorus is a solid box.

[@johanneschristopherstahle3395]

Too bad he didn't want to buy those rack units 😂. I saw a YT video by a guy from down under who did the same thing with rack gear. That was GLORIOUS. But I can't quite remember if he already has the Eventide. Recently I was looking for the Eclipse, but even those are pretty expensive. But I found a GSP2101 with the expansion board for a low price. Should arrive on monday. In contrast to the “purple monster”, you have the ability to route everything manually, so you can do parallel inside of the unit. Have to see if it's good enough for an authentic 80's tone. Tried it on the GSP1101, but although you can do parallel, you don't have enough options to shape the sounds of the reverb and delay 😢.

[@ajcajc5429]

I believe Preset number 1 on the Tricerachorus is Leon's fabulous work?

[@jasonmartin7137]

This may be the greatest, most informative guitar pedal video I've ever watched. I LOVE this tone, and you nailed replicating it, RJ. Many thanks!

[@johanneschristopherstahle3395]

If you liked this one, you should definitely watch the one by Vertex Effects on this subject.

[@jasonmartin7137]

@@johanneschristopherstahle3395 Thanks. I'll check it out.

[@jethrocode2112]

Man the 80s had some beautiful guitar tones. This is awesome.

[@typangtv]

Boss PS-6 Harmonist pedal does stereo detune. You can even (split the signal before and) turn balance knob 100% wet to create wet/dry/wet!

[@Terry_Aki]

Love to har how to do this in detail .I have the ps6

[@joshuafreedman7703]

Dan and Mick would be in ecstasy over this board!

[@VertexEffectsInc]

Thanks for the shout out RJ! Sounds great! The MVP here on those diagrams is Kjetil Nesheim (Kan Lyd) in Norway. He provided those to me, but I’m sure he’d love the idea of more folks understanding this signal path by way of your rig build and breakdown! Well done!

[@RJRonquillo]

Thanks buddy and thanks to Kjetil! Which rig shall we mirror next?! lol

[@desmondtutu7916]

@@RJRonquillo The Edge.

[@cgmxtreme70]

This may be one of my favorite episodes of any show ever. 80’s rack tones, RJs sweet playing, and the mentioning of my favorite guitarist, Dann Huff (such a legendary player). Will be watching this often and working on my own 80’s pedalboard now. Sorry babe !😅

[@Terry_Aki]

Dann Huff and Steve Stevens are my favorite git players on earth... ❤

[@johnschultz5785]

I'm supposed to be working on my home gym setup but I find this fascinating and now all my productivity has ground to a halt. I love this guitar sound.

[@EJH-jn6mo]

RJ: This is an amazingly informative video that doesn’t feel like I’m being sold something. KZbin needs more of this and not a straight up product ad. Thank you.

[@Wyattbrink1037]

Completely nails that 80s tone and aesthetic. Very nice job!

[@renula]

The DIG is my favorite delay pedal.

[@barry3573]

This was absolutely awesome. I just re-lived the 80's

[@MorbidManoeuvres]

maaaaan, by the end and you flipped on the Distortion with Tricerachorus, that was the extravaganza , the cherry on the cake as we say ! so lush

[@Trav86]

This is the most descriptive and informative video on the classic rack setups I’ve seen.

[@Wileylikethehawk]

These are my favorite tones. I actually have a huge Bradshaw rack unit with a 2290 and Lexicon racks and all that for my Floyd act - but it’s so big that it mostly stays in storage when I’m not on tour. This pedalboard solution seems much more useable!

[@michael_caz_nyc]

I never get tired of that 80's Tri-Chorus/rack tone. It's as pleasing to me as a Fender Rhodes . . . great job with this. Check out the Red Seven Lil Wave Tri Chorus or the Free the Tone Tri Avatar = both incredible for this. oNe LovE from NYC

[@wmauibill]

I am here because of the fender ad on TikTok. Glad I found you RJ.

[@jergervasi3331]

Having grown up as a musician in the 80's, it's fun to see people now strive for tones that were pretty standard back then (standard AWESOMENESS, mind you, but that sound was everywhere). I still have my "refrigerator" rack, but now it holds outboard gear in my studio. Players today can get these tones with far less back injuries than we sustained, luckily for them!

[@markinthemix6055]

I enjoyed this. The tones here are where my ears set. I love it. I heard so so many songs in you just going through the pedals and demoing them. Blessings to you.

[@lightningstrikes7314]

Brilliant demo, your translation of the BB rigs and diagrams into an actual pedalboard that is accessible to working guitarists is a stroke of genius. And the real revelation for me was using the EQ pedal 'trick' after the compressor to put frequencies back that can get hollowed out. Will be getting an Equator to fix this potential issue.

[@jasonpualoa877]

Great video. Keep the 80’s session stuff coming!

[@mikecole4489]

I can literally feel the 80s

[@andrewzenn1719]

In the 80s I used to have alot of pedals. I still do, but I used to too.

[@mortenroedfrederiksen3393]

Lol

[@tinyb69]

Okay, Mitch.

Great video RJ-you have unlocked the 80's studio-sound mystery. I could have used it 40 years ago, but I guess now will have to do. Thx.

[@JoeCostantini74]

Boss is good I like Boss electronics, but damn Eventide makes some kickass effects, that chorus is over the top. If I recall Vai's Passion and Warfare album was done with Eventide Processors.

[@Gorbyrev]

Great video and go Dan at Gig Rig for the Wetter box. He's a great tech and a great guitarist.

[@tonecast1]

This is a great board build. One of the more interesting I've ever seen! Thanks for showcasing and sharing. The pitch detune in tandem with the tri-chorus makes for THE sound. Great video!

[@henrymcardle]

Ever since you posted your original video using the UAD virtual effects rig, I have gone all-in building the real deal. Almost $10k in retrospect, this pedal based solution is probably the way to go. Awesome knowledge, thanks for sharing.

[@Prettynoise]

@rjronquillo full disclosure I'm a 63 yr old punk blues guy that back in that area I hated the chorus rack sound. As I have aged and dived back into songs that were not in my wheelhouse I have become a fan of your explorations into those 80's hits sounds. Damn it man!!!! Now I'm a 80's chorus fan and it is amazing. Thanks for being a true historian and opening up my ears.

[@joesatchton212]

Decades ago, when I was a really ignorant young lad, I just loved these sounds. Ironically, and accurately, though I knew absolutely nothing about gear back then, I somehow knew instinctively that these sounds could only be possible with a ton of quality gear. So I came to call these kinds of tones the "really expensive" sounds. XD Guess I was right after all. Nice part is that, decades later, yes, you can mimic these sounds like RJ has, but you can also come reasonably close with some patient tweaking in many modern mfx units like Helix, GT1000, etc, etc, etc... GREAT VID RJ! Happy 2024 to you and yours....

[@chrismusic1517]

Best clean tone ever cuts so well thru a mix 🙌🏽

[@markinthemix6055]

Good job. This is a good template for my ears. It’s the sounds l do love.

[@jaysonhulbert1525]

This is AWESOME!!! I've been building my own Bradshaw "pedalboard rig" for a year now so this is epic to see!!!

[@m0j0b0ne]

Dude, Keeley's Dyno My Roto is the ultimate 3D mono chorus and it's perfect for the dyno Rhodes sound, as well as Cyndi Lauper, Crowded House, etc. (it also does a very nice Leslie and something called Rotoflange) Betwixt that and the TC SCF Gold+ I have mono and stereo '80s chorus and flange sounds covered. (the analog TC Gold also does pitch modulation) My '80s compressor is a vintage TC Sustain+Para EQ. The EQ is one band, but it's the right one. I generally run the pitch, chorus and delay FX after the cabsim, as though I were miking the amp in a studio and using rack effects on a line level signal. Speaking of delays, my TC Nova Repeater does the stuff you'd get from a TC 2290; the hi and lo inputs mean it can handle instrument or line level signals. A Flamma cab offers stereo cab sim and a Korg SDD 3000 delay does the U2-type stereo stuff that requires stereo/dual mono I/O, or if I'm going for a more rhythmic delay thing, more Gilmour than the Edge, a Vox Delaylab.

[@place_desjardins]

Nice. That was a lot to replicate 80's tone. I was wondering why I couldn't replicate it with a single chorus pedal.

[@benjaminbarnett3696]

Bringing back the 80’s! 💪 Nice job RJ!

[@danamoose1234]

Wow this was incredible RJ thank you

[@tonyg6158]

That chorus sounds amazing.

[@jameshesketh5590]

Brilliant, thank you for sharing this and for unlocking the sounds I've spent too many years looking for.

[@TheToneWork]

Crazy good. Love the Two Notes Opus in the chain.. I can't get enough of it.

[@Vostromberg]

Amazing stuff RJ!

[@GuyNarnarian]

This board is insane. I still have a Digitech multi effects rack I inherited from a friend who stopped playing in the 90s. I'll have to try it out again.

[@julienklettenberg5816]

The sound of my teenage years 😍 Thank you!

[@1912INDY]

@ WETTERBOX: really good sounds and ideas in this video! I also own a Wetterbox and found the happy accident that two 100% wet signals sound so good mixed togehter interesting. The Wetterbox does not transmit a dry signal to the outputs if both send/returns are connected. Only a "Electro Harmonix Switchblade Pro", or the "GFI System Duophony Parallel Blender", for example, offers that.

[@desmondtutu7916]

Cool.

[@rebelcat420]

Very cool! Nice work! Great to see you actually having a clean tone vs the light crunch you normally call “clean’! Next thing I think would be cool would be doing the classic 80s and 90s Nashville sound in a board!

[@johannherveux1490]

For getting closer to the Tri stereo chorus sound with a pedal, i personally would recommend either the red seven The lil'wave (i have one i lent to a friend) but it's not truly stereo, its a mono chorus, so when i compare to my TSC in rack, its nice but the stereo image isnt as intense. The next thing i consider EXTREMELY close to my TSC, is Free the Tone's Tri Avatar chorus, a friend bought one after turning crazy playing on my rack and seeing prices of songbird and other TSCs going nuts and playing them side by side, it was creally a close one, it have truly 3 chorus in it (L, L+R and R) AND a 4th dry signal. Maybe a tad more depth on my TSC but it could also be because of the age of the unit and it's components, the quality of my rack's signal path (i made all the cable by myself with a huge bobin of Klotz and hi-gon/neutrik jacks), no idea. But definitely my N⁰1 recommend to get that TSC sound in a pedal, in stereo, would be the tri avatar. The rest is pale imho.

[@ajcajc5429]

I think you have not tried the Tricerachorus

[@DougErapps]

That was awesome!! Thank you R.J.!!

[@Kouros-t6d]

The best sounds the best Music is from the 70's and 80's NO DOUBT about it. It's time to return to these IMMORTAL TIMELESS sounds.

[@Phoebedumplings]

As you said …”nice!” 😀👍

[@EuripidesChimbidis]

Thanks for this, R.J.! I've been waiting for this ever since you did the plugin version. Despite seeing that diagram before, putting the delay(s) after the reverb/wetter box never occurred to me. Very cool! Also, as you said, the great thing about the Tricerachorus is that it does the Tri-Chorus thing AND the detune thing, and you can dial in amounts for both. Saved me some real estate on my 80's-inspired board.

[@baabaabaa-yp2jh]

I had mates with a fridge worth of rack gear... And wondered why they're tone sounded like a fridge!! Great video btw mate.

[@murphshall]

Sounds petfect for songs like Purple Rain and You can't kill rock and roll

[@tomjulian7226]

I have the Ventris pedal....love that thing

[@magnumbrahms9318]

I am now a chorus enjoyer thanks kuya RJ!

[@christopherprice3226]

the Tri softens the attack to my ears

[@beyondinfinity3876]

you are the man!🙏🙏

[@JJDon5150]

After seeing you mention the Dimension C/SDD-320, I went down a rabbit hole to see what songs used it, and saw that someone posted Cocteau Twin's Cherry Coloured Funk. After thinking about it, the Dimension C with some lush, ambient reverb is basically the entire sound of the Cocteau Twins. I think that's a good reference for the sound.

[@Telorchid]

Robin Guthrie at some point came to prefer Lexicon racks for Micropitch (at +/-10 cents). He also preferred stacked delays to reverbs, although he may have made exceptions for 2000s collabs with Harold Budd. I would not be surprised if he did use the Dimension rack at some point, the above is just what I’ve seen him mention on forums.

[@scottmcdade4007]

Eventide with wetter is so Purple Rain, love it.

[@JamminJim42]

Very nice RJ !! The 80's tone is so lush and tasty. I've set up a few different 80's sounds on my rig and love them. It's a must to have it stereo too !! Cheers bro.

[@JazzRockswithAdam]

RJ, I’m not totally certain, maybe it’s the way it’s EQ’d (or KZbin) but it sounds out of phase to me. I dig the effort that went into all this though. As someone who grew up in the ‘80s, this is great!

[@slovokia]

I listened to this on Ipad speakers and it sounded like everything below 1khz was eqed out - i.e. really really thin sounding. Haven’t checked with headphones yet but if this stereo signal was sent to a FOH mixer they probably wouldn’t like the sound of it. Something is definitely wrong though.

[@JazzRockswithAdam]

@@slovokia Maybe it was jus so much high end that it sounded out of phase. With not a lot of meat in the middle could be fooling my ears that there’s a phase issue.

[@slovokia]

Well I Iistened on headphones. There is a fair amount of low frequency content (below 200hz). It doesn’t sound out of phase. I think the issue is either that a lot of the lower midrange has been sucked out or the upper mids have been boosted a lot. So when you listen on a device that doesn’t reproduce the content below 200hz very well, the guitar tone sounds unpleasantly thin. It needs more energy from 200hz to 1 khz to sound normal.

[@slovokia]

Another factor might be that on the newer IPads the upper midrange is very prominent as well so with this upper mid boost you get an even thinner sounding tone. Something that mastering engineers and mixing engineers must take into account.

[@FrostGiantElectronics]

Rack systems are always so rad

[@Simeon_Harris]

as someone who owned several of those original rack units back in the day, i really enjoyed this! i use an axe fx III now and it's almost trivially easy to get these kind of tones in the box, so it was really interesting to see it done with pedals. daisy chaining the different chorus pedals and the detune is a wonderful sound and the slight slapback delay in the trichorus is a big part of that 80's vibe, imo.

[@Simeon_Harris]

oh and thanks for turning me on to using the dbx. i've always used it on bass and drums in the past, but never tried it on guitar. wow, it slams!

[@AKustik632]

Hey Simeon! How did you set this up in Axe? Thanks!!!

[@Simeon_Harris]

@@AKustik632 i mean, it's pretty trivial, tbh. all the effects are in there, the dimension, the tri chorus, the detune, vintage delays etc etc. and you can do the series/parallel routing as well. are you a fractal user?

[@AKustik632]

@@Simeon_Harris Hello Simeon. Unfortunately I am a quad cortex user. I was just wondering how you did it in Axe, that maybe I can convert it to cortex. We don't have a tri chorus though in cortex so that must be really tough to replicate.

[@Simeon_Harris]

@@AKustik632 ah i see. there isn't any trick to it, i'm afraid. we have all these effects in the axe fx, so it's just a case of dropping them in to the grid in a series parallel layout.

[@lore88824]

That's super close to the real thing! Unfortunately the audio is clipping at the end on the lead part...but the tone is right there!

[@davidshort8226]

I love this so much. So when are you releasing an 80's tone driven album that I can listen to on repeat to make my wife question my sanity?

[@buzzcrumhunger7114]

Love the GC-2 ❤ between drive and delay effects

[@buzzcrumhunger7114]

And the EQuator is a nice redux of the Boss PQ-4 Bass Para Eq

[@ExplosionDestroyer]

Awesome video. These tones are amazing. I’ve always been obsessed with them.

[@createlovehappy]

It's not lost on me that even your guitar strap is from back in the day. I bought these for all my guitars after our drummer dropped my guitar player's strat on the parking lot while taking a break from band practice.

[@BigMikeGuitar]

I can’t help but think the TC 2290p should be part of this. Also, that there is a whole lot of cabinet simulation redundancy between the Opus and Cab Zeus. The scope and scale of the project however, is remarkable, and produced a magnificent result!

[@NEBUERMIL]

here for the guitar content but nice choice with the Orient diver watch!

[@agotingco]

What a glorious tone!!

[@johnnymoraes23]

Maaan... KILLER TONE.

[@andrewbettis4247]

Very cool that was fun...

[@brianmathiason29]

This is one of the best gear videos I’ve seen in a few years!!! All these great sounds from pedals!!!! Awesome job!!!

[@dougckelly]

Awesome video, not sure why I'd avoided subscribing to your channel RJ but I'm here now and loving your content. A quick tip on compression, if you're in a recording situation and add a hard comp pre input to the DAW or mixer, any subsequent compression (which will always be added later across subsets or full mixes and in mastering) will multiply ratios and compress harder on earlier compression. This can cause headaches. Sweet sounds though!

[@joerobinson2538]

Awesome RJ! I did really like the Adm setting on the delay unit--sounded really robust to my ears. You have inspired me to build a similar preset into my Neural Quad Cortex-thankfully it has the Boss Waza Dimension C in it!

[@Zero_thehero]

Awesome vid Awesome guitar ❤❤❤

[@salvatoredemasi956]

Wow your video is amazing and I am so glad that I found your channel so much information and inspiration

[@jaguarsunburst1570]

Great Job Man Thankyou ❤❤❤

[@ZeekMX]

Steve Lukather helped me realize I need to assign my pedal to the mid of the EQ to push the mid up durring solo parts. As far as DSP I just use a Digitech RP350 - I run that to a 12 channel mixer with DSP to control final gated delay. Most beginner guitarists don't even know that the old marshal amps had far more range than the green back speaker can produce. I'm completely ok with being a Tom Scholz clone in my mind. I don't DSP without Tom Scholz. RP350 as substitute for Rockman unit. etc

[@neilbantugan]

80s chorus is a standard, up to present👌

[@JedWunderli]

Great stuff, RJ. Fun project. 80's. racks were so cool.

[@1972Georges]

sounds fanstastic. Well done.

[@JRP3music]

I use my Two Notes Torpedo Captor 8 to tap the preamp/power section of my amp to send to my stereo fx chain of my pedal board. My fx stereo out goes to stereo pair of Two Notes Torpedo Cab plus IR boxes. The outs of the Two Note Torpedo Cab Ms drive my MosValve power amp. The DI outs go to the mixer. I plan to get an Ampero II stomp to add routing (parallel/series) and other fx eventually. I pretty much cover alot of sonic stereo goodness.

[@hectorfranco4438]

Much Needed!!! Amazing Job Mr. Ronquillo 😮‍💨

[@duaneharlick]

Hay RJ!! Greetings from the big D!! This is great stuff!! The sound of our childhood!!!! I might add that the BBE Sonic Maximizer (rack version) was also a big deal back then (to add back the post compression lost frequencies). Best to you!

[@DangerNoodle-yw8yt]

Love the idea and thank you for nailing it. I would have used either Line 6 DL8 for delays (they use Lexicon algorithms) or the TC Electronic 2290 delay pedal. But despite the parallel mixing I still found the sound lacking in definition at the end of it all. Maybe I would have gone for an Empress Para Eq for the eq pedal for versatility.

[@BenCoombs]

Very cool board my friend!! I've been debating building a board just like this!! Cheers RJ!!

[@davidleerotharmy]

Love your haircut

[@joshuajayolorozo8455]

Very superb

[@wyldedime1054]

All of the chorus parts reminded me of purple rain

[@jayboy6895]

Outrageous. Outstanding Off the chart. Thank you RJ. Love this. J

[@danconn8535]

Love this. I’ve been trying to get something similar to this myself. Thanks for all the ideas.

[@7stringbassist]

Nice Tyler 👍👍 Hands down the best guitar I've ever played. I do have one of their basses and it's just as fabulous.

[@Telorchid]

Chorus has an extra voice (or voices) that moves continuously in pitch as governed by an LFO, whereas Micropitch gives you static pitches offset by set amounts (e.g. +/-10 cents) that do not move.

[@fillo1971]

Grandissimi suoni, bellissimi veramente. ❤🎸🤟🏻

[@RaphaelSater]

Fantastic!

[@Shenier_HT]

I really love the video and the pedalboard 80s sound because pedals are so cool but i think you should use your PT 100 amp just to make it more real. Playin is awesome as allways!

[@babagadoush1]

Oh this is a fun one

[@blcouch]

Thank you for this video. Very helpful and entertaining.

[@horizonishere]

Wonderful, Kingsley jester instead of the opus for that dumble overdrive and I’m there.