PCM 90 versus Jim Williams LXP-15 samples

  • Thread starter Thread starter Seeker of Rock
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Seeker of Rock

Seeker of Rock

Let us be unburdened by that which has been ?
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Without saying which one is which, I kind of favor one sample over the other. Funny how that works....

Crap, now I forgot which was which in the posted links.
 
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#2 is the PCM. Rich Plate is the preset. Number one is Jim Williams modded LXP on a preset called small plate. Personally, I think the LXP is doing a better reverb on the drums.
 
put up a pair with a random hall preset - like med hall - that's where the "lex" sound is found.
 
The bigger difference Im hearing is in set up. The 90 has a lot less low rt and the 15's high cut sounds lower - it's tougher to hear what's going different up top there.

I noticed they were having kind of similar prob's on the 96' 480' thread over at gearslutz - (there the names didn't match on the algros. :)
 
The thing I discovered when I had an MPX-1 and PCM-91 side by side is that it's a lot easier to get a good sound out of the cheaper unit when tweaking it to match the more expensive unit. Without that reference the programming is more difficult to bring up to a higher level.

So the question becomes in comparisons like this: do you use presets only, or fully tweak the patches?
 
Great point. I probably posted this prematurely. I've only dabbled with the presets of each thus far. The PCM was in a California professional studio, so I supposed I should check the user presets, too. Probably a lot better than I would be able to do, especially for the time being.

NL5 called it out a little, too. The LXP-15 halls, though I think it sounds great, are not as spatially believable as the PCM. But I'm not really looking for big halls on my drums. Maybe 20 years ago, but definitely not 35-40, and that's kind of the sound I'm after on drums. I'm thinking the PCM will be set to "real hall", or some user derivitive thereof, for an ambience background effect, some more channels than others. I'm going to bus the drums on bus 1 and 2, so maybe I'll keep one of the LXP presets, be it factory or user, on those. The LXP just sounds better to me in the presets for drums so far. Keeping in mind my drums are not very dry to begin with(my room is a a room-within-a-room construction, RealTraps in the corners, Auralex Metro 2" placed 2' oc up the side walls, 4'x6' in front of mix position, 4" pyramid on the back wall, concrete floor and wood ceiling so still quite "live" because I track in there too), and maybe that is a little piece of the reason. In other words what I've is that the PCM adds a lot of "space" to the sound, while the LXP can be maybe not quite as believable. Therefore, I'm like the sound of the LXP on short reverbs like plates, where if the tracks were bone dry I may be inclined to favor something spacier. When I get to messing around back there again, I'll post a couple of different preset flavors from each. May not be until this weekend as I'm a part-timer.
 
Great point. I probably posted this prematurely. I've only dabbled with the presets of each thus far. The PCM was in a California professional studio, so I supposed I should check the user presets, too. Probably a lot better than I would be able to do, especially for the time being.

NL5 called it out a little, too. The LXP-15 halls, though I think it sounds great, are not as spatially believable as the PCM, though both sound really good. But I'm not really looking for big halls on my drums. Maybe 20 years ago, but definitely not 30-35, and that's kind of the sound I'm after on drums. I'm thinking the PCM will be set to "real hall", or some user derivitive thereof, for an ambience background effect, some more channels than others. I'm going to bus the drums on bus 1 and 2, so maybe I'll keep one of the LXP presets, be it factory or user, on those. The LXP just sounds better to me in the presets for drums so far. Keeping in mind my drums are not very dry to begin with(my room is a a room-within-a-room construction, RealTraps in the corners, Auralex Metro 2" placed 2' oc up the side walls, 4'x6' in front of mix position, 4" pyramid on the back wall, peaked ceiling, concrete floor and wood ceiling so still quite "live" because I track in there too), and maybe that is a little piece of the reason. In other words what I've is that the PCM adds a lot of "space" to the sound, while the LXP can be maybe not quite as believable. Therefore, I'm like the sound of the LXP on short reverbs like plates, where if the tracks were bone dry I may be inclined to favor something spacier. When I get to messing around back there again, I'll post a couple of different preset flavors from each. May not be until this weekend as I'm a part-timer.
 
Seeker of Rock said:
NL5 called it out a little, too. The LXP-15 halls, though I think it sounds great, are not as spatially believable as the PCM, though both sound really good. But I'm not really looking for big halls on my drums.
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I was talking about the "random hall" stuff. It is one of the six (I believe) basic algo's available from lexicon (at least on my machine). It was in the 480 and you can hear it on MANY major label releases. It is great on drums when toned down and set to a smaller hall size, but kills on vox.......
 
I like a lot of the PCM90 halls. Think I'll take your advice on that random hall when it gets to be vocal time. Problem is I'm only going to have 3 effects settings available to use on all of the parts, so what goes on vocals may have to go a little on guitars too, with the LXP probably on drums and the Midiverb four for modulation. Unless of course the 90 has split programming. I believe the 91 does. I'll have to find out when I get into it more.
 
I always look for those on ebay, but only see the PCM80 cards come up:( If I get the chance, I'll get one...or a 200:D
 
SonicAlbert said:
The thing I discovered when I had an MPX-1 and PCM-91 side by side is that it's a lot easier to get a good sound out of the cheaper unit when tweaking it to match the more expensive unit. Without that reference the programming is more difficult to bring up to a higher level.
Click to expand...

Word. The other thing to find out is whether you can make one unit sound pretty much exactly like the other. If you can, then any talk of which is better are pretty much over.
 
boingoman said:
Word. The other thing to find out is whether you can make one unit sound pretty much exactly like the other. If you can, then any talk of which is better are pretty much over.
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In my experience with that kind of thing it has not been possible to make the cheaper unit sound as good. It can be improved by using the pricier unit as a guide, but there are usually concrete reasons why the more expensive units sound better.
 
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