Great Guitar Tones with the D1200’s Modeling Mode

There’s good news for guitarists in the land of digital recording. The designers at Korg have answered our prayers, and in the new and highly acclaimed D1200 recording studio, they’ve introduced a brand new feature geared especially for guitar players and songwriters! It’s called Modeling Mode. Modeling Mode makes getting great guitar tones while you’re recording as easy and familiar as plugging into a Marshall and yelling “Hello Cleveland!” 

The D1200’s Modeling Mode provides the ease of use and immediacy that guitarists insist on, through the use of dedicated control knobs, cool and useful icons and Korg’s highly acclaimed REMS Modeling effects. You’ll never loose your creative flow: Right from the start, Modeling Mode takes care of the set up process by automatically arming the first two tracks for recording. This makes recording those genius ideas and super hot licks a piece of cake! 

With the cool dedicated knobs on the D1200 you have easy “one step access” to all of the amplifiers, cabinets, and distortion pedals you could ever dream of. You can adjust the amount of distortion; treble, middle, and bass as well as how many preamp tubes you would like to use and the tone of the tubes. There are even cabinet adjustments like presence and air. Part of getting great guitar sounds is the ability to mix and match different amp heads with different cabinets and in Modeling Mode this is a breeze. 

In this next section I’ll show you just how easy it is to achieve amazing guitar tones using Modeling Mode. So let’s get to it! If you’re “guitar-less” right now, just read along – you’ll get the idea. Otherwise, grab your guitar and prepare to be pleasantly surprised!

Let’s start with a heavy Zakk Wild type of sound to scare off your neighbors!

To begin with a new song, press the SONG key, CURSOR to highlight “New” in the display and hit ENTER. Although the D1200 provides 24-bit recording, for now we’ll select the song type as 16bit/12track.

Now a quick trip to Modeling Mode: Just press the MODELING MODE key, and then hit the ENTER key. This is where “less-is-more” rules! Simply use the three knobs below the display to set up the sound as follows:  

“Zakk's Back”
Drive Tone Cabinet
Metal distortion Tube set at 077 1x12 Black P  
Drive   080 Level  100 NR 15
Bass  035 Middle   017  Treble   072  
Air  100 Level  100 Presence  070

So now you have a cool sound, but remember that depending on the types of pickups in your guitar, you might want to tweak the drive and tone settings slightly.  

By the way, after you’ve set up this rockin’ sound, you can instantly save it as an Insert effect and use it anytime!  

Not only that, but you can add Master Effects (2) to the new song, and set individual send levels for any tracks, including your guitar track - to the Masters. A Final Effect can also be added to give your new song a polished, mastering-ready sound! And just like the Modeling Effect, you can easily-edit and save the Master and Final Effects to suit your own musical tastes.

In the Master Effect that I chose for this song, I set the Chorus parameters like this:
LFO       Sin Phase     +70  Speed  0.22
Ldly  22.0ms Rdly   22.0ms Depth  70
EQ  trim 100 LEQG   +405 HEQG  +4.0

And to ensure that your Insert, Master and Final effects work together every time, you can press the STORE and SCENE keys, and quickly-store a “snapshot” of your song mix including effect settings, in one of 100 available Scenes in the song! Don’t forget to tune your low E string down to D and chug away on the bridge pickup... Have fun!

Here are a few more examples of getting great D1200 Guitar tones:
“Glassy Clean Heaven”
This sound is reminiscent of Metallica’s clean tones on Master of Puppets.
Set your guitar to the neck pick up position, and then set up the following:
Drive Tone Cabinet 
Tube OD Tube 033  2x12 Classic A
Drive  029 Level 100 NR 12
Bass  85 Middle  18 Treble  070
Air    100  Level 100 Presence  87

Just like the last example, you can save your Modeling Mode setup as an Insert effect.

“Monster Riffman”
This sound is very reminiscent of Metallica's heavy earth shattering riff style

 and is meant to play on the bridge pickup.
Drive Tone Cabinet
Seattle  Tube 075 Classic 2x12A
Bass 100 Middle   000 Treble  086
Air  100 Level 100 Presence   087

“The Bluesman” (Hey Joe)
Play on the neck pickup, preferably on a Strat.

Please have a cigar on hand! 
Drive Tone  Cabinet
Tube OD Tube 035 1x12 Black P
Drive  030 Level  100 NR  7
Bass  037 Middle  058 Treble  088
Air  100 Level  100 Presence  097

“Killin’ Nasty Texas Blues” (Whew!)
Watch out for this one WO!  

Neck pickup or bridge pickup out of phase works best. (Strat)
Drive Tone  Cabinet
Direct  Tube 100 4x12 Classic
Drive  064 Level  100 NR  15
Bass  100 Middle  015 Treble  037
Air  100 Level  100 Presence  085

And remember, any of the Modeling/Insert, Master and Final Effects can be saved as your own custom effects, and used in additional songs! 

Well, I hope you didn’t get too many complaints from your neighbors, and enjoyed jamming with some of these great guitar tones! By the way, along with your songs, you can back up these sounds as Effect User data to the optional CDRW 1x8, or with the included USB interface to your computer. Enjoy!

Rob Math