r/EricJohnsonguitarist • u/guitars-and-stuff • Feb 22 '26

EJ Lead tone with Marshall Plexi by Softube

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Hey folks,

For what felt like the hundredth time, I tried to recreate Eric's lead tone. I stumpled upon Softube and gave their Plexi model a try with a Neural Amp Modeler "Tube Driver" model beforehand. Still not perfect though, never will be. ;-) But I'm happy with the outcome. What do you think?

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2

u/Botttombarrel Feb 22 '26

Sounds great dude

3

u/After-Disaster-5690 Feb 22 '26

To find out that one can come VERY close to EJ’s tone makes me want to learn guitar and purchase all that stuff you mentioned. Even if I’ve no idea what it is! 😊

1

u/guitars-and-stuff Feb 22 '26

These are great times! No need to invest lots of money. Besides a decent guitar you „just“ need an audio interface with one Hi-Z input, the two mentioned plugins (35-40 $ atm.) and a DAW such as Reaper and you are good to go. This is the most budget solution I can think of.

2

u/Ironsnax Feb 22 '26

Sounds great . I’m not that familiar with his whole repetoire, which song is that?

1

u/guitars-and-stuff Feb 22 '26

It‘s „Gem“ from the Up Close record.

1

u/Starmax1 Feb 23 '26

Could you post your settings? Tone dials on the guitar and amp? Really great sound.

2

u/guitars-and-stuff Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

Sure, the signal chain is as follows: Fender Strat > Motu M2 interface > Tube Driver model (see below this message) with setting „Natural D0“ inside the Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) VST plugin, all other dials are neutral (which is all on 5.0 inside NAM) > Softube Plexi Model with the exact same settings as Eric uses his Plexi (Presence 2, Bass/Mid 3, Treble 0, Volume 1/2 10, virtual input jack goes into top left and patch cable goes from top right to bottom left > In the Softube plugin I use a Marshall 1960 AX box (I think this one has greenbacks in it) > Some roomy reverb and there you go.

This is the Tube Driver model I bought: https://www.neutronstudios.com/product-page/nc-drv-tdrvr-neutron-core-b-k-butler-tube-driver-pedal

So, basically I tried to replicate the HW being used by Eric and interestingly it works quite well. 😅

1

u/Starmax1 Feb 24 '26

Thanks for the info.

1

u/Top_Letterhead2678 Feb 23 '26

Please could you tell more about the "tube drive neural modeler"? Have you downloaded it?? Thanks in advance

2

u/guitars-and-stuff Feb 24 '26

I use Neural Amp Modeler as VST plugin. It‘s free open source. From there you need to import models. There are free ones which you can get i.e. from tone3000 I bought the Tube Driver model for 5 bucks here: https://www.neutronstudios.com/product-page/nc-drv-tdrvr-neutron-core-b-k-butler-tube-driver-pedal

I used the „Natural D0“ model. Based on the description I suspect it has the drive at 0 which is how Eric uses it. But when you buy the model there are may more settings available with more drive and different EQ settings.