I've had a bit of an epiphany this week on the modellers vs amps debate.
I find myself loving modellers for recording but not so much for playing. You can't beat a good old valve amp etc.
Part of it is tubes vs digital emulation and the way that each of those compress the sound. However, there is also another component that I had overlooked.
The output of a modeller is the sound of a mic'd amp, rather than the sound that you hear when you are in front of an amp.
Think of it as what you hear on a recording or at front of house through the PA, rather than what you hear coming out ot the amp when you are standing in front of it. It is more 'clinical' and less fun if you are used to playing through amps.
This is an important difference. I've always tried to match my presets against the amp sound that I hear in my head when what I should be doing is matching them against the sound that I hear on recordings. And I should not expect a modeller to sound exactly like standing in front of an amp. Even if I'm using an FRFR speaker.
Maybe you knew this already and I feel a bit dumb for not thinking about it before, but It think it bears repeating.
The other part is the psychology, because you can tell just by looking that this:
....sounds better than this
Comments
Generally the reason I try to get certain sounds is because I've heard them on record so the other side of this is that an actual amp will always be a disappointment as it won't sound like the recording
And with more and more pub bands going IEM as well - is there any point in lugging heavy valve amps around? If your ears are stuffed full of isolating buds you're not hearing the amp in the room either.
I love the look of a wall of Marshalls - but a lot of pubs don't. They want a good show that isn't so loud it puts people off staying.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
Even using real amps in big venues, what you often hear as a player is the mic'd up sound coming back through your foldback, unless you're far too loud
I re record most things I do on the Helix with an ‘amp in the room’, either a Princeton or lately my Tweed Deluxe.
The Helix is a great tool and I love it but for me it’s so easy to get the perfect amp sound with a small valve combo, there’s no point trying to approximate that with a model.
That said, I like more roomy guitar tones. If I was close micing for a tight rhythm part I’d probably stick with the Helix.
Deliberately distorting a guitar sound is only a thing because valves were the available technology to amplify electrical signals, and performers in the '40s and '50s found they had to turn up their amps to the point that they started to distort in order to be heard against the other instruments in the ensemble - especially as the drum kit evolved out of jazz/ big band playing.
Then there's the philosophical part of the question of how a guitar sounds. What is your guitar tone? Is it the sound at the speaker cloth? The sound where your head is? The sound out in the room? Where in the room? Where on the stage? Is it the tone directly in front of the PA speakers, in which case your sound is partially up to a sound guy, a mic, mixing desk settings, PA speaker response? If you get your sound in one room, and take that rig into a different room with different acoustics but with the same gear settings, is it still your sound?
And @thecolourbox has a point about sitting with a loud guitar amp - it quickly gets uncomfortable. Hitting your ears with 115dB+ of sound, does your perception of what's happening in the room bear any relation to what's actually coming out the speakers? In that case, where is your tone? Is it in the room, or in your mind?
Against the backdrop of these questions, I'm totally happy to accept that if a modeller sounds convincingly like a miked up valve amp, I've got it as good as if I had a valve amp and a competent sound guy. And I don't really miss the different experience of playing a cooking valve amp in a room with no mic in sight, because that's mostly just left me with mild tinnitus.
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Or maybe when the personal on stage monitor sounds right the FOH is lacking somehow.
I've never done any FOH work so I have no clue. Especially as a bassist - when I use a real amp they've always got a good DI to give the desk.
I’m so bored I might as well be listening to Pink Floyd
I can see how a guitarist might over-process based on what they hear through a monitor - really dialling in the high and low pass filters, compressing the sound, adding some room reverb, basically tying the sound guy's hands... but I guess since I have lots of experience of knowing what a raw miked amp sounds like, I've gone for that.
It might be that I'd want to tweak my monitored sound to stop trebly beam-o-death or whatever, but I wouldn't change what was going FOH on that basis.
As for soundman attitudes to guitar modellers, I suspect it'd be totally pot luck whether they viewed the gear with relief or hatred.
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Approaches
1.) Amp-In-The-Room (AITR) and Front-Of-House (FOH) are entirely different things, yet we lump them together.
2.) These can be combined but they are entirely different things (i.e mike up an amp thought the PA)
Now, all this in my limited experience and humble opinion etc etc
So, what we hear as an audience and on record is FOH. The sound an amp makes, but not the 'feel'.
An AITR sound is that full, lovely amp sound we love as guitarists. This is the 'feel'.
The modeller won't get AITR sound UNLESS you run it through a speaker, normal guitar or FRFR.
Condition
So, whether a modeller can match a real amp for AITR is conditional, imho, on the speaker used. Ive run my Kemper very successfully thought the brilliant Red Sound RG12 which gives me the AITR (sort of - nothing matches the sound of an snap full tilt).
Having just got the Carr Mercury V (real amp) has put enormous pressure on my Kemper ownership, as the AITR sound is unbelievable good and cuts through the mix like no other amp Ive owned.
BUT, it does have a line out which enables me to run it through the PA and get the FOH (audience) sound.
The perfect solution, for me and my needs.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
Full review to follow
I always (mis)took "Amp in the room" to mean that standing in front of an amp and 4 x 12 cab is different to hearing your modeller out of an FRFR speaker, and assumed that you need to play with the controls on the modeller until you get a sound approaching the "Amp in a room" sound.
It's more nuanced than that as the difference is really that one of them includes a mic, a mic pre and possibly a power amp and flat response speaker in the signal chain and the other doesn't.
To acheive the same tone as a modeller is realtively easy (ha ha) but would require an iso box, a mic, the expertise to mic it properly and an FRFR speaker.
I guess that getting an 'amp in the room' tone from a modeller is possible in theory. - you could have simply use an IR that has a room mic (preferably two, mounted either side of a dummy's head). With a totally 'flat' mic (does such a thing exist?) perhaps this would achieve something close to the 'amp in the room'? There must be a reason that this has not been done though
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922