Cab Emulation

Radley

Radley

Experienced
From the experience I have had with the AFXll for the last 3 weeks, I would say this: I believe the Cab Emulation is a key factor in how the AFXll ultimately sounds. The Cab emulation is hugely important for great tone, tightness, and fizzless highs - I believe we have been at somewhat a 'disadvantage' because of a weakness in this critical area (weakness in the way the IRs sound as compared to the amp models). Cab emulation can make an amp model sound great, or sound weak and unnatural. I say this after hearing how much better the unit sounds when combining far field Cabs (a la Scott P) - it seems to me that more of our IRs should be based on this knowledge. I can only hope that this will spark a new batch of IRs that sound this way without having to blend 2 cabs to mono. :)
 
Last edited:
Yeah - the cab is massively important. I'm really liking the Ownhammers right now but that is just because I haven't had the time to really play with the Redwirez and with mixing IRs.

The question I am still trying to work out is - what constitutes the best sound for fitting in the mix.

I find a lot of patches people put up have a heap of bottom end ( < 100 HZ) and/or a head of top end ( > 5k). I always wonder if they are actually using those patches in a mix or live band situation or whether they are making sounds to play solo. I tend to shelve everything < 120 - 130 and > 5 - 7k which also massively alters everything.

I keep waiting for sound guys to suggest improvements but honestly, all I've has since I started using my Ultra in December is "sounds great - what IS that thing?
 
Hey radley, what exactly are the other modellers doing better then the axe 2 in regards to cab emulation?
 
jamieosborn said:
I find a lot of patches people put up have a heap of bottom end ( < 100 HZ) and/or a head of top end ( > 5k). I always wonder if they are actually using those patches in a mix or live band situation or whether they are making sounds to play solo. I tend to shelve everything < 120 - 130 and > 5 - 7k which also massively alters everything.
Click to expand...

^ that's pretty much what I do too. I can't really use patches live that have all that top and bottom end.

As for the cabs, yeah, they are a huge chunk of tone. I'd estimate the cab as 70% of tone shaping, but do not forget that the INTERACTION between the two is what makes the difference. With the dynamic modeling in firmware 5, I think FAS have passed a major hurdle, and have totally re-defined modeling on the whole.
 
Last edited:
The motor drive has been the most exciting thing for me recently. The unit was great before 5, now is out it is absolutely amazing.
 
rsf1977 said:
Hey radley, what exactly are the other modellers doing better then the axe 2 in regards to cab emulation?
Click to expand...

Please excuse my previously clumsy wording - I meant to say we have not been hearing the AFX in it's 'full glory' because of lack of more flattering & natural-sounding IRs. The design of the Cab modules themselves is great - I still can't believe how cool the Size parameter is in the mono Cab! :)
 
Radley said:
Please excuse my previously clumsy wording - I meant to say we have not been hearing the AFX in it's 'full glory' because of lack of more flattering & natural-sounding IRs. The design of the Cab modules themselves is great - I still can't believe how cool the Size parameter is in the mono Cab! :)
Click to expand...

Would purchasing the OwnHammer or Redwirez stuff drastically improve the situation or is everything not far enough along yet?

I've never used anything but the stock IR's save for one that was given to me for a U2 patch that I was told had to be used or it would just suck big time.
 
I know this stuff has all been discussed in great technical detail but IMO if we ever get to full dynamic cab emulation, then we will arrive.
I'm no Jay Mitchell but I know if you listen closely to your real guitar cab as you play, you will hear different resonances and responses that the cab itself has as the volume and frequencies in the amp change.
I can't imagine how much processing it would take to make an IR "realtime" sounding but having some dynamic repsonse in the cab IR's would be another leap forward. I don't know how much the "motor drive" adds to this but we still have a static IR of the cab it's going through. I think it's the main reason modelling still doesn't sound as 3d as it could when playing through FRFR.
Right now I still prefer and am happy playing the AXEII through guitar cabs.
 
The way I look at it is FAS does have limitations in terms of how much it can really give when it comes to IR options. All this stuff is so user dependent too. What guitar? What kind of wood? What pickups? What pots? The list goes on and on. So they gave us IRs that are friendly in a very generic way so that the most people could get the most use out of them.

And certainly, there are guys who use the stock cabs and get the job done. Have you ever heard Bulb's Das Metall with the german cab and a SM57? It's crazy good. Ridiculous even. I did finally pick up the Red Wires Big Box though, and am very happy with the results. I'm still experimenting, but I'm getting a lot more refined sounds even after a little while. I highly suggest them if you aren't finding your tonal nirvana with the stock cabs. It's helped me a great deal.
 
I feel like I'm almost spamming this post all over; but it's my personal 'solution' to what I feel this discussion underlies. The reason I feel the cab IR block has any of these issues isn't IMHO related to the cab block or the IR's or use of IR's... it is more to the fact that the VAST majority of IR's are NF (near field) right up on the speaker grille. That's, IMHO, never discussed; but that's the whole point of FF IR's.

Stick your ear up close to a speaker... and it sounds unnatural. Stick a microphone up close to a grille.... and it sounds unnatural. That's the reason, IMHO, IR's add all sorts of highs and lows that we have to cut out for it to 'cut' and sound right.

Now, FF IR's by themselves don't sound right to me personally - IMHO - any more than the NF IR's by themselves. I fought against this for years now, mixing IR's from different distances (and the back of the cab) in an effort to offset this.

With the Axe-FX II, there is a simple way to handle this. Imperfect? Yes; but it sounds good and feels right to ME. IMHO, YMMV.

Here's my post-5.xx recommendations for live/recording. If you follow this, you may find that all the 'too bright!' and 'too dark!' sort of threads disappear. I cobbled this together from a few different posts all over the forums.


Amp/cab ONLY. No reverb, no effects, no PEQ, no EQ, no Global. Zip, nada, nothing. Just an amp/cab.


Start with your sound in the amp block. Take your cab block in the Axe-FX and make it stereo. Then pan them both center. Room settings to off. Speaker Cab Motor at 5.00 (noon). Proximity to taste. Make one speaker IR an OwnHammer that is a proper choice for your amp type (say the G65 OH) and *No Mic*; then the other make it a Jay Mitchell FF IR - I use the EV112 and G12-65 JM mainly and *No Mic*. In the amp block, then make the speaker drive 1.50.... and tweak in your Drive/Master Volume and then tone stack EQ on the amp block as you normally would till you like how it sounds. That's it.


IMHO, most all IR's you are using are all close mic'd and that's been a major flaw thus far in use with them... because that's how it's been done for decades. That's why mix engineers use so much EQ... and we have too with the Axe-FX (ie. blocking lows/highs after the cab, etc)..


Seriously, try this and let me know what you think.


Fender (or Fender Like tones): OH 112 Boogafunk E12L/JM 112 EMI Open Back FF
Vox (or Vox like tones): OH 112 Boogafunk Blue/JM EMI 112 Open Back FF
Marshall: OH 412 SLM M75/JM 212 G12-65 FF
Higher Gain: OH SLM G65 (*or OH V30, H75, Blue, or G65)/JM 212 G12-65 FFNote (repeated for emphasis): No mic. No room reverb from block. Speaker Motor Drive at 5.00 (noon). Both cabs panned center.


It'll sound good. Tweak from there to find your own flavors.
 
kev said:
I know this stuff has all been discussed in great technical detail but IMO if we ever get to full dynamic cab emulation, then we will arrive.
I'm no Jay Mitchell but I know if you listen closely to your real guitar cab as you play, you will hear different resonances and responses that the cab itself has as the volume and frequencies in the amp change.
I can't imagine how much processing it would take to make an IR "realtime" sounding but having some dynamic repsonse in the cab IR's would be another leap forward. I don't know how much the "motor drive" adds to this but we still have a static IR of the cab it's going through. I think it's the main reason modelling still doesn't sound as 3d as it could when playing through FRFR.
Right now I still prefer and am happy playing the AXEII through guitar cabs.
Click to expand...

you're talking about further modeling one of the most complex electrical/mechanical interactions known to man. I DO understand where you're coming from tho, and agree with that.
HOWEVER, I expect further iterations of the dynamic modeling, but from what we have so far, it is VERY good, and a milestone for modeling, guitar players everywhere, AND mathematicians/engineers/nerds. Rome was not built in a day, but from what I'm seeing so far, they have pretty much done it. I can no longer say things like 'modeling lacks the FEEL of a real amp' anymore, because now it does. 100% there? Probably not, but not too far off either! ;) I'd say about 80% there. The last 20% will be things that only few people will feel or hear, and it will be more diminishing returns than anything else. It's safe to say that the bulk of the work has been completed as far as I can tell.

Congrats to FAS for still one of the most amazing breakthroughs in modeling technology! ;)
 
Scott Peterson said:
I feel like I'm almost spamming this post all over; but it's my personal 'solution' to what I feel this discussion underlies. The reason I feel the cab IR block has any of these issues isn't IMHO related to the cab block or the IR's or use of IR's... it is more to the fact that the VAST majority of IR's are NF (near field) right up on the speaker grille. That's, IMHO, never discussed; but that's the whole point of FF IR's.

Stick your ear up close to a speaker... and it sounds unnatural. Stick a microphone up close to a grille.... and it sounds unnatural. That's the reason, IMHO, IR's add all sorts of highs and lows that we have to cut out for it to 'cut' and sound right.

Now, FF IR's by themselves don't sound right to me personally - IMHO - any more than the NF IR's by themselves. I fought against this for years now, mixing IR's from different distances (and the back of the cab) in an effort to offset this.

With the Axe-FX II, there is a simple way to handle this. Imperfect? Yes; but it sounds good and feels right to ME. IMHO, YMMV.

Here's my post-5.xx recommendations for live/recording. If you follow this, you may find that all the 'too bright!' and 'too dark!' sort of threads disappear. I cobbled this together from a few different posts all over the forums.


Amp/cab ONLY. No reverb, no effects, no PEQ, no EQ, no Global. Zip, nada, nothing. Just an amp/cab.


Start with your sound in the amp block. Take your cab block in the Axe-FX and make it stereo. Then pan them both center. Room settings to off. Speaker Cab Motor at 5.00 (noon). Proximity to taste. Make one speaker IR an OwnHammer that is a proper choice for your amp type (say the G65 OH) and *No Mic*; then the other make it a Jay Mitchell FF IR - I use the EV112 and G12-65 JM mainly and *No Mic*. In the amp block, then make the speaker drive 1.50.... and tweak in your Drive/Master Volume and then tone stack EQ on the amp block as you normally would till you like how it sounds. That's it.


IMHO, most all IR's you are using are all close mic'd and that's been a major flaw thus far in use with them... because that's how it's been done for decades. That's why mix engineers use so much EQ... and we have too with the Axe-FX (ie. blocking lows/highs after the cab, etc)..


Seriously, try this and let me know what you think.


Fender (or Fender Like tones): OH 112 Boogafunk E12L/JM 112 EMI Open Back FF
Vox (or Vox like tones): OH 112 Boogafunk Blue/JM EMI 112 Open Back FF
Marshall: OH 412 SLM M75/JM 212 G12-65 FF
Higher Gain: OH SLM G65 (*or OH V30, H75, Blue, or G65)/JM 212 G12-65 FFNote (repeated for emphasis): No mic. No room reverb from block. Speaker Motor Drive at 5.00 (noon). Both cabs panned center.


It'll sound good. Tweak from there to find your own flavors.
Click to expand...

great post scott. I've been pretty much doing that with the ultra, to great effect. Almost all of my patches since I first got the ultra have something like it.
Oddly, in the II (with firmware 5) I do not feel that I need them as much. The 'feel' outweighs everything else, and I am now comfortable to use just a close mic'd IR. I still add in a far field IR here and there, but it's more habit than anything else. The feel is there in spades.
 
kev said:
I know this stuff has all been discussed in great technical detail but IMO if we ever get to full dynamic cab emulation, then we will arrive.
I'm no Jay Mitchell but I know if you listen closely to your real guitar cab as you play, you will hear different resonances and responses that the cab itself has as the volume and frequencies in the amp change.
I can't imagine how much processing it would take to make an IR "realtime" sounding but having some dynamic repsonse in the cab IR's would be another leap forward. I don't know how much the "motor drive" adds to this but we still have a static IR of the cab it's going through. I think it's the main reason modelling still doesn't sound as 3d as it could when playing through FRFR.
Right now I still prefer and am happy playing the AXEII through guitar cabs.
Click to expand...

I used to think the same thing.

But I now believe it is somewhat of a misunderstanding.

What you are describing is the power amp -> speaker interaction not the speaker alone's contribution.

With the AxeFx II firmware 5.x and greater, the power amp simulation is really *there* IMO.

What we need now is a large library of far field IR's captured with the quality of Jay's and a truly neutral monitor system. That is what is exciting about the Atomic CLR and the possibility that Jay will sell an IR collection.

Richard
 
Scott Peterson said:
I feel like I'm almost spamming this post all over; but it's my personal 'solution' to what I feel this discussion underlies. The reason I feel the cab IR block has any of these issues isn't IMHO related to the cab block or the IR's or use of IR's... it is more to the fact that the VAST majority of IR's are NF (near field) right up on the speaker grille. That's, IMHO, never discussed; but that's the whole point of FF IR's.

Stick your ear up close to a speaker... and it sounds unnatural. Stick a microphone up close to a grille.... and it sounds unnatural. That's the reason, IMHO, IR's add all sorts of highs and lows that we have to cut out for it to 'cut' and sound right.

Now, FF IR's by themselves don't sound right to me personally - IMHO - any more than the NF IR's by themselves. I fought against this for years now, mixing IR's from different distances (and the back of the cab) in an effort to offset this.

With the Axe-FX II, there is a simple way to handle this. Imperfect? Yes; but it sounds good and feels right to ME. IMHO, YMMV.

Here's my post-5.xx recommendations for live/recording. If you follow this, you may find that all the 'too bright!' and 'too dark!' sort of threads disappear. I cobbled this together from a few different posts all over the forums.


Amp/cab ONLY. No reverb, no effects, no PEQ, no EQ, no Global. Zip, nada, nothing. Just an amp/cab.


Start with your sound in the amp block. Take your cab block in the Axe-FX and make it stereo. Then pan them both center. Room settings to off. Speaker Cab Motor at 5.00 (noon). Proximity to taste. Make one speaker IR an OwnHammer that is a proper choice for your amp type (say the G65 OH) and *No Mic*; then the other make it a Jay Mitchell FF IR - I use the EV112 and G12-65 JM mainly and *No Mic*. In the amp block, then make the speaker drive 1.50.... and tweak in your Drive/Master Volume and then tone stack EQ on the amp block as you normally would till you like how it sounds. That's it.


IMHO, most all IR's you are using are all close mic'd and that's been a major flaw thus far in use with them... because that's how it's been done for decades. That's why mix engineers use so much EQ... and we have too with the Axe-FX (ie. blocking lows/highs after the cab, etc)..


Seriously, try this and let me know what you think.


Fender (or Fender Like tones): OH 112 Boogafunk E12L/JM 112 EMI Open Back FF
Vox (or Vox like tones): OH 112 Boogafunk Blue/JM EMI 112 Open Back FF
Marshall: OH 412 SLM M75/JM 212 G12-65 FF
Higher Gain: OH SLM G65 (*or OH V30, H75, Blue, or G65)/JM 212 G12-65 FFNote (repeated for emphasis): No mic. No room reverb from block. Speaker Motor Drive at 5.00 (noon). Both cabs panned center.


It'll sound good. Tweak from there to find your own flavors.
Click to expand...
I tried this for a little while tonight, on a few Marshally presets and it sounded better than my one cab no mic appoach, more depth to the cabs.
Thanks for the tip.
 
Scott Peterson said:
Fender (or Fender Like tones): [/B]OH 112 Boogafunk E12L/JM 112 EMI Open Back FF
Vox (or Vox like tones): OH 112 Boogafunk Blue/JM EMI 112 Open Back FF
Marshall: OH 412 SLM M75/JM 212 G12-65 FF
Higher Gain: OH SLM G65 (*or OH V30, H75, Blue, or G65)/JM 212 G12-65 FFNote (repeated for emphasis): No mic. No room reverb from block. Speaker Motor Drive at 5.00 (noon). Both cabs panned center.
Click to expand...

Uh.....I can only see two FF IR's in the Axe-Fx II...where in space are all these FF IR's?
 
Trazan said:
Uh.....I can only see two FF IR's in the Axe-Fx II...where in space are all these FF IR's?
Click to expand...
The first cab in each Type is a NF IR, the second is the FF. The "OH" in each appears following the cab name in Axe-Edit and in the Axe-Fx II, as does the JM. Each of the JM cabs are in the factory Cab list, first column (left side). First one is about ten cabs down, the other two are together, just a few up from the bottom.
 
Ah ok, so this Jay Mitchell dude is the guy with the far fields. Thanks, mixing them sounds good 8)
 
to me its all about the result .. saying that im completly good with the stock IRs .. there is always one IR pleasing the sound ;)

just listen to some dry guitar tracks of your favourite song. most of the guitar tracks are cut below 80hz, 100hz or even higher and have MUCH top end. like scott said: place your ear in front of a real cab and it will sound unnatural.

if youre going live or recording and dont want to use a real cab you have to get used to seeing the guitar tracks as part of the mix and not as a solo track ;)

i have done several guitar recordings for several albums and most of the time i needed many mics and/or much EQ to fit it, so here is my advice for recording: reamp several tracks of your recording with completly different IRs and then mix them togehter. DONT EQ the single tracks, instead use the volume faders as a EQ. when youre done with that you can route them to a single bus and EQ/compress it here.

ive barely never hear a soloed guitar track recorded with one mice which sounds good soloed AND in the mix. if you can ALWAYS judge the sound in the context e.g. the whole mix!
 
When I record real amps, I've always used two mics, and often a third mic a bit farther away. Almost a far field then! :) Two tracks from one amp sounds more natural than one harsh "SM57 1inch" type spiky sound. Both of those tracks can sound ugly by themselves, but together they are better. After getting Axe2 two days ago, this was the first thing I tried, and I liked it. And no need to worry about mic placement, that is always a precision thing with real amps, because you will easily get phase problems when you use two mics if you don't know what you're doing.

Now if only I could tweak this thing to bend to my will and reach the mental image (mental sound?) of a nice guitar tone... Gotta get home and play, I didn't get to play at all yesterday, you can guess how bad that feels!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom