Played my AxeFX through a real cab for the first time yesterday...

Poparad

Poparad

Power User
I've always used FRFR monitors for my Axe, mostly using two Xitone 1x12 cabs with built in Matrix amps. I get a great sound and they're nice and portable.

My band rehearses at my drummer's place, and he's got a ton of random gear people have abandoned there over the years. He has two cabs: a Marshall 4x12 straight and a Frankensteined Marshall 4x12 slanted with who knows what speakers, plus a Rocktron 2x50w ss power amp. As soon as I saw that, I realized it would save me a lot of schlepping of gear to just use what he has, so long as it sounds good.

Now, when I plugged into it, my first instinct was to bypass the cab blocks in my presets, but when I did, everything sounded super dark and flat (the "blanket" problem), but when I unbypassed the cab blocks, it sounded great! I did all of yesterday's rehearsal with them and it worked well.

So, is it normal for people with real cabs to still use cab modelling? I had assumed that it would've been either redundant or conflicting to do so, but it actually sounded way better. Does anyone else do this?
 
Your experience is the exact opposite of pretty much everyone else. Running cab sims through a real cab typically darkens things.
 
Yea that sound to me has never been desirable or usable for my tones. I definitely agree with you though on making use of the gear he has there. I have some cabs at a few rehearsal spots. Can be annoying but beats lugging a cab around.
 
I think dark muffled vs. bright depends on the cab sim. However I have never used anything but a real guitar cab on stage and send to the board direct. My 4 x 12 cab is loaded with Celestion Creamback 65s and it sounds full clear and plain great.
My rig is AXE FX II XL Plus, through Mesa Boogie 2:Fifty to the 4 x 12 cab mentioned above. Channel 1 of the AXE goes to the board and Channel 2 goes to the Mesa amp.
I have always used amp and cab sims. To me the tone without the cab sim didn't sound as good as with the cab sim.
I generally eq out everything below 100hz and above 8k. Then I use the bass, mid and treble amp knobs to tweak the tone. I have been quite satisfied that way and get tons of compliments on my tone settings.
 
Hey if it works for you thats cool. I know there's a small percentage who do this and enjoy it. My old guitarist used to run his that way with some crazy GEQ settings as well. In general it was always to boomy and muffled to my ears but he always preferred darker sounds on any rig. Its hard for me to understand the pros of this as its like micing your cab and then running that into another amp and guitar cabinet. @Tommy Tempest what IR do you use?
 
Keg8605 said:
Hey if it works for you thats cool. I know there's a small percentage who do this and enjoy it. My old guitarist used to run his that way with some crazy GEQ settings as well. In general it was always to boomy and muffled to my ears but he always preferred darker sounds on any rig. Its hard for me to understand the pros of this as its like micing your cab and then running that into another amp and guitar cabinet. @Tommy Tempest what IR do you use?
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I find myself using the Solo 100 rhy quite a bit and Fractal GB 160 cab. I immediately go into the amp speaker section and change the low res freq to 110hz. I match the cab ir Low and high setting to my real cab.
 
It depends so much on the Cab / Speakers, and the power amp too if not flat. Honestly though, if you are happy with the sound it doesn't really matter what method you used to get there IMO.
 
Cab sim can be thought of sort of as an EQ, so depending on the cabinet/speaker combo in there, and the IR used, the results can either be really bad, or can sound quite good.

I had a 2x12 with V30's that was horrible sounding. Ice pick city... I really hated it but was saving up to get a different cab with different speakers so it was all I had at the time. I started messing around with modelers and bypassing the cab emulation sounded awful, aka, it sounded like my harsh sounding cabinet. When I would turn the cab sim on though it sounded a lot fuller and way less harsh. To me, it sounded better.

Now, maybe I could of used some EQ shaping and achieved the same thing, with even more control, but back in the day I didn't know much about that sort of thing, so instead of trying to master a parametric EQ and such, I just tried different cab models til something gave the color that worked well with my guitar cab.

To this day I use the mic IR's the same way. I'm not enough of a studio engineer to pretend to know the differences between famous mics. I can't tell you specs about how a ribbon differs from a SM57, but I know they sound different, and for a given patch changing a mic model used can give some cut or boost which may sound better or worse to my ears. Certainly not the only way to achieve that, probably not the best way, maybe not even the "right" way, but it can work.

In the end, isn't that all that matters ?

If I did the "wrong" thing by using a cab IR "baked" with a certain mic or mic blend, and instead of using other tone shaping added an extra mic IR on top of it, to change the tone, and the results sounds good, then it is good.
 
If you're running a cab sim into a real cab, you've probably dialed in your sound to make the best of that combination. When you take away one of those filters (for instance, by disabling the Cab block), the tone will become brighter. If you've don't change anything, the result could be harsh.

But if you disable the cab sim, and then dial in your tone, you might just uncover some tonal character that was previously...umm...blanketed. :)
 
Rex said:
If you're running a cab sim into a real cab, you've probably dialed in your sound to make the best of that combination. When you take away one of those filters (for instance, by disabling the Cab block), the tone will become brighter. If you've don't change anything, the result could be harsh.

But if you disable the cab sim, and then dial in your tone, you might just uncover some tonal character that was previously...umm...blanketed. :)
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That's the crazy thing, is that it was a lot darker with cab sims off. Particularly my Deluxe Reverb patch.

Rex said:
Your experience is the exact opposite of pretty much everyone else. Running cab sims through a real cab typically darkens things.
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Keg8605 said:
I know there's a small percentage who do this and enjoy it.
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This is exactly why I'm so baffled that it sounded better. I went into it expecting that the real cab alone would provide the proper tone shaping and that cab sims would just get in the way, but the difference with them on wasn't subtle at all. Even the drummer heard the difference as soon as I turned the cab sims back on by exclaiming "that's it! Whatever you did, keep that!"

Severed said:
Honestly though, if you are happy with the sound it doesn't really matter what method you used to get there IMO.
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That's what I need to let myself accept!
 
Poparad said:
That's the crazy thing, is that it was a lot darker with cab sims off. Particularly my Deluxe Reverb patch.
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That cab sim must be wicked bright. Grab a pair of headphones and see what it sounds like by itself.
 
Don't discount the effect of the room at your drummer's place that all that stuff was in when you were hearing it. It will make a difference and you probably won't get what you're hearing there if you bring it somewhere else.
 
I usually play through either 2 CLRS with cab sims or through my Carvin power amp and 2 Marshall 4x12's, no cab sims. I've often thought about doing both simultaneously (all coming from the same side of a room), but never actually done it until last weekend. I was reluctant because I always feared it would sound so good I'd never be happy with either on their own again. Damn it, I was right. I've never heard a sound so huge coming from either setup on their own. Not very portable obviously, but sure sounds good.
 
Poparad said:
So, is it normal for people with real cabs to still use cab modelling? I had assumed that it would've been either redundant or conflicting to do so, but it actually sounded way better. Does anyone else do this?
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Yes it is not strange. I also leave cab sim on when playing through my Mesa cabs. I see cab sim as your most important equalizer. When putting cab sim off it sounds totally different than what you are used to hear when you are at home. Since you have done the programming of the preset at home with other speakers putting the cab sim off at a rehearsal will probably not sound good. So better to leave it on or do some tone shaping and programming in the rehearsal room.

Let your ears be the judge and not what people say or what is the 'norm'.
 
If you go there early one day, create a new preset without a cab block and start tweaking, your pre existing presets where made for the cab block but if you create a cab only preset it will sound better. Also if using a solid state poweramp, make sure power amp modeling is still on.
 
Admin M@ said:
One of the best-selling Fractal artists I've worked with uses cab sims into cabs. To each his own.
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What I have discovered, never previously using modeling, is I pick a cab sim similar to my real 4 x 12 cab and tweak the settings. I feel it enhances my real cab and gives more fidelity to it. Of course we know all our ears are different. But for me it works.
 
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With all the tone shaping options built into the Axe Fx, not sure why anyone would want to use cab sims through a guitar cab, but hey, whatever works. I just use the Output 2 Global EQ to tweak the desired tone through my guitar cabs. Translates to all presets, done.
 
axel said:
I usually play through either 2 CLRS with cab sims or through my Carvin power amp and 2 Marshall 4x12's, no cab sims. I've often thought about doing both simultaneously (all coming from the same side of a room), but never actually done it until last weekend. I was reluctant because I always feared it would sound so good I'd never be happy with either on their own again. Damn it, I was right. I've never heard a sound so huge coming from either setup on their own. Not very portable obviously, but sure sounds good.
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You were also experiencing the scenario of moving more more air. Arguably, a 4x12 will always be fuller than a 2x12. And 2 4x12s even more. It may not matter much live these days as everything is sent to the main board. Years ago it really mattered for live situations, because nothing was sent to the PA. The PA was used primarily for vocals. The rest of the sound came from the stage.
 
Tommy Tempest said:
You were also experiencing the scenario of moving more more air. Arguably, a 4x12 will always be fuller than a 2x12. And 2 4x12s even more. It may not matter much live these days as everything is sent to the main board. Years ago it really mattered for live situations, because nothing was sent to the PA. The PA was used primarily for vocals. The rest of the sound came from the stage.
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Oh yes, most definitely, can't argue the physics. If I had 4 CLR's, even with no guitar cabs, it would most likely sound better yet.
 
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