Survey: Do you tweak your amp first and select a cab sim or the other way around?

[lexodio]

New ultra owner. Out of curiosity...
For those that use cab sims all or most of the time, do you (in general) prefer to pick a cab sim first and then fine tune your amp to that cab (or cab cocktail)? Do you first tweak the amp parameters (and eqs and such), then try to find the cab sim (or cab cocktail) that brings out the best in the amp? Or do you do some combo of "simul-tweaking"; working with changing both as you are creating a patch? This, of course is a general thing, as I'm assuming that there will be a great number of people that alternate, but which describes your patch-creation-process for the most part?

 

[steadystate]

The process below is what I generally use, although there are many exceptions.

I start with nothing but an amp and cab. I pick a cab that I know is in the ballpark, then go through each amp model until I find one that has the right distortion characteristics. This in itself is time consuming, since I have to adjust the amps' tone stack, drive, and master volume to determine if the amp distorts (or not) the way I wish. Most often I can easily narrow the choice to about three amps. Deciding among the top contenders can be difficult. I then use pre eq if needed to further refine the way the amp distorts. Often the amp Advanced controls will be sufficient.

I then go through the cab sims to find the one that is closest to the tone I seek and pick a microphone. Again, I can easily pick about three top contenders, and then spend forever deciding which is best. I then mix a second cab (within the same block) to the first, running through the list until I find one that combines best with the first. I then choose a mic for that cab. I then adjust relative levels of the cabs and use the amps tone stack to obtain the best tone with no post eq.

I then use post eq to further shape the tone. It is amazing what even a little PEQ can do for what at first seemed to be a great tone. At this point, I adjust all parameters of all blocks for fine tuning.

When the raw tone is complete, I start adding effects.

 

[jzgtrguy]

I pick the amp first and then the cab. I spend the lions share of my time tweaking the cab and mic sims.

 

[antcarrier]

I usually pick the amp I want to use, then with its settings at default find cabs and mics that compliment the raw amp. Then I tweak the amp settings. IMHO switching cabs will change the tone too drastically to make pre tweaking of the amp efficient, as you will just need to re-tweak to optimise it for each cab.

That being said I do occasionally flip through the cabs on a polished preset just incase I stumble upon a hidden treasure!

 

[ML SOUND LAB]

Depends on many things. If I have a certain tone in my head I'll usually choose the cab first. I might test a few cabs but mainly you need different amp settings for different cabs. Just like in real life. So scrolling them doesn't really tell you anything about the potential if you don't tweak them.

 

[Griffin]

I usually have an amp tweaked to a point, run a few different cabs/ir mixes with it, tweaking the amp a little as I go, then a bit more tweaking on the amp. My user slots are pretty set with "ideal" cabs (for me) and they will not change lightly.

If I still don't get what I am after then I tend to rattle through individual IRs that I think should work for a given sound, and see if I can work a user IR mix to incoroprate some of that character, without screwing over my other patches. If it is for recording, then I don't have that same constraint, so any IR/mix goes!

That said sometimes the wackiest combos give up some great sounds...


No single rule of thumb I guess....sometimes I just get "lucky" - I'd like to think through experience, but not always!!!

 

[yek]

I'm conservative I guess. I always choose a (stock or 3rd party) IR that traditionally goes with that amp. And tweak from there.
In some cases (f.e. SLO) I go for another type of cab.

 

[jonPhillips]

I usually choose an amp and pair it with a 'recommended' cab, or IR. I then tweak the amp to get the sound I'm after. Effects after that.

 

[Scott Peterson]

Hand in hand. Adjust to IR chosen, tweak amp. Try different cab, retweak. Usually within a few minutes the right combination is fairly obvious. Then hit the details, and move on.

I go into each patch with a preset template I use for presets; I just plug in the amp and cab into that template. The only exceptions are for very specific use presets. After amp/cab, I then slightly tweak all the effects if needed.

 

[R.D.]

Hand in hand. Adjust to IR chosen, tweak amp. Try different cab, retweak. Usually within a few minutes the right combination is fairly obvious. Then hit the details, and move on.

I go into each patch with a preset template I use for presets; I just plug in the amp and cab into that template. The only exceptions are for very specific use presets. After amp/cab, I then slightly tweak all the effects if needed.

+1

 

[jon]

Lately I've been pairing amps with the recommended cabs and finding them better matches than some of my experiments. I typically only use about 3 cabs tho, the rest I haven't found to my liking, but pairing them with the amps recommended is giving me some good results.

 

[zenaxe]

I usually know what I'm going for in terms of real, physical, gear first. Like, say, I'm thinking "for this tone, ideally, I'd want a Tube screamer, a Plexi, and a Marshall 4x12 with Greenbacks". So I'll seed the chain with those models, dial in the amp, then the drive and then tweak the cab. Sometimes the tweaking of those components involves switching IRs or models.

I usually follow that order though and I'm usually pretty good at guessing the initial chain (and the Axe is good enough at modeling that the models sound generally like what they're supposed to) but during those tweaking feedback loops I reserve the right to change, add, or drop, anything!

I answered #2, though, since I usually put down an initial virtual rig first and dial the amp first. I also keep the original amp more often than I keep the original cab IR.

 

[speedloader]

Both, but when I have to try a new amp and a new cab, my top priority is to normalize the cab in comparison to an IR which I'm using as a touchstone. So I'm tweaking the cab first. Now all my IRs (redwirez) are normalized and the axe became more user-friendly, or at least speedloader-friendly ..