Why are we chasing the amp in the room sound?

RLD said:
Electric guitar is not an acoustic instrument. It uses a speaker. The analogy to an acoustic piano or acoustic guitar is flawed.
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It's kind of like bow and violin, they work together to make the sounds we create with. Those tones exist in the room with the band (if that even happens), then a different version of them ends up on records.
 
Didn't start playing guitar until my late 40s - Up to that point almost all my exposure to electric guitar was via venue PA or recorded music - only a small % of my exposure was "amp/cab in the room" (ie small clubs, friends with guitar amps).

Result: I don't like the amp/cab in the room tone nearly as much as FrFr. And man I have tried to like it because I thought/think I'm supposed to given all the comments everywhere about there being nothing better than the tone of a real cab pushing air ... - spent lots of $ on nice cabs for at home use (currently have a pair of Mesa 112 Cabs with GT1000fx and a descent tube combo). Of course I can hear the difference but when I play thru a real cab I find myself tweaking the tone to get it closer to an frfr type tone (becomes pointless). And its not lack of volume - in fact, contrary to others experience, the louder I crank a real/amp cab, the worse it usually sounds to me even if the tone dialing is done at hi volume. At the end of the day I should just sell the real cabs etc, but I keep thinking there must be something magical there as I watch Mick and Dan raving about the extacy of a loud cranked tube amp in the room - I have not experienced this joy.
 
sprint said:
Didn't start playing guitar until my late 40s - Up to that point almost all my exposure to electric guitar was via venue PA or recorded music - only a small % of my exposure was "amp/cab in the room" (ie small clubs, friends with guitar amps).

Result: I don't like the amp/cab in the room tone nearly as much as FrFr. And man I have tried to like it because I thought/think I'm supposed to given all the comments everywhere about there being nothing better than the tone of a real cab pushing air ... - spent lots of $ on nice cabs for at home use (currently have a pair of Mesa 112 Cabs with GT1000fx and a descent tube combo). Of course I can hear the difference but when I play thru a real cab I find myself tweaking the tone to get it closer to an frfr type tone (becomes pointless). And its not lack of volume - in fact, contrary to others experience, the louder I crank a real/amp cab, the worse it usually sounds to me even if the tone dialing is done at hi volume. At the end of the day I should just sell the real cabs etc, but I keep thinking there must be something magical there as I watch Mick and Dan raving about the extacy of a loud cranked tube amp in the room - I have not experienced this joy.
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Do it through three Bogner straight 4x12s, left/dry/right as I did for a decade. I’m in hearing preservation mode now.
 
Dave Merrill said:
It's kind of like bow and violin, they work together to make the sounds we create with. Those tones exist in the room with the band (if that even happens), then a different version of them ends up on records.
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I guess my point is the difference between any acoustic instrument and its electric equivalent or recorded sound is far greater than a guitar/amp vs guitar/FRFR.
An acoustic instrument doesn't need a speaker, but any reproduction of it will.
So comparing an acoustic piano and its reproduction, to a guitar amp and an FRFR is not valid, IMO. :)
 
There's undoubtedly a difference between the sound of a miked cab and unmiked cab. Some people prefer the direct, unmiked sound of a cab vs. what amounts to a recording of it.
 
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RLD said:
I guess my point is the difference between any acoustic instrument and its electric equivalent or recorded sound is far greater than a guitar/amp vs guitar/FRFR. An acoustic instrument doesn't need a speaker, but any reproduction of it will.
So comparing an acoustic piano and its reproduction, to a guitar amp and an FRFR is not valid, IMO.
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I agree that it's not a perfect analogy, but I do think it's comparable in the sense that one is the direct sound of the thing being compared (eg. FRFR, piano, etc.) vs. the sound of that thing as filtered through a microphone.
 
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yeky83 said:
I'll take my favorite vocalists' live acoustic tone over an "unnaturally" recorded tone of them any day.
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The thing is, that's not our choice. Unless you know the artist personally, you're never going to hear their "live acoustic tone" -- you're going to hear what they choose to present through microphones and processing.

With a concert violinist, you can buy a ticket and hear their "live acoustic tone."

With most instrumentalists and singers, we don't have any reference for what "tone in the room" would even be. What does Pat Metheny's L-5 sound like up close, acoustically ? How loud does he run his amp on stage ? Unless he invites us onstage for soundcheck, we really have no idea.
 
Another thing to consider, until a decade ago almost no one recorded, it was cost prohibitive. In 1993 we recorded an EP, at $400/hr. No free time was included, load in and load out was on our time.

So for most, amp in the room was the only tone they ever knew. They didn’t go out front and hear what their audience did.
 
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James Nash said:
The thing is, that's not our choice. Unless you know the artist personally, you're never going to hear their "live acoustic tone" -- you're going to hear what they choose to present through microphones and processing.

With a concert violinist, you can buy a ticket and hear their "live acoustic tone."

With most instrumentalists and singers, we don't have any reference for what "tone in the room" would even be. What does Pat Metheny's L-5 sound like up close, acoustically ? How loud does he run his amp on stage ? Unless he invites us onstage for soundcheck, we really have no idea.
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The thread topic is what sound do you chase, not what sound do you have an exact idea of. It seems you would agree with me that if you had the chance to hear Pat Metheny's sound up close as he hears it and has chased it himself, you'd probably prefer it to his recorded sound.
 
yoitsmegabe said:
I use the word snippet because if you move the microphone to another location you get a different sound. There are a lot of places you can move that mic and changing the mic alters the sound as well. Look at how many different 4x12 v30 sm57 IRs exist that sound different. How is that not a small portion of the possible results? I don't use the word to trivialize the process, its utility, or sophistication.
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I didn’t mean to say that you intentionally used that word. Just that the word might be a little bit loaded. We all have our own usages for words and I am totally good with you using language as you will. It just occurred to me that ”snippet“ might conjure certain images in the readers mind.

As far as your follow up, again I partially agree in that moving the mic will change the sound but the idea is to position the mic so that the amp/cab sounds as good as possible. After all the bare amp in the room un-mic’d is just a single sound that you’ve settled on after tweaking. So I would offer that it doesn’t matter that the mic is in one location as long as you capture what you wanted to capture.
 
yeky83 said:
The thread topic is what sound do you chase, not what sound do you have an exact idea of. It seems you would agree with me that if you had the chance to hear Pat Metheny's sound up close as he hears it and has chased it himself, you'd prefer it and would chase it instead of his recorded sound.
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I think the point is we don’t get to do that. You said earlier that you don’t want to sound like the recordings of your favourite guitarists, you want to sound like your favourite guitarists. Have you been in their house to hear them un-mic’d? Are your favourite guitarists close friends of yours? If not how would you know? How could you compare. For example, I love Eric Johnson’s recorded tone, he sounds great live too but I’ll never get to hear just his amp in the room. I’d be willing to bet that Eric Johnson is pretty fussy about how his guitar sound is recorded and so I think being not as fussy as I’m sure he is, I’m quite fine chasing his recorded tone. As a side note, in this case, I would only chase his tone for the fun of it. It’s too identifiable to actually go out and use it live.
 
Why are we chasing the amp in the room sound?

my $0.02.

Some do because they are told they should be. It's an offshoot of t,he "got to be a tube amp" mentality.

Still others, because they have played legacy amps, and want the same thing.

An offshoot of that, are those that ave damaged their hearing sufficiently, from playing loud legacy amps for so long, that they can't hear it decently unless it IS loud (and the visceral air moving augments what they no longer actually hear).
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
I laugh my ass off when driving around in parking garages in the MINI and its exhaust rumble sets off car alarms. 1.6L 4-banger. Scares the pee out of Fiats, Hondas, Toyotas, Chevies, and Fords....

For my two cents on the topic:
I dial in a good FOH sound over FRFR studio monitors, and when I run that through my SpaceStation XL, I am happy with the results. The big difference is that I am only trying to sound like me most of the time, and most of the time, that works.
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I think where a lot of people mess up when trying to cop an amp in the room tone and feel is with the low end. Lots of tips tossed around about adjusting the low cut on your IR or Amp block when really that doesn't exist on a real amp and cab. That's something that is taken care of in your DAW in most cases.
 
Neill00 said:
I think the point is we don’t get to do that. You said earlier that you don’t want to sound like the recordings of your favourite guitarists, you want to sound like your favourite guitarists. Have you been in their house to hear them un-mic’d? Are your favourite guitarists close friends of yours? If not how would you know? How could you compare. For example, I love Eric Johnson’s recorded tone, he sounds great live too but I’ll never get to hear just his amp in the room. I’d be willing to bet that Eric Johnson is pretty fussy about how his guitar sound is recorded and so I think being not as fussy as I’m sure he is, I’m quite fine chasing his recorded tone. As a side note, in this case, I would only chase his tone for the fun of it. It’s too identifiable to actually go out and use it live.
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You do get to do that. Which of these two options gets you to sound more like Eric Johnson? You with all of Eric Johnson's guitar, amp, pedals, etc., playing with an IR that makes you sound like his album? Or the same but now using the same guitar cabs he uses? Seems pretty simple to me.

If a kid grew up today listening to SRV recordings and wanted to sound like SRV, he's going to sound a hell of a lot more like SRV plugged into whatever Fender cab he used than using some Fender IR. How is this debatable? Need to be their friend or be in their house or you can't know? lol
 
yeky83 said:
If a kid grew up today listening to SRV recordings and wanted to sound like SRV, he's going to sound a hell of a lot more like SRV plugged into whatever Fender cab he used than using some Fender IR. How is this debatable? Need to be their friend or be in their house or you can't know? lol
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He/she will choose the IR as it will sound most like what she/he thinks SRV sounds like and he/she will be happy to hear herself/himself playing SRVs music just like SRV sounds like to he/she from the record - to her/him, SRVs live in the room sound is irrelevant - edit - and if he/she ever heard SRVs live tone she/he may not even like it or want to emulate it.
 
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sprint said:
He/she will choose the IR as it will sound most like what she/he thinks SRV sounds like and he/she will be happy to hear herself/himself playing SRVs music just like SRV sounds like to he/she from the record - to her/him, SRVs live in the room sound is irrelevant - edit - and if he/she ever heard SRVs live tone she/he may not even like it or want to emulate it.
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Get your own hypothetical kid! My SRV loving hypothetical kid isn't that willfully ignorant.
 
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