Why are we chasing the amp in the room sound?

It’s been an interesting discussion for sure. But I think even if we just take this small sample set, ie; those of us who chose to participate, there are plenty on both sides of the argument. So at least in this small group it’s not accurate to say most guitar players lean one way or another. And I recognize that being a modeller forum we are starting with players who at least buy in to some degree. I also have no doubt that if you did a broad survey without any discussion just illiciting initial instinct, a huge number would vote for AITR. But I think if you throw in some blind tests, some discussion etc, that lead would be reduced.
 
Because that’s what it takes to keep up with a loud drummer and the rest of the band. An amp. In a room. You can play all the records on your stereo or PA at rehearsal as loud as you want all you want, the live band in the room are gonna demolish it every time.
 
∞Fractals said:
I have. Even recorded and engineered a record for papa in ‘91!

You might stop assuming so much about people. I don’t think it serves anyone very well.

I guess true live music ended in ~1972.
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Umm, you basically agreed with what I said - not many have heard an unmic’ed Leslie. Otherwise I haven’t a clue as to the rest of your comment.
 
Neill00 said:
I’m just throwing this out there because I found that in watching and reading reviews of modellers as well as being part of forums that I have been influenced by all of this discussion to such a degree that I thought I wanted it too.

I have had my Axe FX III since January 8, 2020 ( I don’t think I’ll ever forget that date). After almost a year I am getting to the point that I can tweak a patch in the headphones and it actually sounds close through the PA which I have never been able to do with any other gear ever. I use in ears on stage so this is a great advancement for me. I absolutely love the tones I am getting, they are so satisfying to play. By the way I am 59 years old and have been playing guitar since I was 11. I have owned tons of great amps over the years including Fender, HiWatt, Marshall, Mesa/Boogie and other offerings that I experimented with here and there. Naturally there were some I loved more than others and they all had their “thing”. The Hi Watt was my first really good amp and I think I liked it the best but it was big and heavy and I was looking for an easier route. Here’s the thing, sure it sounded great in the room but I looked forward to the huge power of mic’ing it up in a club and hearing it through a big PA. I also liked hearing it on recordings if we managed to get the mics positioned correctly. It also occurs to me that any time I have heard inspiring guitar tones from my favourite players it’s only been on recordings or through a PA.

The amp in the room unless it was a stack was usually best heard by my lower legs and in the smaller clubs where i just used the amp the audience wasn’t hearing what I was hearing. That has changed since switching to modellers and now with the AF3 when doing a sound check it’s super satisfying to take my wireless guitar out into the room and listen the cranked up sound. It sounds like the ton I crafted just louder and bigger since I am in a bigger space.

This discussion, if anyone is interested enough to participate, is not going to have a right or wrong answer. It’s going to be completely subjective. I put this forward not because I don’t recognize there is a difference, there absolutely is. I think what I am getting at is WHY are we chasing that? Not WHAT it is. I recognize there is a link between the “what“ and the “why” but I am as happy and satisfied with the sound of my Axe Fx III recorded, through the PA and even in headphones as I have ever been with any amp in the room I‘ve played myself or listened to others play. I will admit that wasn’t always the case, with other modellers that I previously owned it was about the dynamics and feel but AF3 takes care of that. I guess it’s more about, if Cliff figures out a way to nail it so that everyone says “yes there’s that amp in the room sound I was looking for”, what will it do for us. And if i dial up a Fender Twin with a 2 X12 cab will I have to walk 10 feet from the sound source to hear the high end? (That was a joke).
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Agree 100%!!! I set my presets at loud volumes and like I would expect it to sound in the sweet spot directly across a room with a 4x12 or whatever cab. Like you, I hear through my huge PA systems about exactly what I hear on stage with either and FRFR tilted, or sidefill monitors
on poles with 15's and a horn. No more beaming of a guitar cab where it sounds 90% different depending on where you're standing on stage or in the audience! I have enough FRFR's and PA just inside my house (practice/studio PA) to play guitar way louder than my amps into 4x12's and 2x12's if I want to blast the neighborhood to blow some steam and make my house into an arena in my mind!!!

The consistency in tone from stage to audience is as good as it can get!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I think, myself included, we got a little off track from the original idea of the thread. In my original post I pointed out that this was going to be a subjective thing and condeded that there was a difference between hearing an amp in the room and hearing my AF3 through FRFR. This was a “why are we chasing it” idea of a thread. As I said originally I am at the point that I prefer FRFR and there are plenty on here who are in that camp. We are neither right nor wrong objectively. There are those who prefer the amp in the room sound. They are neither right nor wrong objectively. So I don’t think it does any good making posts that carry an implication that you have the correct answer. This should be about your personal preference and what you think tends to make you lean in that direction.

Having said that, it’s been a fun read and interaction. My apologies if I got caught up in the discussion and offended anyone.
 
lqdsnddist said:
Of course the more SPL’s you subject your ears to the worse your hearing becomes over time, and not just auditory thresholds, but also declines in frequency discrimination and temporal processing ability.

Then everything sounds like it’s got a blanket over it, so you crank the highs but then everyone complaints about your ice pick tone, and how your to loud et al.

I don’t think anyone who has made a career out of loud guitar amps/great tone hasn’t suffered some hearing loss as a result.

I grew up with a 2203 and 4x12 in my bedroom, and it’s a beautiful thing, but these days I don’t like even my Princeton louder than 3

if I have to be in the room with a loud amp these days it better go in an iso cab or closet. Last thing my remaining hearing wants is to ever be stuck in the room with a cranked amp
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Are you presenting some new information here?
Do you think professional musicians don’t understand the impact of loud sound pressure levels to their ears?

Maybe there are a few… But much like smoking, most people know the dangers and except the risks on a personal level.
 
DougB415 said:
Umm, you basically agreed with what I said - not many have heard an unmic’ed Leslie. Otherwise I haven’t a clue as to the rest of your comment.
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you missed the point by a country mile so I’ll spell it out for you…

There are probably far more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation that you assume haven’t … Perhaps you’re just too young?
 
∞Fractals said:
you missed the point by a country mile so I’ll spell it out for you…

There are probably far more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation that you assume haven’t … Perhaps you’re just too young?
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I’m not sure I understand what you’re spelling out. The sentence is hard to decipher. As far as I can tell the debate here is about how many people have heard a real Leslie live in a room, un-mic’d vs how many have only heard it mic’d at a concert or on a recording. Which are you claiming? Your sentence says “more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation”. Did you mean to type “than”?
 
Neill00 said:
I’m not sure I understand what you’re spelling out. The sentence is hard to decipher. As far as I can tell the debate here is about how many people have heard a real Leslie live in a room, un-mic’d vs how many have only heard it mic’d at a concert or on a recording. Which are you claiming? Your sentence says “more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation”. Did you mean to type “than”?
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Probably “in” - LoL 😂
(I don’t type on a phone )
 
I’m sure the number of people who have heard a Leslie in the room is similar to the number who have used a rotary phone, or a dial up modem, or know what a cassette tape is et al...... in other words, dwindling.

heck, my daughter may end up driving and not even knowing what an internal combustion engine feels like to drive.

time, technology and experiences change, both in our day to day lives and in terms of making music.

guitarist on forums (myself included) are often older guys who want to sound like the tones of the 70/80’s ideally using gear from the 50/60’s. More power to is all, but let’s not think we really represent any majority in terms of taste, aesthetics etc lol
 
lqdsnddist said:
I’m sure the number of people who have heard a Leslie in the room is similar to the number who have used a rotary phone, or a dial up modem, or know what a cassette tape is et al...... in other words, dwindling.

heck, my daughter may end up driving and not even knowing what an internal combustion engine feels like to drive.

time, technology and experiences change, both in our day to day lives and in terms of making music.

guitarist on forums (myself included) are often older guys who want to sound like the tones of the 70/80’s ideally using gear from the 50/60’s. More power to is all, but let’s not think we really represent any majority in terms of taste, aesthetics etc lol
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You can say the same about a lot of instruments. The number of people who've heard a piano in a room is dwindling. Heck, the number of people who've heard an actual piano in a recording that's not just samples is dwindling.

Dunno what being the majority in taste or aesthetics has to do with anything.
 
Good question. Apparently I was the only one chasing amazing recorded tones in the room, while everyone else loved the way a real guitar cab sounded (harsh, beamy, and always fighting 1 freq or the other). The fractal was a godsend, finally got that perfect/polished hifi guitar tone I was always trying to pull off 🤷‍♂️
 
∞Fractals said:
you missed the point by a country mile so I’ll spell it out for you…

There are probably far more people who have heard a real Leslie and either live or recording situation that you assume haven’t … Perhaps you’re just too young?
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Umm, perhaps you assume too much in your very condescending manner. But please, go ahead and spell it out. Let’s see how you do. Hmm...

So far you’ve mentioned that YOU have been in a room with an unmic’ed Leslie some 30 years ago. That’s your proof? FWIW, it’s been around 20 years for me. Where/who is the rest of this mass of people?

As far as being too young, I’ve been collecting my Social Security checks for a few years. Take from that what you will. Perhaps you’re just too old?
 
I agree with many of yeky83’s points about live sound and that it’s important to quantify what we are after and why.

Some things I’ve considered about live vs recorded guitar sound, as a guy who used to play with 4 4x12s in stereo:

-Tube power amps have a kind of omni directional upper mid/high end glare that seems very hard to recreate with a modeler or even capture with mics. I don’t know if it’s related to their damping characteristics or the way power tubes handle harmonics when pushed, or both. That is how I define AITR. I love the axe for many reasons, but I do miss the impact and immersive quality of being near a roaring stack of 4x12s driven by my modded Mesa 2/90s. The impact of that amp sound then couples with the guitar and player, which then creates the kind of full body experience most of us got hooked on.

-Most good recorded guitar sounds involve a lot of fuss and processing; adjusting mic placement, trying different mics, maybe different cabinets and particular placements of a cabinet, EQ, compression, room mics and or reverb. All of this to try and translate the effect of a live amp in a good sounding room.

-Good drum sounds seem easier to translate into a recording. Probably because they are purely acoustic and there is less subjectivity in evaluating what they sound like in the tracking room and how well it is being reproduced in the control room. There is no question of whether the amp and cabinet are being driven loud enough to create a certain effect/sound. There is no question of trying a different cabinet or lifting it off the ground to reduce floor reflections, or whether to record the guitar without the effects in the amp head loop.

I imagine the example given above of recording a Hammond and Leslie is similarly difficult to electric guitar and often disappointing to the organist as it is to us. The organist is also trying to recreate the experience of being in a 3D space with a loud amplified sound then further interacting with the room. All of which is very hard to quantify, much less recreate in the limited dynamic range and image width of the stereo field.

All of this is to say I’m doubtful one could ever recreate AITR in the recorded medium, and by extension with a guitar amp modeler. I think the closest we might come for live Axe use is a pair of super loud stereo floor wedges like the Meyer MJF 212As. You could certainly get the same SPLs as 4x12s along with full frequency reproduction, but would it be the same enveloping sound as the same SPL level from a pair of stereo 4x12s driven by the same real tube amps? I doubt it, but I probably would still trade that for the increased fidelity and resolution of the great digital stereo effects in the Axe...
 
DougB415 said:
Umm, perhaps you assume too much in your very condescending manner. But please, go ahead and spell it out. Let’s see how you do. Hmm...

So far you’ve mentioned that YOU have been in a room with an unmic’ed Leslie some 30 years ago. That’s your proof? FWIW, it’s been around 20 years for me. Where/who is the rest of this mass of people?

As far as being too young, I’ve been collecting my Social Security checks for a few years. Take from that what you will. Perhaps you’re just too old?
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probably - lol 😂
 
For me there is no right or wrong.
I've been a studio and live musician for over 25 years and it was my daily work to hear a miced amp and cab via monitors in studio sessions etc. And of course over in ear via live sessions, gigs etc.
So I never chased the Amp in the room sound and I know both sounds very well.
Sold my Friedman BE100DLX a few weeks ago because I didn't miss anything.

But I can totally understand people who can't or won't give that up and that's absolutely fine.
The Axe is superb in doing both worlds.

And of course if I had a warehouse and unlimited money, I would storage every Amp and cab, not because I need them, just because I want them 😁

Cheers
Sash
 
I mentioned earlier the PA I have set up for rehearsal in my basement. EV sub and a pair of QSC K8.2s. The PA I take to gigs is all QSC, 2x KS112 subs and 2x K10.2.
I wanted to try the k8.2 just on it’s own with the AF3x. So I took off the 80hz crossover setting and plugged it directly into the AF3. It sounded amazing. The speaker was still mounted to the ceiling so I could hear it from anywhere the room. It can be painfully loud even with the AF3 level on half and and 8.2 on half. These are great speakers and can handle high volume easily. I was concerned about the low end only being an 8” driver but for guitar it’s got plenty of low end. These speakers are 2000 watt class D with 128db peak.
Bottom line, cranked up they sound pretty amazing in the room. I do still look at amps and want to buy them, but I think it’s just a romantic notion I have where guitar amps are concerned.
 
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