Thank you so much. I'm just a little overwhelmed. What exactly is being simulated in reality, and what's the benefit? I thought it would work similarly with the align feature of the cab block.
https://wiki.fractalaudio.com/wiki/index.php?title=Cab_block#Align
It would be great if you could explain the background to me. Thank you!
I'm a layman, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong (like I really need to ask haha!): You'll want to study mic alignment to get the best idea about this. Most audio engineers, from my reading, align mics to avoid the effects of comb filtering. If you have two mics at different distances from the source, the sound will hit the mics at different times, and this can cause frequencies to start cancelling out, which is an instance of comb filtering. If you align the mics from the get go, so the sound hits them at the same time, the sound can be stronger, giving the engineer more to work with once they start hitting it with EQs and compressors and whatnot. The way Cliff has had DynaCabs programmed all this time was to have it so, no matter what distance you set your mics, they would be time aligned, even though this would not be the case in the real world. This is something, as I said, most engineers would appreciate, as that's the way they choose to work.
There is another way to approach mics that are out of time alignment: What I do is to treat one mic as a primary source, and I keep that at full volume. The second mic I keep at a lower volume, often around, say -18dB, but I go anywhere from -20dB to -5dB. This second mic is not time aligned, and it starts to remove frequencies from the first mic; it essentially acts like an EQ. As I move the second mic with my finger on the trackpad of my laptop, I adjust its volume with my left hand on the knob on the front panel of the Axe-FX III. With this, I rarely EQ my tones. I've read this referred to as phase EQ. Essentially I'm using comb filtering to smooth out any harshness of the louder mic.
A way to approach comb filtering as an EQ is to start with a mic placed as well as you can, then take a second mic at -40dB on the same cab, then slowly raise the level to start hearing the effect, now start moving the second mic as you do this, and you'll hear a world of EQ open.
