Amp in a Room vs Studio Recorded Tones

To the original question...

I'm not sure there is a straight forward answer to that question. It really depends upon the goal at the time. I'm not really a bedroom player, so all of my tones are designed for playing with a song I wrote, so i guess it depend upon the song. I just give the song what it needs, and my preference changes depending upon that need. It doesn't even have anything to do with it being in or out of the mix either. If I'm playing a riff from a certain song, then I want to hear the tone I designed for that song.

I do have a few different defaults I go to when I'm writing new material, but even those have different types of feels to them. Some are a little more raw, and some are a little more processed, but in the end it's all about the song.
 
I guess I could always tell the audience “yes my $600 amp sounds better than my $3,000 gear, but through the logic of apples to oranges it doesn’t really.”

I'm guessing you've probably never played for an audience, because 1) no one in the audience is going to notice a difference or care and 2) the sound you hear when you play that AC15 in your bedroom is NOT what the audience is hearing at a gig, so unless you invite a handful over to hear it in all its true glory, its kind of a moot point, on top of the fact that things that 'matter' on gear forums don't matter to 99.99% of the general public.

This place is starting to turn in TGP levels of absurdity where guys will have 10 page 'debates' about what type of screws sound best in a stomp box battery cover

That or you've done a darn fine job of trolling the regulars of this forum
 
I'm guessing you've probably never played for an audience, because 1) no one in the audience is going to notice a difference or care and 2) the sound you hear when you play that AC15 in your bedroom is NOT what the audience is hearing at a gig, so unless you invite a handful over to hear it in all its true glory, its kind of a moot point, on top of the fact that things that 'matter' on gear forums don't matter to 99.99% of the general public.

This place is starting to turn in TGP levels of absurdity where guys will have 10 page 'debates' about what type of screws sound best in a stomp box battery cover

That or you've done a darn fine job of trolling the regulars of this forum
Some of us actually care about tone. You spent all this money to buy about an Axe and how it sounds to your audience is not important? Why would you question if I have played in front of other people? Is it so important that the Axe is better than a real amp for me to you? If you are happy with your sound you are happy with your sound. Is it trolling because I disagree with you? Is my experience not valid because it doesn’t agree with your point of view?
Edit: Out of curiosity, did they come to a consensus on what screws sound best in a stomp box battery cover?
 
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Hi Jason - I have not. There is no return on the amp so not sure how to bypass the rest of the amp and just use the cab. The initial attraction of the Axe was to simplify things not end up buying even more gear to cart around. I understand that some people don’t like the fact that their logic doesn’t hold up under some basic questioning - no one wants to spend a lot of money and have the cheaper option sound better. But that is where it is at for me and if that bothers some that my experience doesn’t match theirs it doesn’t bother me in the least.

No one is bothered by you liking the sound of an actual amp and cab (regardless of cost) over the sound of a mic'd cab(Axe through FRFR). What people took issue with was your comparison of an unmic'd vs mic'd cab, as that's the difference between an FRFR and standard guitar cab. If I only wanted the sound of an AC15, I probably wouldn't spend over a grand on an Axe FX. However, if I were interested in using a variety of amps, the benefit of buying a power amp and standard cab would likely outweigh the cost of buying multiple amp heads.
 
Hi Jason. Quite a few seem bothered by it. So if I want it to sound like an AC30 I would need to buy a 2x12 and if I wanted it to sound like a Marshall I would need to buy a 4x12 and then bring all these cabs with me? Or is there one out there that could cover a broad spectrum and still sound realistic? Someone called REDD (I think) told me I would need a cab for each situation.
 
Hi Jason. Quite a few seem bothered by it. So if I want it to sound like an AC30 I would need to buy a 2x12 and if I wanted it to sound like a Marshall I would need to buy a 4x12 and then bring all these cabs with me?

It depends. Are you talking about the sound of mic'd or unmic'd cabs? At a gig (live) or in a bedroom?

The advantage of the Axe is that you have the sound of 100+ amps and 100's(mic'd) cabs in one box.
 
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I typically play live twice a week. Unmiced cab. Several hundred people in smallish to medium sized rooms. Ear bleeding volume as our drummer is loud.

Okay. What was your goal with respect to the Axe FX vs. your standard setup? In what way(s) were you expecting the Axe FX to improve things?
 
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The real AC 15 sounds very organic compared to the Axe AC15. It is hard to put a finger on it but side by side it is undeniable to me and others in the rehersal. I would like to get as close to that as possible. As I mentioned I don’t want to have to buy and cart a whole lot more gear but open to buying some more. I got the Axe for the amp and effects. I thought that I would use a whole lot of different amps but tend to gravitate to the Vox and some Fenders. Unlike someone else earlier in this thread I want my guitar to have the best possible tone for me and for the audience. Playing through the real amp is just inspiring somehow. In a different thread others have commented that they found the same with the Vox both live and recorded and that maybe the Vox in the Axe was not as accurate as some of the other amps.
 
The real AC 15 sounds very organic compared to the Axe AC15. It is hard to put a finger on it but side by side it is undeniable to me and others in the rehersal. I would like to get as close to that as possible. As I mentioned I don’t want to have to buy and cart a whole lot more gear but open to buying some more. I got the Axe for the amp and effects. I thought that I would use a whole lot of different amps but tend to gravitate to the Vox and some Fenders. Unlike someone else earlier in this thread I want my guitar to have the best possible tone for me and for the audience. Playing through the real amp is just inspiring somehow. In a different thread others have commented that they found the same with the Vox both live and recorded and that maybe the Vox in the Axe was not as accurate as some of the other amps.

If you were likely to use several real amps assuming you had them at your disposal, the benefit of spending money on a power amp and standard cab would likely far outweigh the cost associated with buying several Fenders and a Vox, not to mention there are always a host of other amps at your disposal if / when you feel like branching out.
 
If you were likely to use several real amps assuming you had them at your disposal, the benefit of spending money on a power amp and standard cab would likely far outweigh the cost associated with buying several Fenders and a Vox, not to mention there are always a host of other amps at your disposal if / when you feel like branching out.
Thanks! Any recommendations?
 
For the ac15 impression try an RCF 310a. It's still a FRFR monitor, but it's not as stiff sounding as the common 12" stuff.
Ok, this one will not display marshalls as hard as a 12" mon could and mesas as deep as a 15" mon could. BTW that's just rules of thumb, there are always ways to break these rules if you invest lots of money.

Different kinds of FRFR systems move the air different in your room, similar rule as with guitar cabs.
 
It's apples and oranges because he's comparing the sound of an unmic'd amp to that of a mic'd amp.

That's not relevant. He's saying that the $600 amp sounds better than the $3000 modeller. If he said, "The sound of the Telecaster blew away the sound of the Les Paul", you wouldn't all be jumping down his throat telling him you can't compare a Telecaster to a Les Paul because they're like "apples and oranges". You'd accept that he heard them both and preferred [the wrong] one.

Of course, this preference has a very limited context - practicing with his band in some rehearsal space. Record the band, or play in any venue big enough to use a PA and the context is going to change because you'll be sticking a microphone in front of the AC15.

Personally, I think that to have a situation, almost any situation, where the real amp "blew away" the AxeFX says more about the set-up of the preset, and possible the FRFR hardware, than it does about the capabilities of the AxeFX. My expectation would be that the AxeFX would be able to come up with a sound that far exceeded that of an actual AC15. I'd maybe look at using a different model, like maybe a Trainwreck or the Ruby Rocket. I'm also not convinced that you'd need to go beyond the factory cabs to get a great sound either.
 
Hi Stickman - my description of “blew away” may have been a little harsh, written in reaction to someone’s flippant and unhelpful comment. I am hesitant to try and recharacterize it as it would no doubt offend someone else but clearly enough of an improvement that others could tell a difference and I got myself one. The release of the Axe III and the rave reviews of the new sounds would seem to indicate that the II falls short of being able to fully capture everything that the III can in amp modeling. I think that even the creator or the product made some comment to the effect that the new hardware eliminates some aliasing (but I am going from memory here and could be wrong) that was present in the II. I am happy with what I have and am really enjoying the AC and will keep experimenting with the suggestions given for the Axe as it would keep things a lot more simple for me.
 
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