Amp in a Room vs Studio Recorded Tones

NaN said:
Well I have a mesa mark V 90w and play it through a 4x12 recto cab in my livingroom at 90w and also in our rehearsal studio. I surely know what that sounds like and dig it very much ;) Before that I had a mark iii and played it through an EV loaded cab but had to attenuate it. The rest of the band had problems with it. And I played in a hardcore punk band... idko_O
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Have you ever recorded your amp/cab?
 
lqdsnddist said:
Amp in room doesn’t sound like a recorded tone, and especially not with a loud 4x12 cab. Your never going to have the sound coming out a desktop monitor speaker sounding like a 4x12 in the same room. If you’ve ever played a 4x12 in your bedroom you know what a 4x12 sounds like/feels like lol. My mom used to complain that all the walls had cracks from mine after I’d crank it every day after school ages ago lol
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When I was a teenager, a friend of mine had a band that used to practice in his basement LOUD. The would have to go around with a hammer after each practice and knock all the nails holding the paneling up back in (yes, it was so long ago that basements typically had wood paneling). The also had a big console TV, and his mom had an onyx elephant sitting on it which would walk across the top of the TV from the vibrations while they were playing. Someone had to go and move the elephant back to middle of the TV after each song.
 
Jason Scott said:
Have you ever recorded your amp/cab?
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Yes...In the studio and at home for writing stuff... Why do you ask? :)

Next weekend we do some in the studio and I will be playing through my Mark V and a Friedman BE from the studio at the same time... wonder how that will sound... This time we all play together in the same room at the same time except vocals. Everything is closed mic'd of course but there are several room microphones also. So amps are in the room but we listen through headphones to hear our mistakes better. lol. last time we tracked everthing seperate but I played in the room where my amp/cab was. Also with headphones of course but with flapping pants.

At home I have a two notes captor hooked up to my audiointerface and use a couple of different virtual cabs and microphones in my DAW to get it sound pretty much like my real cab. Maybe even better... more massive. I didn't do a lot of tweaking to get it sound 100% spot on or something but if I play my monitors loud I barely hear/feel the difference except for the latency and a tiny bit less high/bottem end. I use it for writing stuff so it isn't really important, but it have to be inspiring.
I do like the sound of the virtual stuff untouched and don't bother mixing/eq-ing it because I don't know how.
I don't like the sound of individual polished guitartracks that sits perfectly in the mix for example. that's uninspiring to me for some reason.

I also have a sm57 mic at home but it sounds really thin and shrill if I try to record my cab with it so I don't use it. It filters way to much frequencies all by itself. It probably sounds good in a mix but I don't care about that for now.

I use genelec studio monitors and sonarworks reference 4 to keep it all flat.
 
To get real amp in the room via headphones you'd probably have to use a binaural head-related transfer function with some clever reverb algos.
 
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Andrew Male said:
To get real amp in the room via headphones you'd probably have to use a binaural head-related transfer function with some clever reverb algos.
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Yeah lol. That is actually a good idea! The sound through headphones is weird and not intended to get the amp in the room sound in this case. It is to hear what everybody is doing... totaly uninspiring but ok for tracking I guess. it would be cool though lol
 
NaN said:
Yes...In the studio and at home for writing stuff... Why do you ask? :)

Next weekend we do some in the studio and I will be playing through my Mark V and a Friedman BE from the studio at the same time... wonder how that will sound... This time we all play together in the same room at the same time except vocals. Everything is closed mic'd of course but there are several room microphones also. So amps are in the room but we listen through headphones to hear our mistakes better. lol. last time we tracked everthing seperate but I played in the room where my amp/cab was. Also with headphones of course but with flapping pants.

At home I have a two notes captor hooked up to my audiointerface and use a couple of different virtual cabs and microphones in my DAW to get it sound pretty much like my real cab. Maybe even better... more massive. I didn't do a lot of tweaking to get it sound 100% spot on or something but if I play my monitors loud I barely hear/feel the difference except for the latency and a tiny bit less high/bottem end. I use it for writing stuff so it isn't really important, but it have to be inspiring.
I do like the sound of the virtual stuff untouched and don't bother mixing/eq-ing it because I don't know how.
I don't like the sound of individual polished guitartracks that sits perfectly in the mix for example. that's uninspiring to me for some reason.

I also have a sm57 mic at home but it sounds really thin and shrill if I try to record my cab with it so I don't use it. It filters way to much frequencies all by itself. It probably sounds good in a mix but I don't care about that for now.

I use genelec studio monitors and sonarworks reference 4 to keep it all flat.
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The primary reason perfect reproduction of an unmic'd cab is not possible using monitors is because the microphone(s), as well as the position(s) in front of the cab, impart(s) its own frequency curve onto the sound being projected from the cab. The monitors themselves will never be perfectly flat, either. Additionally, cabs are generally situated on the floor whereas monitors are placed at ear level. Either way, the difficulty with reproducing an amp in the room tone through monitors or FRFR has nothing whatsoever to do with amp modeling and everything to do with the frequency curve imparted by the IR. If you want amp in the room tone from a modeling amp, simply run it through a power amp into a real cab and disable the cabinet simulation.
 
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One could theoretically combine several monitors, facing different directions, and route different IR’s to them, such as rear mic IR to the one facing away from you, etc, and you could probably get soemthing sounding very, very close to an amp in the room, though this would be at significant expense and effort.

Might be fun to try, but to what end ?
 
Using far field IRs, you can achieve tones that are at least as good as sitting in front of your favourite cab - with the advantage of projecting it's sweet spot over a wider area using an FRFR monitor. I only use far field IRs and would never go back.
 
antcarrier said:
Using far field IRs, you can achieve tones that are at least as good as sitting in front of your favourite cab - with the advantage of projecting it's sweet spot over a wider area using an FRFR monitor. I only use far field IRs and would never go back.
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Three of the stock cabs in the Axe are far-field IR's. To me they sound like a variant of a standard IR rather than as if I'm sitting in front of a cab.
 
Jason Scott said:
Three of the stock cabs in the Axe are far-field IR's. To me they sound like a variant of a standard IR rather than as if I'm sitting in front of a cab.
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I don't really like the stock far fields either. When capturing far feilds it is a lot more difficult to capture an IR that sounds 'right' through a FRFR monitor, than it is with NF IRs - even if your capture method is technically correct.

It is possible, though.
 
antcarrier said:
I don't really like the stock far fields either. When capturing far feilds it is a lot more difficult to capture an IR that sounds 'right' through a FRFR monitor, than it is with NF IRs - even if your capture method is technically correct.

It is possible, though.
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Ownhammer includes far-field IR's in some of their libraries. To my ears, they sound good. Do they make me feel like I'm sitting in front of a cab? No.
 
chris said:
i know this wasn't the intention, but i think this is where things got confusing:



the moment you say "amp in the room" it sort of does become cab vs FRFR. most people will define "amp in the room" specifically as a real guitar amp/cab bouncing around the room. there really isn't a way to do that with an IR or FRFR speakers. so you could say that, by definition, the title of the thread was somewhat "real cab vs FRFR" at least in theory.

maybe that was already cleared up and understood, but that comment just stuck out to me.

all that said, personally, i experience "amp in the room" with my FRFR speaker when it's loud enough to bounce around the room and it isn't facing my ears. in other words, use full modeling, use an FRFR, but just put that FRFR speaker in the same physical placement and volume as a real guitar amp - facing straight forward to your ankles and loud enough to bounce around the room.

it may not be exactly the same thing, but i personally don't feel much different about that.

the thing about direct/modeling is that you can use headphones, or speakers that angle toward your ears, or many other ways other than how a real amp/cab is used. guitar amps are notorious for being "too loud" because they are directional and you need certain volumes to create certain tones. but with modeling, we don't do that (because we don't need to), but some of the qualities are strict physics and nothing to do with modeling vs non-modeling.

try this - spin your FRFR speaker away from you, turn it up - are you getting the room sound now? and no it can't be in a sound-treated room that doesn't bounce sound ;)
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I couldn't agree more, Chris! I went out and dropped over $2,200 on two Accugroove Latte cabs a few years back, an literally couldn't figure out why I didn't get that aggressive Yngwie Malmsteen midrange sound when I dialed up a Plexi model at bedroom volume...Talked to Tony (aka Black Bitch) and he told me he that he applies generous volume when he records (I love Tony's tones!). I since bought some studio monitors with 5" drivers so it's now possible to use my Axe Fx and get some speaker movement at levels that don't involve my neighbors calling S.W.A.T. Point taken about directing the sound (love the idea of turning the speaker backward, facing against the wall). I have grown to believe that it does require some volume to get a realistic "amp in the room" sound from the Axe Fx and a cab or a set of cabs.
 
Seems like a discussion about human perception in as much as amp in a room, by very definition, is really about the perception of a human being's hearing and a physical sense of the dimensions of a room coupled with the interpretation by a human brain regardless of any aspect of coloration by equipment. Except meat equipment... So, if the person is removed from the room and a player plays, is there still an amp in the room sound?
 
antcarrier said:
Using far field IRs, you can achieve tones that are at least as good as sitting in front of your favourite cab - with the advantage of projecting it's sweet spot over a wider area using an FRFR monitor. I only use far field IRs and would never go back.
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Ok. So which far fields are you using and how do you use them in your presets? Where can I get them from?
 
blearyeyes said:
Seems like a discussion about human perception in as much as amp in a room, by very definition, is really about the perception of a human being's hearing and a physical sense of the dimensions of a room coupled with the interpretation by a human brain regardless of any aspect of coloration by equipment. Except meat equipment... So, if the person is removed from the room and a player plays, is there still an amp in the room sound?
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It's not simply about perception, the room or position of the speaker. It's primarily about one factor which can't be removed from the equation; the microphone. Place an FRFR in the same room and position as a cab, and the difference between the two will come down to one being a direct signal vs. the other having been captured with a mic.
 
666was999 said:
Ok. So which far fields are you using and how do you use them in your presets? Where can I get them from?
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I capture my own IRs, and presets are simple input -> amp -> mono cab -> output. The IRs aren't available at the moment, although I am going to put together a collection when I have captured a few more IRs and finished an album I'm working on, which I am prioritising over IR acquisition right now due to limited free time. I will eventually make them available though :)
 
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