Amp in the Room?

To be honest I've never understood the "amp in the room" thing. All of my favorite tones were always recorded, meaning it was a microphone in front of a speaker. Even in a live setting if a PA is being used, you're still hearing the sound of a mic in front of a speaker that is being projected from the PA.

If you want room sound (e.g., reflections, ambience, etc.), it can be added in the cab block. You can also add a small amount of reverb to simulate room ambience. As someone who grew up using "real amps", I can comfortably say that the Axe FX is more realistic in terms of emulating recorded tones I grew up listening to on recordings. I would imagine that many of peoples favorite tones are from recordings of tones (i.e. a capture), which is a microphone (or microphones) placed in front of a speaker likely being recorded to tape then mixed and possibly processed further.

Even if someone records a "room sound", you are still hearing that through a recording using a microphone which still won't accurately represent the room sound as the microphone will color it. The only way to physically get an "in the room sound" is by physically playing an amp in the room you're in. This can still be achieved with the Axe FX by using it in conjunction with a power amp and a cabinet. Even then, the "in the room" sound (or your perception of it) will depend on where the amp is placed, where you're standing, the size of the room, other objects in the space you're in, your ears, etc.

This video explains it well.



Alternatively, you can also buy an amp and put it "in the room". But why? Unless you're on a stage, have a professional studio, or neighbors that won't call the cops on you when you dial the volume of a 40 watt amp past 9 o'clock...why not use the advantages we have now and stop lamenting over a physical phenomena that isn't ideal in the first place? Your ears will thank you for it.

I've posted many times in the past about how pretty much every tone someone has chased from their influences is a mic'd speaker cabinet and (other than room mics) is exactly what Fractal provides.

Once you come to grips with that, it's easier to let go of "amp (cab) in the room".

Where it's challenging and where many people get hung up is this:

You play with a real amp and cab. You dial things in to your preference. You love it. You don't use monitors when you play live.

In that case, cab in the room is your reference. Anything else doesn't match that experience...

But, nobody else is going to hear exactly what you're hearing because they'd need to be standing right where you are to have that chance. Your bandmates and the audience will hear something different - sometimes drastically different.

So, yeah, chase the recorded tones with IRs and FRFR ;)
 
I've just revisited this AITR cab am intrigued enough to have configured a preset bank with no cab block and will see how it goes tomorrow at rehearsal...I'm really curious how this will work.

After rehearsing and doing some final tweaks with no cab block (just the Filter and GEQ blocks) I'm going to use this for my gig next weekend.

I'm finding a richness and natural sound (ie: no phasey artifacts, and a controllable overall voicing) that I'm taken with which warrants further investigation.

I have a preset bank with my FM9 v5 main gig preset (cab IR), FM9 v6 main gig preset (cab IR), and FM9 v6 main gig preset (Filter/GEQ) and I switched between them during rehearsal (between songs so my ear could settle) to find I liked the no-cab tones better by a large degree.

And, FWIW, here is how I achieved Amp In The Room (more or less) a few years ago (heh):

https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/amp-in-the-room-here-is-how-i-did-it.116534/

The short version:
-create a setup with a real cab and an FRFR cab
-dial in a tone with the amp and real cab; sit directly in front of them on axis
-play around with IR's until the FRFR output matches the real cab, or gets close enough

At this point the sound coming out of the FRFR cab approximates/duplicates the sound coming from the real cab and will excite the room in a similar fashion...so, AITR here we go. I got remarkably close to my Marshall 4x12 G12-65 cab doing this, and without too much head-cramping.
 
To be honest I've never understood the "amp in the room" thing. All of my favorite tones were always recorded, meaning it was a microphone in front of a speaker. Even in a live setting if a PA is being used, you're still hearing the sound of a mic in front of a speaker that is being projected from the PA.

If you want room sound (e.g., reflections, ambience, etc.), it can be added in the cab block. You can also add a small amount of reverb to simulate room ambience. As someone who grew up using "real amps", I can comfortably say that the Axe FX is more realistic in terms of emulating recorded tones I grew up listening to on recordings. I would imagine that many of peoples favorite tones are from recordings of tones (i.e. a capture), which is a microphone (or microphones) placed in front of a speaker likely being recorded to tape then mixed and possibly processed further.

Even if someone records a "room sound", you are still hearing that through a recording using a microphone which still won't accurately represent the room sound as the microphone will color it. The only way to physically get an "in the room sound" is by physically playing an amp in the room you're in. This can still be achieved with the Axe FX by using it in conjunction with a power amp and a cabinet. Even then, the "in the room" sound (or your perception of it) will depend on where the amp is placed, where you're standing, the size of the room, other objects in the space you're in, your ears, etc.

This video explains it well.



Alternatively, you can also buy an amp and put it "in the room". But why? Unless you're on a stage, have a professional studio, or neighbors that won't call the cops on you when you dial the volume of a 40 watt amp past 9 o'clock...why not use the advantages we have now and stop lamenting over a physical phenomena that isn't ideal in the first place? Your ears will thank you for it.


I use the "wooden room" reverb with a short RT60 time, the early reflections level jacked up and the late backed off a bit, and piped through a CPS Spacestation XL. It does wonders for putting the amp sound from my FM9 into a space that sounds a lot less boxed in than my music room. As an extra, I drop the reverb input about half when in "solo" mode, so it'sa bit drier and more 'in yo face', similar to what would happen in the big band days when the soloist would stand up and move a step or two closer to that one lonely microphone out in front of the band....
 
One of the main reasons i started using fractal was to get the sound i hear myself and the sound the audience hears to be closer to being the same.

I often found that when playing live, the sound from my tube amp sounds fantastic, but when i hear the sound from the same amp miced it would sound drastically different. I always hated not being able to stand close enough to my amp and having to use a monitor wedge for my guitar sounds.

I have always preferred the sound directly from a tube amp to recorded sounds.

With my FM3 i find i can get closer to that sound that i like.
With the right IRs and eq it's not exactly "amp in the room" sound, but it doesn't sound like the typical close miced amp either. It's somewhere in the middle between those two sounds.
The advantage to that is that the sound i hear and the sound the audience hears is closer to being the same.

Of course the sound will be tweaked a bit by the FOH, but still it's closer than the typical put a 57 close to the speaker of a tube amp result.

Finding the right IR is really important to get closer to a "amp in the room" sound for me. With dynacabs i usually prefer having the mic further away both from the center and distance of the speaker. I also prefer the mics with a flatter frequency response and usually use only the ribbon mics.
 
I got good amp feelings in the room with FRFR:
IR Legacy #28 Far Field
"Air" in the cabin between 50% and 100%, Room Level at 25% and Proximity at 2.
Try it and see how it turns out
 
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Now I agree with all who told me to find the right IR. The magic mix for me is ML traditional + EVML. Both with 7B mic (very natural sounding). I'll have a look to their original cab once there will be a sale :D
 
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