Amp in the Room?

Pagzy said:
@FractalAudio I have been meaning to try this out for years, man I think I have a new favourite sound with the USA IIC++ I was struggling to dial in with cabs. In fact it was quite easy to dial in this way and it probably sounds better to me than everything other high gain sound I've created before... and with no drive pedal in front of it! Can't stop chuggin' 🤘
Click to expand...

Cool...great to see this thread resurrected; I found it, and the idea's discussed throughout, pretty exciting and inspired some new ways of doing things. I re-read the entire thing and I'm going to fiddle around with this again on my FM9.

I'm still playing exclusively with a generated IR, and, for me, I've found that the biggest take-away from generating them is that de-phase processing/smoothing is a highly desirable characteristic, and very much gets the cab/IR closer to a 'natural' in-the-room speaker sound IMO. I find the phasing/comb filtering artifacts from many close miced IR's to be absolutely grating on the ear and quite unnatural.

I can add or remove those phasing artifacts with the program I use to generate IR's, and I always take them out, or just add in a slight bit for some 'hair'...this is similar to the AFX-III's "Smoothing" control in the CAB block. Similarly, I suspect that the reason some here are finding great results with Cliff's filter/EQ cab is that it's also devoid of a lot of the undesirable qualities of close miced IR's and can indeed be more 'natural' and easier on the ear overall.

FullRes is also an interesting development in all of this, and when I was reading about it's announcement, and description, I was reminded of Metallica's guitar tech saying, on here, that he used the features on the CAB block's "Room Page" to add a virtual room to the cab to give it space and remove some of the directness of the guitar in their in-ear monitors....that would be 'amp-in-the-room-in-the-in-ear' I suppose heh.

All of this still gives me the sense that there is a lot of exciting development waiting to happen with cabs, IR's, and rooms/spaces, procedurally generated, and with controls/functions that are tailored to produce a natural sounding speaker/cab in a given space.
 
Last edited:
Digging this one up again... anyone come up with different sounding speakers using a filter block? A V30, JBL, etc
 
  • Like
Reactions: Woz
I made a post on the AX8 section about @Cooper Carter 's YT vid which I enjoyed thoroughly.
@yek left a link to this post (Thank you,Yek) which I will read thru when I have a bit more time and no doubt pick up some more ideas.
Thank you all.
Brett
 
Is there any adjustment to be done to the EQ when using monitors?
I find the tone with just the filter applied too harsh and trebly, far from that of the video.
My monitors are Adam T7V
 
Matteodem said:
Is there any adjustment to be done to the EQ when using monitors?
I find the tone with just the filter applied too harsh and trebly, far from that of the video.
My monitors are Adam T7V
Click to expand...
Those EQ settings are a great starting point, but I think it is necessary to tweak them. I found that I must cut those low frequencies when I play loudly or there will be too much booming low end. (I play metal by the way.)
 
Last edited:
Matteodem said:
Does anyone find out an eq curve for famous cab/speaker? Creamback m65 are my favourite
Click to expand...
A curve to do what? Make it sound like there's a Creamback speaker touching the signal, or to EQ a Creamback to be flat?

The point of using an IR is to add the EQ curve of the speaker inside the cabinet. IRs of Creamback speakers in various cabinets are available, both from the factory cabinets, and from 3rd party vendors. Search the Wiki's Cabinet models list for "Cream" and you'll find a number of cabinets.

The "problem" with an IR is they're generally created with the microphone next to the grill cloth, so the mic's proximity effect is going to boost lows and and its position in front of the dust cap will boost highs. Reduce those and the sound should be approaching the amp in the room sound. Adjust to taste.
 
Last edited:
Greg Ferguson said:
A curve to do what? Make it sound like there's a Creamback speaker touching the signal, or to EQ a Creamback to be flat?

The point of using an IR is to add the EQ curve of the speaker inside the cabinet. IRs of Creamback speakers in various cabinets are available, both from the factory cabinets, and from 3rd party vendors. Search the Wiki's Cabinet models list for "Cream" and you'll find a number of cabinets.

The "problem" with an IR is they're generally created with the microphone next to the grill cloth, so the mic's proximity effect is going to boost lows and and its position in front of the dust cap will boost highs. Reduce those and the sound should be approaching the amp in the room sound. Adjust to taste.
Click to expand...
A curve to avoid ir and recreate a cremback tone. The tone without ir and with filter+eq is different to ir with low and hi cut. Not anyone likes the mic tone, or the least, not in every situation
 
Matteodem said:
A curve to avoid ir and recreate a cremback tone. The tone without ir and with filter+eq is different to ir with low and hi cut. Not anyone likes the mic tone, or the least, not in every situation
Click to expand...
IR as a cab sim is basically a filter with massively more granularity than what you can achieve with traditional filters or EQ. Your filter+EQ approach as a cab sim will cause a lot of frequencies to be flattened. Doesn't mean it can't sound pleasing to you, but it is not somehow "more cab in the room".

If we wanted IRs where the mic has no voice to it, we could use a flat reference mic. I've tried this and honestly, using a mic with more character is better sounding and more usable. It's better for blending multiple mics together and sounds more like we expect a recorded guitar to sound like because we are very accustomed to that sound.

The whole "cab in the room" thing is really more about where our ears are in relation to a fairly directional speaker and how that sound bounces around from the walls, floor and ceiling. If you were to put your ears where the mic typical sits, you would hear a sound closer to that miced signal.
 
I also prefer a more "amp in the room" type of sound, and for my ears i get closer using the dynacabs with a mic with a flatter response like the ribbon or the condenser somewhere around max distance away from the speaker and half way from the center.

Since we usually don't listen to a speaker cab with our ear right next to the middle of the speaker i think this will get you closer to the sound you hear with a real amp in the room.
 
Maybe my quest for the full bodied tone has been unsuccessful up to now. Anyway, once I got the right eq to my ears, taste and room, I felt a very similar feel and tone than my tube amps.
I agree that for recordings, using IR helps to create a more refined tone, closer to what we are used to.
For me ir-less is fun!
 
laxu said:
The whole "cab in the room" thing is really more about where our ears are in relation to a fairly directional speaker and how that sound bounces around from the walls, floor and ceiling. If you were to put your ears where the mic typical sits, you would hear a sound closer to that miced signal.
Click to expand...

I use this reverb block to add some "amp in the room" vibe. It has the early reflections bumped up and the later "wash" dialed way back, and imparts a sense of space nicely....

EDIT: How about I put in the AITR Block link, eh?
 
Last edited:
I think, it‘s also very important for a amp-in-the-room sound that a speaker is never strictly mono like a single microphone-signal. You have a beam in the middle and you have the sound at the edge and all between. A mono-miking will never get this „lifely“ sound we have with our two ears. And the beam is always a little bit „noisy“, not to „beautifull“. Maybe here is room for improvement for better IR‘s?
But for now I’m almost perfectly happy: For me it‘s very important two have a little stereo space between two different microphones when playing over my Stereo-FRFR (Blueamps Cubo-Ex). The famous missing 5-10%.
When using studio-monitors or headphone the room-parameters are important for me.
It‘s another question how this sounds fit in a mix.
 
Last edited:
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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom