Another question about monitoring

[TylerK]

I've gone through previous threads on this topic and absorbed the discussion so far, but I haven't found a clear answer for this specific question. I'm using the Axe FX III for guitar and bass, and I like the sound of it. I'm playing through a pair of old-ish KRK Rokit 5 monitors. After doing this for a while, one day I plugged directly into a bass amp (Fender Rumble 25), and, I have to say, the experience of having the amp right there was something I had been missing. What I'm trying to determine is whether this is just a property of the 5 inch drivers in the monitors vs 8 inch in the amp, or if there's more to it. Ultimately, I would like to get more of that amp feel, and I'm willing to spend to get it - I'm just not sure if that means buying different monitors, getting a dedicated FRFR cab, or if those are even solutions to this particular issue.

 

[My name is mud]

I've gone through previous threads on this topic and absorbed the discussion so far, but I haven't found a clear answer for this specific question. I'm using the Axe FX III for guitar and bass, and I like the sound of it. I'm playing through a pair of old-ish KRK Rokit 5 monitors. After doing this for a while, one day I plugged directly into a bass amp (Fender Rumble 25), and, I have to say, the experience of having the amp right there was something I had been missing. What I'm trying to determine is whether this is just a property of the 5 inch drivers in the monitors vs 8 inch in the amp, or if there's more to it. Ultimately, I would like to get more of that amp feel, and I'm willing to spend to get it - I'm just not sure if that means buying different monitors, getting a dedicated FRFR cab, or if those are even solutions to this particular issue.

You cannot compare a bass amp with a miced bass amp tone.
The only way to mimic the feeling of the real amp in the room is using a poweramp and a real cab.

By the way you can have a better tone using 8 inch and better monitoring, but it wont be a ampeg 8x10 in front of you.

That’s a tool for recording and gigging first, or playing silently

 

[strabes]

whether this is just a property of the 5 inch drivers in the monitors vs 8 inch in the amp, or if there's more to it.

When you run direct into a "flat response" system, whether that's headphones, studio monitors, a cheap plastic FRFR (e.g. headrush), or a stadium PA, you're just taking the signal from a mic on a cab in another room (or sometimes with bass the direct output of an amp or preamp pedal), and making it louder. Any of these is a much different experience than cranking a live guitar cab or bass cab in the room with you because no modeler can magically transform flat response speakers into a cranked 412 guitar cab or 810 bass cab for example. If you want that experience there's no way to accurately get it besides disabling the cab block in the Fractal and running it into a power amp and guitar/bass cab.

Think about being in an actual studio. The live guitar cab is cranked up in the live room. You could either stand in the live room with the cab, or you could stand in the control room. Even if it's a multi-million dollar control room, the two experiences will be dramatically different. But for me, what matters is what makes it into the DAW (or to the PA system in a live environment), so the experience of standing in the live room with the actual cab is irrelevant.

So the good news is that you can play back any recorded guitar or bass tone you've ever heard through your studio monitors to give you a good target to aim for with the modeler, because you're using the same monitoring paradigm for both and the live cab has been eliminated from the equation. If a recording of guitar/bass sounds good through those KRK monitors in your room then you know it's possible to achieve very similar tones with some combination of the Fractal, other outboard gear, and plugins.

buying different monitors, getting a dedicated FRFR cab

Both of these options will suffer the same issue as above. Worth noting that the KRKs are very much entry level so you can dramatically improve the quality and accuracy of what you're hearing with better speakers, and more importantly, acoustic treatment. Good acoustic treatment for bass frequencies is not cheap however, and DIY'ing 3" panels filled with building insulation will do nothing for the low end.

So you'll have to decide if you want to forget the "studio" paradigm and just plug into some live guitar/bass cabs and play without any regard to the accuracy of what you're hearing, or do you want to invest in improving your home studio for the long term. Nothing wrong with either approach unless you're trying to replicate one experience with the other.

 

[ApocalypticKatana]

If you want that amp in the room feel

Get an actual cabinet and/or a tube or solid state power amp and then turn off power amp and/or cab modelling accordingly

A pair of 5 inch studio monitors (they have their use case) will not sound like an 8x10 bass cabinet due to…well…. physics

 

[ApocalypticKatana]

You're never going to get a full-range monitor to sound like an amp in the room regardless of the IR used. One reason for this is dispersion. A traditional guitar cabinet has a beam pattern that decreases with increasing frequency. This means less high frequencies when listening off-axis. A full-range monitor will have more highs. Now some will argue that if you capture the traditional cab off-axis in the far field then you'll get the same thing but you won't because the monitor is not interacting with the environment in the same way. The traditional cab will send less frequency content to off-axis which is then reflected off the floor, walls and ceiling. The monitor will send more highs off-axis that are reflected. Our hearing relies a LOT on the spatial cues of reflection and the reflections will not be the same.

Compound the above with the fact that 99.9% of IRs are near field captures which sound nothing like the far field.

I believe trying to get a monitor to do amp in the room is a lesson in futility. If you really want that sound use a traditional guitar cab.

 

[marsonic]

I'm not totally sure about bass sounds, as I don't play bass. I thought I had one, but it wasn't where I thought I left it. So, either it got stolen or I gave it back to its owner. I honestly can't remember if I gave it back.

Anyway....

I actually like the RP5 for a low-volume guitar monitor. It's not a "flat", accurate, articulate studio monitor...but the hyped tuning that make it fail at being a studio monitor actually makes it a perfectly viable guitar monitor. The hype kind of un-does (or minimizes) the effect of the high-passing you do to make a guitar fit into a track, and it's still exciting to play in the room outside of the context of a full mix. And it can just about reach low enough for guitar (but not bass).

IMHO, the way to make it sound even more exciting is to use it wrong - set it more-or-less on the floor basically where you would put a guitar cab and then only run the guitar sound (with poweramp and cab modeling) through it. It's not "the same"(tm), but it's a lot closer. Then tilt it up toward you if there's not enough high end.

For bass, I'd assume that doing the same thing with a similar speaker and a subwoofer would accomplish pretty much the same almost-in-the-room effect at relatively low volumes. But, I could be wrong (haven't tried it...again, I don't play bass).

I don't think the 8" versions of similar speakers are going to have the extension required to play low notes on a bass - you pretty much need a subwoofer or much, much nicer speakers and a big room to do that.