Clip of IR through tube amps?

PossumBear

PossumBear

Member
Hi guys - I've searched like mad but can't find exactly what I was hoping for, though I found about a thousand other useful bits of info!

I always hear it said that if you're not going into a FRFR setup or into a recording device, you should turn cab modeling off or not use an IR/Cab block. I also totally get it, and all the theories behind it. However, I haven't seen much for what happens when you don't disable the IR. For example: if your patch has an amp and IR, and you put it into say the return of a tube amp and then out to a 412. Does anyone have experience (or clips) of what this sounds like +/- the IR? I see lots of warnings, but no horror stories.

I'm waiting on my first Fractal, but have had great experience playing other modelers into the return of my Marshall amp and a real cab as a quasi-neutral setup, more like a pedal platform. Fully aware it's not a CLR equivalent, but it still sounds better with cabsims on rather than off. It also doesn't sound radically different than when listening on studio headphones.

Am I nuts? Or do some folks actually combine IR's with non-FRFR setups and get good results?

Thank you for your expertise! If this was covered elsewhere, please just point me and accept my apologies.
 
I don't have a clip. Sorry. I can only try to describe what I heard when I forgot to disable Cab Modeling once when using my tube power amp (Fryette LXII) with the Axe-Fx III.

It just didn't sound like a guitar amp plugged into a cab in a room. It sounded like if you had mic'd up a guitar cab and then ran the mic output into another guitar cab. Or like you had added a really strong EQ curve between the amp and the cab.

I thought it sounded bad. But not bad in terms of hearing clipping or noise or other nasty artifacts. It just sounded..... weak and boxy.
 
I was going to add something like the above.

I'm sure you could find IRs that made a minimal impact on the sound of the Amp block. Or maybe you like the sound of that heavily affected tone. It's all about what you're hearing in your head.
 
Note that in the scenario you mentioned is also recommended to turn off power amp modeling, assuming your Marshall is a tube amp?
 
Results may vary obviously from person to person and there is no right or wrong way to do things. If it sounds good to you then that's fine. You may find at lower volumes, cab sims will sound ok and act almost like a "loudness button on a hi-fi" or even a rough EQ for the FM curve. At louder volumes though you may find things get flubby or like a blanket has been put over the cab. Will all depend on amp settings, the IR you use etc. As Matt P said I once observed a Fractal artist also who used cab sims though his onstage cabs (wonder if it's the same one? JH?)
 
Basically the short version is that doing this will cut your highs quite hard and give you kind of a "blanket over the speakers" sort of sound. Whether this sounds good to you is totally your call. If you like super dark sounds, like Eric Johnson lead tones, it could very well work for you. If you like brighter, more present tones, you'll probably want to keep IR's off when you run anything into a guitar cab.
 
This is 100% subjective. I use a SS power amp and a "real" cab with IR's in all my patches. Some of these IR's are TMs some factory. I love how it sounds and haven't experienced any of these issues.

As far as horror stories go, I think the proper description should be headache stories, not horror. Meaning, if you're running sims through your "real" cab and u get it sounding amazing in whatever space you're in thru your ears, you will have some issues when you want to record something direct because your DAW can't hear the very thing that is pleasing to your ears, the room and your cabs which means when u playback it will sound bad. It takes some time to retweak things for this to work unless you decide to mic your cabs.
 
unix-guy said:
Note that in the scenario you mentioned is also recommended to turn off power amp modeling, assuming your Marshall is a tube amp?
Click to expand...
Right, it is a tube amp. DSL40CR, and I've been plugging my line6 right into the Fx return to use the tube power amp section

Billbill said:
It takes some time to retweak things for this to work unless you decide to mic your cabs.
Click to expand...
This would be pretty understandable. Though the way I think of it, I would optimize for monitors/headphones and then do tweaking when using a real amp/cab, because that's what I would be doing less often.

All this feedback is super helpful, thank you guys. Knowing how it will go in reality is going to just be up to me and my ears.
 
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