Danny Danzi
Power User
I'll never understand having Cab Modeling = ON and running through a live cab. Nails on a chalkboard to me. The 3-dimensional experience of playing with a live cab just disappears.
I played a showed like this once accidentally and my tone was so muddy and felt strange through the whole show. Unfortunately I realized this after the show and died a little inside. I mean, I get that it depends on what IR is being used and what cab I'm using and it could sound less muddy, but it feels like sacrilege to me. It's analogous to playing a isolated, master track recording of Stevie Ray Vaughn's guitar and playing it through my 4x12 Marshall and saying, "Yes, this is fine. This is how it's meant to be heard." Just no.
Totally agree with you! But you said the two key things, it depends on the cab and the IR. Most IR's to me are either loaded with unrealistic low end or harsh highs. So you're tweaking to compensate no matter what. Try tweaking something in full using ON and see how you fair. That's one thing with the modeling world, nothing sounds right when you make a change and have it set up and tweaked for something else.