It's in the Cab

jaredsteinfeld

jaredsteinfeld

Member
I know this is something rather obvious, but I finally had an "a-ha" moment today about what a huge difference the cab makes in the overall tone. I cycled through many on the same amp settings and couldn't believe the range of tones you can get just by swapping out the cab (once again, probably obvious to most).

Anyways, there were definitely ones I preferred over others but other than scrolling through each, what are your cab choosing strategies? I know the wiki has recommended cabs (which is a great place to start), but are there any rules of thumb that you use to determine what can you grab?

I will be anxiously waiting for Scott's cab block video (assuming he does one in his great new series).
 
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jaredsteinfeld said:
I know this is something rather obvious, but I finally had an "a-ha" moment today about what a huge difference the cab makes in the overall tone. I cycled through many on the same amp settings and couldn't believe the range of tones you can get just by swapping out the cab (once again, probably obvious to most).

Anyways, there were definitely ones I preferred over others but other than scrolling through each, what are your cab choosing strategies? I know the wiki has recommended cabs (which is a great place to start), but are there any rules of thumb that you use to determine what can you grab?

I will be anxiously waiting for Scott's cab block video (assuming he does one in his great new series).
Click to expand...

A little hint to make things easier for you...

You have 132 factory cabs and a possible 100 user cabs depending how many you have loaded. It can be a tedious endeavor to play a riff, change cab, play a riff, change cab etc.

Simply put a looper block at the start of your preset and then play a riff and let the looper run. You can now scroll through the cabs that work with your preset and narrow them down that way. Works like a charm!
 
When you have a IR or a combination of IR`s that works well:

Switch trough all amps. I have found most, if not all, of my best presets like this. Sudden magic fit between amp and IR.

I almost always combine 2 IR`s to get the balance. I would do this in the real world too, except for carrying a lot of cabs around is a heavy experience (in the real world)
 
jaredsteinfeld said:
I know this is something rather obvious, but I finally had an "a-ha" moment today about what a huge difference the cab makes in the overall tone. I cycled through many on the same amp settings and couldn't believe the range of tones you can get just by swapping out the cab (once again, probably obvious to most).

Anyways, there were definitely ones I preferred over others but other than scrolling through each, what are your cab choosing strategies? I know the wiki has recommended cabs (which is a great place to start), but are there any rules of thumb that you use to determine what can you grab?

I will be anxiously waiting for Scott's cab block video (assuming he does one in his great new series).
Click to expand...

Ditto. The exactly same thing happened to me last night...:)

After trying to find a "tube" sound I wanted and trying out every amp from the list, I realised it's the cab that is responsible for that particular sound. I came to a conclusion that if the amp makes roughly 70% of the desired sound, cab is at least another 20% and the rest is just tweaking.
 
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cobbler said:
A little hint to make things easier for you...

You have 132 factory cabs and a possible 100 user cabs depending how many you have loaded. It can be a tedious endeavor to play a riff, change cab, play a riff, change cab etc.

Simply put a looper block at the start of your preset and then play a riff and let the looper run. You can now scroll through the cabs that work with your preset and narrow them down that way. Works like a charm!
Click to expand...

Thanks for tip - I will definitely give that a try!
 
cobbler said:
A little hint to make things easier for you...

You have 132 factory cabs and a possible 100 user cabs depending how many you have loaded. It can be a tedious endeavor to play a riff, change cab, play a riff, change cab etc.

Simply put a looper block at the start of your preset and then play a riff and let the looper run. You can now scroll through the cabs that work with your preset and narrow them down that way. Works like a charm!
Click to expand...

One thing you have to watch out for when doing that is when you switch to 2 very different cabs. Because your ear can quickly come accustomed to a particular sound, when you quickly switch between two very different cabs, one can be perceived to sound differently than it would if you did not quickly A/B it with the previous cab but gave your ears a bit of rest between those cabs. You can get some huge phase and frequency shift between some cabs.

I have found that quickly A/Bing works great if the frequency response is fairly similar. But for cabs that are very different, a 10 to 15 second break to let the aural memory to kind of reset itself works best.
 
I don't know. I think maybe someday Cliff will come up with an algorithm for talent, which will then become its own block.
 
javajunkie said:
One thing you have to watch out for when doing that is when you switch to 2 very different cabs. Because your ear can quickly come accustomed to a particular sound, when you quickly switch between two very different cabs, one can be perceived to sound differently than it would if you did not quickly A/B it with the previous cab but gave your ears a bit of rest between those cabs. You can get some huge phase and frequency shift between some cabs.

I have found that quickly A/Bing works great if the frequency response is fairly similar. But for cabs that are very different, a 10 to 15 second break to let the aural memory to kind of reset itself works best.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! A very good point.
 
I've had this realization come to me slowly since getting my Axe about 1,5 weeks ago. Coming from Podfarm, where I practically only run with one sngle cab with one mic because there wasn't much else that worked for me, here the choices are kind of endless.

One thing I've noticed to is that it takes time to get a feel for sounds that work in the mix and what sounds don't. Often when loading up cabs that have been recommended to me, my first thought is "Too dark" and I have favored much brighter cabs/amp settings. But they just end up sounding thin in the mix, whereas patches I have downloaded and recorded with without changing a thing that sounded "too dark and muffled" at first have that full sound in the mix. Just an observation, this might as well be just one of those things I am late with just "getting", haha!

EDIT: Btw, someone mentioned "recommended cabs" on the wiki... Where can I find this?

EDIT 2: Nevermind, I found it! It's in the amp page of the wiki... Why haven't I seen this before?! And why do I find things like these when I'm away from my Axe-Fx over the weekend?! ):
 
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Daybreak said:
I've had this realization come to me slowly since getting my Axe about 1,5 weeks ago. Coming from Podfarm, where I practically only run with one sngle cab with one mic because there wasn't much else that worked for me, here the choices are kind of endless.

One thing I've noticed to is that it takes time to get a feel for sounds that work in the mix and what sounds don't. Often when loading up cabs that have been recommended to me, my first thought is "Too dark" and I have favored much brighter cabs/amp settings. But they just end up sounding thin in the mix, whereas patches I have downloaded and recorded with without changing a thing that sounded "too dark and muffled" at first have that full sound in the mix. Just an observation, this might as well be just one of those things I am late with just "getting", haha!

EDIT: Btw, someone mentioned "recommended cabs" on the wiki... Where can I find this?

EDIT 2: Nevermind, I found it! It's in the amp page of the wiki... Why haven't I seen this before?! And why do I find things like these when I'm away from my Axe-Fx over the weekend?! ):
Click to expand...

Here is another excellent resource created by a fellow forum member:

The Axe-Fx Files
 
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