I've been playing mine with cab sims well and truly off, I don't find that it extends too far in the high frequencies, certainly not in an unpleasant way, the low-end on the other hand is crazy for a 1x12. I put this thing up against my Marshall 2x12 and it killed it. I've rehearsed, played it at bedroom level and gigged it now and i really love it. In fact it's the first time in quite some time that the rest of my band started looking at my rig and asking what had changed, even the drummer and bass player said I sounded loads better. It's started me back on a path to guitar cabs over FRFR and I'm really enjoying the ride after so long auditioning so may IRs and I'm really liking what I hear. Sure, you lose some flexibility in tone without FRFR but you also lose complexity and that's probably a good thing for me :lol
Limitless choice is a real problem
. But personally, using up cpu capacity to model a guitar cab, then needing to spend a lot of money to reproduce that totally exactly to avoid it sounding a bit plastic, doesn't make sense for live playing. Anyways, live my thought is that some kind of common factor in your guitar sound (from the onstage cab) gives it more credibility (if credibility is the right word - and I'm not talking about how good you are or anything like that). Giving it a bit of character and timbre, making it sound "real" maybe..... Great for the studio, but the axe allows us to get killer guitar sounds without miking up 4x12's at ear-splitting volume in sound-sealed rooms, so studio monitors are fine.
On FOH sound, that's always going to sound different to your stage sound. Long may that continue, as it's so much more exciting standing close to a band so you hear their guitar cabs rather than the FOH 'version'. I had a sound guy give me some of my Output 1 with cab sims through my wedge, which as I'm the singer, threw me until he told me. It was as if an odd dissonance had suddenly appeared. He'd thought I was having problems hearing my guitar (with a GT800 running into two EVMs, was NOT the case!).
It's going to sound different to the audience no matter how good your own monitor might be (as it's a near field monitor; and not like an FOH rig - three-way, using subs, projecting the longer freqs, compressed etc). Obviously a really good monitor is flat, so I guess excellent for dialling in FOH sounds at gig volumes - reducing what the sound guy has to do. But he's going to change it according to his ears to suit the mix and room. My personal solution to using non FRFR cabs on stage is to choose a cab sim for Output One that's similar to the real one you're using on stage. Currently I use the EVMs.
If the NL12L can handle cab sims, then problem solved. If not, then which cab sim do you guys think most equates to the NL12, for use in front of Output One, to FOH?
But from what everyone's saying, the N12L would also be a good bet for reproducing the more synth'ish sounds the Axe creates?
